Linux Foundation announces project to "advance blockchain technology"

The Linux Foundation has announced a new collaborative project to "develop an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework" to allow developers to build "robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support business transactions". Twenty companies have joined the effort: Accenture, ANZ Bank, Cisco, CLS, Credits, Deutsche Birse, Digital Asset Holdings, DTCC, Fujitsu Limited, IC3, IBM, Intel, J.P. Morgan, London Stock Exchange Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), R3, State Street, SWIFT, VMware, and Wells Fargo. "Many of the founding members are already investing considerable research and development efforts exploring blockchain applications for industry. IBM intends to contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Digital Asset is contributing the Hyperledger mark, which will be used as the project name, as well as enterprise grade code and developer resources. R3 is contributing a new financial transaction architectural framework designed to specifically meet the requirements of its global bank members and other financial institutions. These technical contributions, among others from a variety of companies, will be reviewed in detail in the weeks ahead by the formation and Technical Steering Committees."