Hyperledger is the umbrella body for ten open source blockchain projects, all of which are cross-industry. So far, that is. Ledger Insights spoke to Hyperledger Executive Director, Brian Behlendorf, and explored the likelihood of industry-specific open source blockchains. Open source could significantly impact the governance of industry consortia and increase the pace of innovation.
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The blockchain revolution is here.
The technology long associated with Bitcoin is now being used to make businesses as varied as trade finance, videogaming, travel insurance, and diamond mining more efficient and more secure.
The blockchain revolution is also far, far down the road. If it ever comes.
Partnerships and initiatives featuring blockchain seem to be trumpeted every day. Projects that actually solve real-world problems are much rarer. The research firm Gartner surveyed 3,160 chief information officers this year and found that only 1% had put blockchain to work.
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JAXenter: What are the advantages of using Hyperledger Fabric?
Christopher Ferris: Few open source blockchain projects have a development community as diverse and large as Hyperledger Fabric. When selecting an open source platform, it is critical to take into consideration the supporting community and ecosystem that will ensure that the platform will have long-term sustainability.
Additionally, the modularity of the platform, enabling multiplicity of consensus algorithms, privacy enforcement mechanisms, policy enforcement, and smart contract language support gives it greater flexibility for a variety of enterprise use cases.
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When it comes to cars and blockchain, no one has all the answers yet. But there is plenty to prepare for and think about – not only in the auto industry but also in related industries such as insurance.
First things first: While we have found interesting examples of blockchain in action, most companies and industries remain in an early stage of exploration and adoption. Anyone who tells you they’ve got it all figured out is exaggerating at best. Worse, they might be hawking blockchain snake oil.
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I have been following the three-year-old Hyperledger Fabric open-source project since its code base moved to GitHub about two years ago. The Hyperledger projects are hosted by the Linux Foundation and sponsored mostly by IBM. They promote the use of what are known as private, or permissioned, blockchains. With a public blockchain, the first anonymous miner who solves a cryptographic puzzle gets to commit the next block of ledger entries to the chain. Private blockchains solve the consensus problem among authenticated peers using algorithms such as Raft or Paxos.
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Google is the latest tech giant to offer blockchain technology to its customers. The company announced that it would be introducing open-source integrations for applications built with both Ethereum and Hyperledger later this year through its Google Cloud Product marketplace.
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MonetaGo is a little different compared to many other blockchain startups. It hasn’t taken an eye-watering amount of funding, and it has a product and customers. Its initial offering is a fraud prevention solution for trade finance and was probably the first production blockchain solution in the sector.
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Even private and permissioned blockchains need to build ecosystems and achieve network effects, just like their permissionless, public counterparts.
At least, that’s the thinking behind LedgerConnect, a financial blockchain “app store” that aims to make it easier for banks to access distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions from fintech and software providers, and for those vendors in turn to reach bank customers.
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Blockchain has finally gotten over the Wall Street hump. Now that BitCoin and Ethereum are essentially old news, the actual technology behind these commodities is beginning to trickle into real-world enterprise applications. Blockchain, it seems, has many useful use cases out there in the business world, and with the help of the Linux Foundation and IBM, enterprises can now take advantage of the open source Hyperledger implementation of blockchain technology.
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Japan-based tech conglomerate Hitachi and telecommunication giant KDDI are testing a blockchain-based system that can settle retail payments validated using shoppers’ fingerprints.
According to a release on Wednesday, a group of staff from the two partners are this week experimenting with a coupon settlement system deployed in a KDDI store in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, as well as a local donut shop.
Built by Hitachi with technology from the Hyperledger Fabric platform, the blockchain system is integrated with Hitachi’s biometric verification and KDDI’s existing coupon system. It seeks to settle shoppers’ coupon transactions over a distributed network using their fingerprints as validators.
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