The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Hyperledger have formally announced that they are joining each other’s organisations as Associate Members with the aim of creating greater cross-community collaboration. This, they believe, will accelerate the adoption of blockchain technologies by businesses across the world.
Both organisations have broadly similar objectives, working towards broadening and strengthening communities and their involvement with blockchain technologies. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is a standards body which promotes the development of standards and specifications for enterprise blockchain networks, focusing in particular on those that are aligned with the Ethereum ecosystem. Hyperledger is an open source collaborative under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, and fosters the development of open source software for establishing, managing and connecting enterprise blockchain networks, helping to advance the blockchain through development tools.
The two consortia have been quietly working in alignment for some time and by joining forces will facilitate their respective community members to cross-community work. EEA community members working on specifications and standards can now collaborate with Hyperledger members to develop software implementations of those standards. Both organisations will continue to work together with other standards bodies as well as other open source communities. The long-term objective is that this level of collaboration between two giants of the blockchain world will bring tangible benefits to developers and enterprises and speed-up take up of blockchain technologies by enterprises.
As blockchain technology expands into new industries and as its take up accelerates, there is an increasing need for regulatory standards as well as for a regulatory framework. Blockchain users will be better able to commit to implementation of the technology with greater confidence as improved interoperability is established and standards certifications achieved. EEA’s development of standards combined with Hyperledger’s development work has established a significant stepping-stone along the road to widespread adoption and use of the technology by business.
