Bank of England, Boston Fed Join Hyperledger Blockchain Project

The Linux-foundation led open-source Hyperledger blockchain initiative has announced a raft of new members including influential financial institutions in the Bank of England, the UK’s central bank and the Boston branch of the Federal Reserve.

Hyperledger, the prominent cross-industry enterprise blockchain working group has announced 11 new members join its ranks to develop an open-source blockchain framework interoperable among various industries.

In a first, central banks now join over a hundred participants from a number of industries such as finance, supply chains, manufacturing, Internet of Things, technology and more. The Bank of England, in particular, has led a number of efforts toward exploring blockchain applications and digital currencies.

“We’re now at 122 members and seeing even more diverse organizations across industry sectors invest their energy and resources in understanding how blockchain technology can strengthen their own business processes,” stated Hyperledger director Brian Behlendorf.

Other notable new members include Guangdong-based banking giant China Merchants Bank; New York-based academic and industry consortium IC3, the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts and; blockchain startup Monax, among others.

Behlendorf added:

This new set of members’ combined backgrounds and experiences will be invaluable to the community as we strive to increase production deployments through this year.

Chinese Interest

Compared to other major global blockchain working groups, the Linux Foundation-led initiative is uniquely gaining attention in mainland China with over a quarter of its members from the region. Paying attention to such interest , the project announced the “Technical Working Group China” earlier this year, as an extended arm located in China.

TWG China will is specifically tasked to facilitate interactions between Hyperledger members outside the region and contributors and technical developers in mainland China alongside regional countries in Taiwan and Hong Kong. TWG China will also push for blockchain awareness and education by organizing meetups, hackathons and training sessions among other community efforts.

More recently, the Hyperledger Project announced payments giant American Express and German automaker Daimler, the company behind the iconic brand Mercedes Benz, as premium members.

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