Research Archives – Hyperledger Foundation

Apr 22

Sustainability by design: Takeaways from Linux Foundation Research “The Carbon Footprint of NFTs” report

By Hyperledger Blog, Research

As Tom Brady, DCComics and Visa will tell you, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a class of assets underpinning the worlds of digital art, digital collectibles, metaverse gaming, and beyond, that have exploded in popularity. At the same time, they have been met with skepticism, tainted by market hype, and associated with energy-intensive Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanisms.

Diving into this tug of war between innovation and sustainability, Linux Foundation Research, in collaboration with Hyperledger Foundation and Palm NFT Studio, just released a detailed report on the current and future state of carbon consumption and NFTs that explores the environmental impact of NFTs, investigating how and why NFTs can have varying carbon footprints depending on underlying technology stacks.

As this report, “The Carbon Footprint of NFTs,” confirms, not all blockchains are created equal. Case in point: Recent estimates suggested that mining activities associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are responsible for emitting 114.06 megatons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s as much as the entire country of the Czech Republic.

This report looks at problematic energy use for specific types of blockchains and then dives into several emerging blockchain technologies that can reduce or eliminate these harms. It goes on to provide guidance on steps and strategies to not only increase the sustainability of blockchain but leverage the innovation of NFTs and smart contracts to tackle climate change itself.

Researched and written to provide an objective look at pitfalls and potentials of NFTs, this detailed report includes interviews and insights from climate experts, economists, technologists and companies on the front line of NFT and blockchain innovation. The key takeaways are outlined in the graphic below:

The report’s final words are “The choices are up to you,” underscoring that there is a path to sustainability with NFTs. The key is putting the climate front and center in design, development and deployment decisions taking place right now.

Download the full report to find out more about the pathway to NFT sustainability.

Sep 22

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Highlights from the “Enterprise Blockchain And The Hyperledger Brand” report from Linux Foundation Research

By Hyperledger Blog, Research

Over the summer, Linux Foundation Research undertook an independent and formal survey to help Hyperledger better understand the market and our brand. The research team collected quantitative and qualitative data from a broad community with knowledge of enterprise blockchain covering a range of topics, including brand familiarity and perceptions for Hyperledger and its projects as well as other blockchain technologies. The survey also looked at broader trends, opportunities and challenges in the enterprise blockchain space.

The resulting report, Enterprise Blockchain And The Hyperledger Brand, details a number of interesting findings and confirms much of the progress both the industry and Hyperledger have made in just over five years. Below are a few key highlights from the report:

“Blockchain technologies are here to stay, and savvy enterprise users are preparing their organizations for the next wave of blockchain innovation, driven by the scaling of use cases. By and large, survey respondents expected blockchain to become a core technology (59% of respondents said they ‘agree strongly’ with this statement) that will enable new business models to emerge (69% strongly agreed).”

“Hyperledger has many strengths to build on, according to the survey. Among them are its open-source paradigm (74% said this described Hyperledger ‘completely’), its trustworthiness (61%), its strong governance model (54%), its affiliation with a nonprofit foundation (54%), and support from leading companies (54%). Respondents viewed Hyperledger favorably as built by and for enterprise users (53%) and always evolving to meet new demands (50%).”

However, the report also highlights places where there is work still to be done in terms of driving adoption and in brand building, especially for the full range of Hyperledger projects. For example

“Although they come in all shapes and sizes, enterprise blockchains face common problems across the space. Survey respondents identified these as the top challenges:
- lack of technological maturity (58%)
- difficulty of adopting and integrating with legacy systems (50%)
- difficulty of explaining to senior management (49%)
- regulatory risks (48%).”

“A higher proportion (30%) of respondents were ‘extremely familiar’ with Hyperledger Fabric than with Ethereum (28%), ConsenSys Quorum (12%), or Corda (7%). However, only seven percent described themselves as extremely familiar with Hyperledger Indy, and the numbers were even smaller for Hyperledger Besu (6%); Hyperledger Sawtooth (6%); Hyperledger Burrow (3%); and Hyperledger Iroha (3%). At the other end of the scale, only 12 percent of respondents had ‘not heard of’ Hyperledger Fabric but higher proportions had not heard of Hyperledger Indy (27%), Hyperledger Besu (30%), Hyperledger Sawtooth (24%), Hyperledger Burrow (32%), and Hyperledger Iroha (34%).”

The report and a full breakdown of the survey findings are available to Hyperledger members. Find out more about Hyperledger Membership here.

Feb 10

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A New Approach to Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security in DLTs: Off-Chain Manager

By Hyperledger Blog, Research

Hyperledger’s annual Member Summit brought together representatives from member companies to connect with each other, address common challenges, and share lessons learned for enterprise blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to grow and thrive. Samsung SDS had a session with David Huseby and Sueyoung Chang from Hyperledger with a theme “Proven Approaches to Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security in DLTs.” Samsung SDS has summarized the implications from the sessions into a whitepaper.

Proven Approaches to Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security in DLTs

The whitepaper discusses several approaches to fulfill the privacy, confidentiality, and security in a distributed ledger. In the blockchain, every node in a network owns a ledger that is identical to one another, and the ledger is updated whenever a new block is generated. Since the nature of a blockchain is oriented to the openness of data, which is the opposite of privacy and confidentiality, techniques to enhance data privacy and confidentiality are demanding.

Accordingly, techniques have further been developed to guarantee robust confidentiality and privacy – that is to ensure that transactions and data are accessible to only the parties that the sender of the transaction intended. The white paper examines three approaches and techniques to enhance data privacy and transaction confidentiality on the blockchain. Each method has its distinct design purpose.

A New Approach : Off-Chain Manager

The whitepaper additionally introduces more on the Off-Chain Manager that Samsung SDS has researched and developed. Samsung SDS adopts off-chain to provide blockchain with privacy and confidentiality tailored to an enterprise’s needs without compromising the properties introduced and benefits gained by blockchain. By using hybrid transactions that combine on-chain and off-chain transactions, Samsung SDS could ensure data privacy and confidentiality. Sophisticated access control and ensure data lifecycle management can be customized with ownership management as well as.

To see the complete details, download the whitepaper here.

Cover image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay.