Hyperledger Projects Converge to Solve Large-Scale Challenges with Blockchain

Five years since the founding of Hyperledger, its open source philosophy has spawned a diverse ecosystem of projects and communities.  Now that ecosystem is organically forming up into ever larger collaboration networks to address large-scale real world problems, such as trade, climate change, and the very nature of money itself.

In the beginning, Hyperledger was a diverse collection of projects clustered around the idea of Multi-Party Systems, each with its own visions and implementation for DLT or Blockchain frameworks.  In those early days, the various working groups in Hyperledger were naturally focused on technical DLT issues, such as the Architecture WG, Identity WG, Performance and Scale WG.  As the field matured, more projects were approved that implemented utilities which brought together the different DLT frameworks such as interoperability, focused on foundational concepts such as Digital Identity and Digital Wallets.

Then came the Special Interest Groups (SIG’s) which were focused on specific business areas such as Trade Finance, Supply Chain, Healthcare, Telecomm, and Capital Markets. These groups evolved separately and went through their own independent cycles of growth.  These SIGS regularly hosted presentations about their industries and developed open source software based on their needs. 

Gradually, these groups began to come together organically without any top-level direction.  For example, the Public Sector SIG expressed the will to collaborate with Capital Markets, while the Climate Action and Accounting SIG bootstrapped its carbon emissions trading project in Hyperledger Labs from the eThaler digital central bank currency project of the Capital Markets SIG.   Vipin Bharathan of the Capital Markets SIG had written an article on Trade Finance Securitization which had appeared in Medium and also on TF Global.  Then, research led jointly by the Capital Markets and Trade Finance SIG’s in 2020 produced an exhaustive and comprehensive picture of the Chinese blockchain infrastructure for Trade and Trade Finance by Eugenio Reggianini.   

On March 24, 2021, Hyperledger Trade Finance and Capital Markets SIGs met formally for the very first time to plan collaboration in earnest, on a meeting that featured a speech by Mario Reichel of PPI AG, titled “The beauty of ISO 20022 ''. The meeting sparked an inner debate within the Trade Finance SIG about how different SIGs in the Hyperledger ecosystem could collaborate.  Perhaps it is natural that large scale collaboration started this way, since trade finance has always been a hybrid industry, so intimately connected with many other branches of human activity.  Indeed, trade finance could even be said to be the birthplace of money.

What emerged from this initial meeting and further brainstorming with different SIG’s were some key observations that could serve as a role-model for the future of Hyperledger and open source development in general.  First, it became clear that we cannot promote decentralization while locking ourselves in silos, and we cannot promote decentralization while imposing one point of view on the world.  As we look for technical solutions to enable interoperability of blockchains, we need connection and communication among Hyperledger communities.  

Second, as DLTs are gaining rapid widespread adoption and recognition in numerous fields, the next step for DLT’s will require common shared business and technical standards. Therefore, the Hyperledger community should focus on finding new interactions which could support DLT markets from consolidation to global adoption.  Interactions between the various Hyperledger SIG’s, Working Groups (WG’s), and Chapters should be a natural step forward to that adoption.   

Third, since global widespread adoption is meant both geographically, as to the different “branches”, and dimensionally, as to different kinds of companies/corporations/SMEs. DLT-based ecosystems are virtual spots where standards can effectively come together and start the “revolution” in business practices.  Hyperledger, being an open source DLT software provider, stands as the community for setting and sharing practices.  For example, the Trade Finance SIG has always strived to be a neutral reference point that leverages the expertise and on the mutual views of the main International Institutions and the Corporations involved in DLTs adoption through their representatives. The goal is to discuss how technical and regulatory standards set together may help redefine common global practices for a harmonized worldwide adoption and come up with a set of shared, mutually accepted regulatory framework for the industry to innovate.

Finally, as the world recovers from the turmoil caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, members of the Trade Finance SIG, which began in March 2020, felt strongly that solutions for going green and sustainable could unite the entire Hyperledger ecosystem.  As an opens ource community, we are uniquely able to combine together and orchestrate action for giving an answer to the world’s most urgent problems.

Following up on these ideas, the Trade Finance SIG has brought together several other Hyperledger SIG’s to create a Cross-SIG Collaboration Working Group to break the silos through intentional  collaboration and start a convergence of the Hyperledger ecosystem and DLT’s for addressing large-scale real world problems.  This new Working Group echoes the goal of the Linux Foundation itself: “Unlocking the value of shared technology. Innovation comes from everywhere; we do help companies and developers in identifying and contributing to the projects that matter. Working together, the Open Source Community is addressing the challenges of industry and technology for the benefit of society. Code is power. Community is strength. We are one.”  It seeks to become a “Ledgers of human interactions” architected like Hyperledger Fabric, with a “consortium,” “Network Configurations”, and “Channel Configuration.”

The “pillars” of the new Working Group are:

• Identify and contribute
• Working together
• Address the challenges of industry
• Enabling Technology for the benefit of society
• Defining that “Code is power”
• Affirming that “Community is strength”
• Once and for all stating that “We are One” and “Collaboration is the way”.

The very first step to be undertaken should be to find in current Hyperledger SIG’s  and WG’s the individuals,  men and women who shall meet to share ideas and insights based on the secret behind successful enterprise blockchains: “reciprocity”, “mutuality” and collaboration”, i.e. an enhanced exchange of ideas.  Two types of individuals should become focal points of this new group:

• the “gurus”: people with a long range vision;
• the “scouts”: people who are passionate about connecting diverse ideas, and finding ways to bring them together.

The initial members of the working group are

• Andrea Frosinini - Chair Hyperledger Trade Finance SIG
• Alfonso Govela - Chair Hyperledger Latinoamérica Chapter
• Eugenio Reggianini - Project Lead Hyperledger Trade Finance SIG & Founder Hyperledger Italian Chapter
• Mark Cudden - CTO we.trade
• Vipin Bharathan - Chair Hyperledger Capital Markets SIG, Chair Identity Working Group and vice chair of Interoperability Workstream in Digital Currency Global Initiative at ITU
• Si Chen - Climate Action and Accounting SIG
• Tom Klein - Managing Director at BusinessBlock and Chair Hyperledger Supply Chain SIG
• Erik Valiquette - President of Canadian Blockchain Supply Association and member of Hyperledger Supply Chain  SIG

The open source approach of the group will engage the community to collaborate on projects, and its initial members will act as a sort of “switchboard” for connecting people who want to connect with other people, on both use cases, coding, business etc.. 

The Working Group is already planning several use cases involving green trade finance.  To get involved, join the first active call for the group at 1800 CEST/9 AM PST at the community calendar or follow its new wiki page to see upcoming developments and projects.   The Working Group asks new participants to think about the following topics:

• What is the supply chain for your industry?
• How is your supply chain financed?
• How could we account for and reduce carbon emissions in your supply chain?
• What do you think are the key barriers to green trade?
• How can ESG be integrated by enterprise blockchain solutions?
• How can we achieve sustainable trade and trade finance and how can blockchain help us?

In the end, the very first and probably  most important assets to be digitized are ideas.

Many practitioners in the field of distributed ledger technologies call it “Multi Party Systems”. This is because the various parties mutualize their source of truth using a shared immutable ledger. In this document we explore the uniqueness of the Hyperledger project and propose the intentional convergence through breaking the silos between the various Hyperledger Special Interest Groups and Hyperledger Working Groups because Hyperledger is a System of Multiparty Systems. An exploration of the history of Hyperledger reveals that the natural evolution of its constituent parts leads us toward breaking down the silos. 

To find a common ground of understanding on carrying out technical and business operation practices helps enormously and we, HL TF-SIG firmly believe that this experience, although quite new, should replicated throughout the whole Hyperledger community, namely through all the SIGs and WGs, gathering all of them periodically and regularly in a common virtual playground.

To find a common ground of understanding on carrying out technical and business operation practices helps enormously and we, HL TF-SIG firmly believe that this experience, although quite new, should replicated throughout the whole Hyperledger community, namely through all the SIGs and WGs, gathering all of them periodically and regularly in a common virtual playground.

Behind technology, behind groups are individuals, men and women.

Meeting among the chairperson and the main members of each SIG and WG, Understanding the critical points, those that led to failure could the point to start from for future success, will in our opinion end up creating a decentralized, distributed bulk of knowledge, of experiences (positive or negative, failures or successes) to treasure and learn from. It'll be something like setting up “governance rules” among SIGs and WGs.

We, as promoters of this initiative,