Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust Launches with 17 Projects, 100+ Founding Members
The Linux Foundation | 16 September 2024
Includes Complete Hyperledger Landscape, Trust Over IP Community, Hedera Codebase, and Additional Technologies and Ecosystems
SAN FRANCISCO and VIENNA (September 16, 2024) – Today, to provide a neutral home for collaborative development of technologies powering the transition to a digital-first economy, the Linux Foundation formally launched Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LF Decentralized Trust), the premier open source foundation for decentralized technology ecosystems. Supported by more than 100 founding members, LF Decentralized Trust is a new umbrella organization that fosters collaboration and innovation across a growing ecosystem of blockchain, ledger, identity, interoperability, cryptographic, and related technologies.
LF Decentralized Trust launches with a diverse and global member base, including those joining from Hyperledger Foundation and Trust Over IP Foundation as well as 13 additional members that have signed on to advance the mission of this new umbrella organization. Those members are AYANWORKS, Banco Central do Brasil, Dhiway, Dfns, Exponential Science Foundation, Hashgraph, Ownera, Polygon, Print2Block, Rayls Foundation, Serviço Federal de Processamento de Dados (SERPRO), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Wanchain. As announced today, Hedera also became an LF Decentralized Trust founding Premier Member, joining Accenture, DTCC, and Hitachi at the highest level of community investment and foundation leadership.
LF Decentralized Trust builds on more than eight years of work from across the Linux Foundation, including leading global blockchain and digital identity open source and standards projects. It encompasses all the projects, labs and communities, including 200 local, regional and industry groups that convene tens of thousands of participants globally, in the Hyperledger ecosystem. The new organization also includes TrustOverIP (ToIP), bringing all its working groups and specifications as well as its models, tools, and best practices for governance of digital trust ecosystems under the umbrella as a project. With additional new ledger, consensus, and cryptography code contributions, LF Decentralized Trust is launching with 17 total projects. This includes the entirety of the Hedera codebase, which has been accepted as the LF Decentralized Trust project Hiero.
“Around the world, decentralized technologies are modernizing critical systems and core infrastructure,” said Daniela Barbosa, General Manager of Decentralized Technologies at the Linux Foundation and Executive Director of LF Decentralized Trust. “LF Decentralized Trust is the new home for collaboratively developing the ecosystems that will make these trusted systems and applications. We are launching with a powerful mix of ledger, identity, cryptography, interoperability, and implementation projects and a diverse, committed membership base. And we are just getting started. Our mission is to drive collective innovation that delivers transparency, reliability, security, and efficiency on a global scale.”
“Decentralized technologies are essential to the growth of the digital economy,” said Michael Klein, Blockchain Technology Lead at Accenture and Chair of the LF Decentralized Trust Governing Board. “As we look to the future of digital ownership, open standards and open-source initiatives will drive cross-industry collaboration and serve as the foundation for the next generation of the Internet. The launch of LF Decentralized Trust marks a critical step in creating this foundation of decentralized standards and frameworks, and we are excited about the role it will play in shaping a more connected and trusted digital ecosystem.”
The LF Decentralized Trust project landscape
LF Decentralized Trust is the Linux Foundation’s flagship project for hosting and supporting current and future open source software, communities, standards, and specifications that are critical to the macro shift toward decentralized systems of distributed trust. The blockchain and related technologies developed under Hyperledger Foundation will now be LF Decentralized Trust projects. The powerful Hyperledger brand will continue for many of these projects, including the just announced Hyperledger Fabric 3.0 release and the recently approved Hyperledger Identus, which started as a lab contributed by Input | Output.
Under LF Decentralized Trust, each community has the ultimate say in its project name. As such, Hyperledger Besu will now be named Besu. In addition to being the third most popular execution client for the Ethereum mainnet, Besu has growing traction with major banks and financial services providers, an industry-backed Besu for Financial Services Working Group, and new professional certifications for individuals and service providers coming soon.
