case study Archives – Hyperledger Foundation

Oct 12

LACChain introduces permissioned public blockchain ecosystem built on Hyperledger Besu to Latin America

By Hyperledger Blog, Governance, Hyperledger Besu

Read the full case study here.

Permissionless public blockchains are accessible to anyone, but they’re often unsuitable for heavily regulated institutions, like banks or public-sector initiatives. Permissioned private blockchains offer what permissionless public ones lack, but they also cost a lot to develop and maintain, making them hard to scale. Yet blockchain remains the ideal solution for many use cases.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) struggled to find the balance by using different networks for different projects. But this variety came with other issues, like compliance, technical support, and accountability. These challenges prevented IDB’s pilot projects from expanding into enterprise-level projects.

IDB Lab is the innovation laboratory for IDB. It set about finding solutions to the problems of regulatory compliance, support, and governance. As it looked into the problem, IDB Lab noticed similar struggles throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Organizations were looking for an alternative to permissionless public and private blockchain networks to deploy their solutions.

Permissioned public networks—combining the benefits of the other blockchains without their drawbacks—seemed like the answer. Successful networks already existed in the EU, and IDB Lab thought it could develop one for LAC. In March 2019, with support from a global alliance for developing blockchain in Latin America and the Caribbean, IDB Labs funded a project to create LACChain, a permissioned public blockchain infrastructure in an effort to build a scalable and sustainable network for the LAC region…and beyond.

Now, LACChain, which is built using Hyperledger Besu as an enterprise Ethereum client, has become the world’s largest public permissioned network with 15 countries participating in the ecosystem. It has over 190 nodes and supports more than 60 projects, including 40 that impact financial and social inclusion. And there is a strategy for long-term orchestration of the network via the not-for-profit LACNet.

The Hyperledger Foundation team worked with LACChain on a case study that details the goals and approach for creating the network. The behind the scenes look at launching LACChain also delves into the technology and governance planning behind the project as well as results to date and plans for growth for this network.

Read the full case study here.

Jun 07

Love1

Hitachi Shifts to Paperless, Secure Procurement Contracts with Hyperledger Fabric

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Fabric

Read the full case study here.

Paper pushing. It’s synonymous with tedious, slow processes. Yet often, the pushed paper is vital to a company’s business. And contracts are especially important paper.

But digitizing a contract process isn’t as simple as it sounds. As the contract moves between parties, there’s a risk of tampering. Or mismanaging version control.

Many companies continue to use paper for their contracting processes to maintain security and trust. The procurement divisions of Hitachi, Ltd. were no different.

Hitachi is a Japan-based global technology organization. It focuses on digital innovation in the mobility, smart life, industrial, energy and IT sectors. The company has 873 companies across more than 100 countries with 380,000 employees worldwide.

At such a scale, Hitachi’s procurement divisions process thousands and thousands of contracts every month. That’s a lot of paper. That’s also a lot of time managing that paper.

Hitachi’s Service Delivery Division develops tools to help increase business efficiencies. It saw this as a perfect use case. Ultimately, an improved procurement process would help companies within the Hitachi group and their clients.

The team set about creating a secure contract management system. For eight months, they worked with procurement personnel to develop the solution. First, they needed to understand the paper process as it was working. The team considered how the process could be more efficient while also keeping the security and integrity of the documentation in place.

They chose Hyperledger Fabric, an open source blockchain framework from Hyperledger Foundation. Hitachi had already created blockchain-backed frameworks on Hyperledger Fabric in its financial and industrial areas, so the team members knew it could provide the advanced security needed for critical document processing.

The procurement division of Hitachi’s head office tested the new paperless, blockchain-backed, Electronic Signature Service (ESS). This division manages the contracts with 2,000 business partners.

It began digitally processing all new contracts in July 2021. Under the old paper-pushing method, the division processed about 333 cases per month. Now it is processing at least 400 contract cases per month — a 20% increase. And though they’re processing more cases, they’re doing them in less time than before. Division personnel now have time to focus on other important tasks like investigation, negotiation, and engaging with new contract companies.

The Hyperledger Foundation team worked with Hitachi on a case study that details the goals, approach and results of implementing this blockchain-backed, paperless procurement solution as well as plans to roll it out to all the procurement divisions. These divisions manage the 3,500 companies contracting with the Hitachi Group.

Read the full case study here.

Jan 11

Love0

Public Mint Lowers Barrier to Entry for Blockchain-Based Investing and DeFi with Hyperledger Besu

By Hyperledger Blog, Finance, Hyperledger Besu, Member Case Study

Read the full case study here.

The cryptocurrency market will reach nearly five billion USD by 2030, according to recent market research. With impressive returns and projected growth, it’s no wonder people want to get involved in decentralized finance (DeFi).

But for those who don’t already understand crypto assets, there are significant barriers to entry. What’s a wallet? Do I need one, and how do I get one? What are keys? How do I protect them? What platform do I use?

And there’s also the problem of risk. Crypto users have grown comfortable taking chances in the space. But the average person is used to more trust, assurances, and transparency when it comes to their money.

Public Mint, a Fintech firm with offices in the US, UK and Europe, decided to create a graduated introduction into blockchain-based investing. To do so, Public Mint began with what users already know: traditional banking and fiat currencies like the US dollar.

Public Mint wanted a platform with a one-to-one equivalency between US dollars and a synthetic version of the dollar on their blockchain. This means every synthetic “on-chain” dollar maps to a corresponding US dollar held at one of Public Mint’s regulated custodian partners.

Users would not move dollars from one account to another, the same way traditional banks do. Rather, the physical dollars stay in a custodian bank. Users transfer ownership of these physical dollars using an instant-settlement, low-cost blockchain.

To develop its system, Public Mint experimented with the blockchain technologies available in 2018. Eventually, it decided on an Ethereum-based technology stack called Pantheon developed by the Pegasys team at ConsenSys. For Public Mint, tapping into the large community of Ethereum developers was an important part of the decision.

About a year afterward, Pantheon became Hyperledger Besu, an open source project under the umbrella of the Hyperledger Foundation, which pleased Public Mint as that brought them closer to the Hyperledger and corporate communities.

Public Mint’s network launched in July 2020 with its web wallet payment system. To date, more than 3,800 wallet addresses have been created since Public Mint’s launch. It has more than USD$2.9 million in on-chain value, and the platform has validated more than 28,000 transactions.

Building on the initial wallet capabilities, Public Mint now also has introduced the EARN Program. EARN is for users who want to take the next step into DeFi investing but don’t want to manage multiple wallets or private keys.

Hyperledger worked with Public Mint on a case study that details the launch of this network and the pathway it creates for bringing DeFi to a broader audience. It covers the core architecture of the Public Mint system, its blockchain-based banking and DeFi business models and the roadmap for future applications.

Read the full case study here.