Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project Announces 30 Founding Members and Code Proposals To Advance Blockchain Technology

Distributed Ledger Effort Establishes Open Technical Governance Structure, Receives Influx of Code Contribution Proposals

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 9, 2016 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today is announcing new members from across the industry, a formal open governance structure and technical updates to the new Hyperledger Project.

The intent to form the Hyperledger Project, an open source project to advance the blockchain digital technology for recording and verifying transactions, was announced at the end of 2015. Founding members of the initiative represent a diverse group of stakeholders, including: ABN AMRO, Accenture, ANZ Bank, Blockchain, BNY Mellon, Calastone, Cisco, CLS, CME Group, ConsenSys, Credits, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Deutsche Börse Group, Digital Asset Holdings, Fujitsu Limited, Guardtime, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, IntellectEU, J.P. Morgan, NEC, NTT DATA, R3, Red Hat, State Street, SWIFT, Symbiont, VMware and Wells Fargo.  

Global Business Leaders Contribute to Hyperledger

Since announcing the intent to form in December, the Hyperledger Project has received proposed code and technology contributions from several companies, including Blockstream, Digital Asset, IBM and Ripple. Other community members are contemplating contributions of their own.

As with all open source projects, technical contributions are welcome at any time, from anyone and will be reviewed by the newly formed Technical Steering Committee (TSC), which is comprised of industry-leading technical experts. The TSC is committed to open and transparent discussion, processes and decision-making. This group will oversee the project’s technical direction and working groups as well as manage multiple contributions to the code base. The TSC will be evaluating proposed contributions and go through an open community process to build out the initial and unified codebase.

Digital Asset has donated the trademark for the ‘Hyperledger’ name to the Linux Foundation. Use of the mark will be managed exclusively by the Governing Board of the Hyperledger Project with the approval of the Linux Foundation.

The Hyperledger Project is a collaborative effort to focus on an open platform that will satisfy a variety of use cases across multiple industries to streamline business processes. Peer-to-peer in nature, distributed ledger technology is shared, transparent and decentralized, making it ideal for application in finance and countless other areas such as manufacturing, banking, insurance and the Internet of Things. By creating a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers, virtually any digital exchange with value, such as real estate contracts, energy trades, marriage licenses, can securely and cost-effectively be tracked and traded.

“The Hyperledger Project has ramped up incredibly fast, a testament to how much pent-up interest, potential and enterprise demand there is for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Working on its own even the largest global corporation could not match the speed at which our new members are moving blockchain technology forward. Such a broad effort and investment is sure to have a great impact on our personal and professional lives.”

Members Adopt Open Governance Structure

The Hyperledger Project today is also announcing its ratified governance structure. A Board of Directors will guide business decisions, marketing and ensure alignment between the technical communities and members. Nominations are currently open for TSC members. 

To stay connected or to be part of the technical discussions, be sure to subscribe to the TSC or Technical-Discuss mailing lists at lists.hyperledger.org. Hyperledger Project is a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Member Quotes 

Accenture

“The development of Blockchain technology has the potential to redefine the operations and economics of the financial services industry,” said Richard Lumb, chief executive – Financial Services, Accenture. “It emerges at an important time, as the industry strives to be leaner, more efficient and more digital. Open source development will accelerate the innovation and help drive the scalability of this technology, and we are proud to support the Hyperledger Project.”

CME Group

“As the development of distributed ledger technologies continues to accelerate, CME Group is especially pleased to become an active participant in the Hyperledger Project,” said Sandra Ro, Executive Director, CME Group. “We are continually working to develop and deliver innovative, efficient market solutions to our global client base.”

Deutsche Börse Group

“Deutsche Börse is taking a dynamic approach and will actively participate in the Hyperledger Project. Being part of it is an important element of our ambition to utilize Distributed Ledger Technology to bring effective solutions to our clients,” said Ashwin Kumar, Group Head of Product Development, Deutsche Börse Group.

Digital Asset

“The formation of Hyperledger marks a milestone in the advancement of distributed ledger technology,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset. “Digital Asset believes that it is vital for shared infrastructure to be open to critical inspection and collaboration, and this initiative will be pivotal in driving the global adoption of solutions to real-world problems.”

DTCC

Robert Palatnick, Managing Director, Chief Technology Architect, DTCC: “As a member of Hyperledger, DTCC is helping to play a leading role in creating the governance and standards for distributed ledger technology. Our goal is to ensure that new opportunities are in the best interests of the post-trade process and consistent with our long-term goals of mitigating risk, enhancing efficiencies and driving cost reductions for financial market participants. Open source and industry-wide collaboration are essential to realizing the full potential of distributed ledger technology and to avoid creating a disconnected maze of siloed solutions.”  

Fujitsu

“We at Fujitsu are confident that blockchain technology will accelerate disruptive change, not only in the financial industry, but also in many other industries where it will be put to active use,” said Takahito Tokita, Corporate Executive Officer SVP, Head of Financial Systems Unit, Integration Services Business of Fujitsu Limited. “We are delighted to work through the Hyperledger Project to contribute to the development of this technology.”

Hitachi

“Hitachi would continuously invest our resources and actively support the HyperLedger project. With numerous global organizations backing the effort, we believe blockchain will quickly mature and spread to more industries,” said Masayoshi Ogawa, President of Financial Information Systems Division, Information & Telecommunication Systems Company at Hitachi, Ltd.

IBM

“As a broad, open initiative inclusive of many different blockchain experts, the Hyperledger Project will advance the open blockchain standard for uses across many industries,” said Jerry Cuomo, vice president blockchain, IBM. “By focusing on an open platform, there’s no limit to the types of applications and frameworks that will one day be built on top of it.”

Intel

“Blockchain technology can help enable secure transfer of digital assets among known and unknown parties,” said Imad Sousou, vice president and general manager, Open Source Technology Center, Intel Corporation. “Intel looks forward to collaborating with the Hyperledger Project to advance the security, scalability, and privacy of transactions in enterprise and permission-less systems.”

R3

“R3 is excited to bring our deep bench of subject matter experts and broad network of over 40 global financial institutions to the Linux Foundation’s distributed ledger initiative,”  said David Rutter, R3’s co-founder and CEO.  “Working together, we can drive innovation across financial services that will impact our industry in the same way the Internet revolutionized media and entertainment.”

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