The LF Decentralized Trust landscape also includes two newly contributed projects that reflect the expanded technology umbrella of this new organization:
- Hiero - A robust decentralized ledger platform leveraging a unique consensus mechanism. A contribution from Hedera, Hiero encompasses all the core network software needed to deploy and run a full public network and interact with that network.
- Lockness - An ecosystem for key management and digital signature protocols, including multi-party computation and threshold cryptography, contributed by Dfns.
In addition to its line-up of code projects, LF Decentralized Trust is now also the home of ToIP, a pan-industry project established by the Linux Foundation as a Joint Development Foundation (JDF) to provide a robust, common standard and complete architecture for Internet-scale digital trust.
LF Decentralized Trust Labs
Hyperledger Labs has been a vital environment for innovation and project pipeline. It’s been the launch pad for Hyperledger Bevel, Cacti, FireFly, Identus, and Solang. As of today, more than 50 code bases are now LF Decentralized Trust labs. These include some recent contributions that further grow the decentralized trust ecosystem:
- Signare - an enterprise-grade digital signing solution for DLT-related applications and Ethereum clients contributed by Adhara
- Splice - code and reference applications to enable organizations to independently create decentralized synchronization infrastructure for the Canton Network contributed by Digital Asset
- Zeto - a privacy-preserving token toolkit for EVM using Zero Knowledge Proofs contributed by Kaleido that is part of a larger next-gen EVM privacy framework slated for release this fall
New General Member Quotes
The support of LF Decentralized Trust's members is what makes it a neutral home for technical collaboration and innovation:
“AYANWORKS is thrilled to join LF Decentralized Trust and collaborate with its global community,” said Kalyan Kulkarni, Co-founder & CEO of AYANWORKS. “This membership further expands our contributions to the open-source community and marks a significant milestone in our journey to empower individuals and organizations with self-sovereign identity capabilities. We plan to be active code contributors and play a hands-on role in advancing the adoption of decentralized identity solutions globally, fostering trust, security, and privacy for all.”
“Joining LF Decentralized Trust is a natural extension of Dhiway's commitment to building secure and open digital infrastructures that empower individuals and organizations,” said Satish Mohan, CEO, Dhiway. “As a company at the forefront of decentralized identity and data tokenization, we are excited to collaborate with the Linux Foundation and the global community to drive innovation, enhance interoperability, and establish a new paradigm of digital trust. We look forward to working with this community to create solutions that are not only transformative but also accessible and reliable, ensuring a more transparent, secure, and inclusive digital future. ”
Dfns
“We're excited to join Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust and work with the community to grow Lockness, a new project that we contributed,” said Clarisse Hagège, CEO of Dfns. “This will be the first platform to bring together all major cryptographic protocols and digital signatures in one place. By sharing our software with LF Decentralized Trust, we're reinforcing our belief in the value of trustworthy open-source communities. Our goal is to make cryptographic protocols like MPC, TSS, and ZKP a key part of institutional tech systems and widely used across industries. We believe this can only happen in an environment like the one the Linux Foundation creates, where open-source code is carefully reviewed and managed to build lasting trust. We're excited to keep growing and contributing to the digital asset and blockchain industry with technology that’s both valuable and freely available.”
Exponential Science Foundation
“The Exponential Science Foundation joining the Linux Foundation and LF Decentralized Trust represents a significant step forward for our open source initiatives and the practical application of distributed ledger technologies,” said Dr. Paolo Tasca, Founder and Chairman of the Exponential Science Foundation. “Bringing our expertise to LF Decentralizes Trust’s project ecosystem will accelerate the development of trustworthy, scalable solutions that will define the future of Web3 ecosystems. We expect our membership to demonstrate how open collaboration can transform theoretical breakthroughs into real-world applications, fostering a more transparent, efficient, and inclusive digital economy.”
“We are excited to join Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as a Founding Member and strengthen our partnership with a community dedicated to open-source technology," Eric Piscini, CEO of Hashgraph. “Trust is essential for the widespread adoption of DLT and decentralized systems, and we are committed to collaborating with fellow members and projects to build innovative, scalable solutions. We see significant potential in enhancing interoperability and are eager to advance these initiatives."
“We are thrilled to announce Ownera’s membership in LF Decentralized Trust, a significant milestone in our mission to advance interoperability within the digital asset space," said Ami Ben David, Founder and CEO of Ownera. "By joining forces with the industry’s brightest minds, we are committed to connecting ecosystem participants that are currently operating in silos. Ownera is working to provide buy side institutions with one seamless gateway to access digital asset products. This mission of LF Decentralized Trust aligns perfectly with our vision of creating a more unified and efficient digital asset marketplace. We’re excited about the potential impact our collective work will have on the future of finance.”
“Joining LF Decentralized Trust fits with our goal of making web3 more accessible and shaping a new, more democratic internet,” said Brian Trunzo, VP Global Head of Business Development at Polygon Labs. “We're focused on building a network of interconnected blockchains through the AggLayer and contributing to key scaling tools like Polygon PoS, zkEVM, Miden, and CDK. We're committed to pushing the boundaries of what's possible with blockchain technology.”
“The creation of Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as a dedicated space for open-source development of trailblazing decentralized technologies will hypercharge growth in adoption and innovation,” Joji Varghese, Founder and CEO, Print2Block. “Print2block`s Platform Docchain.io has been using Hyperledger Fabric over the years to secure significant financial assets of over 5 billion USD and secured healthcare documents during the pandemic. We are delighted the Hyperledger projects will now be a part of the new LF Decentralized Trust’s open-source ecosystem. This development accelerates the pace of innovation in decentralized technologies and gives us, as a company and as professionals, an unmatched opportunity to give back to the global blockchain community. We are anticipating the opportunity to collaborate and co-create with innovators from across the globe to replicate the successful deployment of distributed technology through more relevant real-world applications. We are excited to be a founding member of LF Decentralized Trust, which aims to create an open, inclusive, and collaboration-driven ecosystem for truly decentralized technology projects. This endeavor will pave the way for a future where trust is genuinely distributed, and innovation transcends all boundaries.”
“We are thrilled to become a LF Decentralized Trust founding member, reinforcing our commitment to advancing blockchain and distributed ledger technologies through our UniFi approach with decentralization and continuous contribution to the open source community,” said CH Lopes, Rayls Foundation Director. “By integrating the strengths of traditional finance (TradFi) with the innovations of decentralized finance (DeFi), Rayls offers a unique blend of privacy, scalability, interoperability, and decentralization. We look forward to collaborating with this dynamic community to shape the future of finance.”
TCS
“We are excited to join LF Decentralized Trust and look forward to contributing and learning from the experiences of this vibrant global community,” said R Vivekanand, President BFSI Products & Platforms, TCS. “We believe blockchain is a foundational technology that will see widespread adoption by governments, businesses, and society. This engagement will help us partner with our customers in the creation of innovative business ecosystems that can benefit from the trust and transparency this technology delivers.”
"Secure, reliable, and inclusive interoperability is essential for the widespread adoption of decentralized infrastructure," said Temujin Louie, CEO, Wanchain. "As we continue our efforts to develop industry-wide DLT interoperability specifications, we are excited to join LF Decentralized Trust and collaborate with a community of top companies and projects to shape the impact of blockchain technology on the global stage."
See additional quotes from leading voices in the community about LF Decentralized Trust here.
LF Decentralized Trust Member Summit
LF Decentralized Trust members will come together October 23-24 for the first convening of this new global community. LF Decentralized Trust Member Summit, which will take place at the San Francisco Mint, will be a forum for discussing the expanded technology and application reach of this new umbrella organization. This member-only event will feature a range of technical and business sessions including panels, workshops, demos, and more.
About Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust
LF Decentralized Trust is the neutral home for the open development of technologies that empower organizations to innovate with secure and resilient code. It is the Linux Foundation’s flagship organization for a broad range of technologies and standards that deliver the transparency, reliability, security, and efficiency required for a digital-first economy. Supported by a diverse, global base of members and communities, LF Decentralized Trust champions open source best practices across a growing ecosystem of blockchain, ledger, identity, cryptographic, and related technologies. To learn more, visit: www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org.
About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, Zephyr, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.