Located in San Francisco's Presidio Heights neighborhood, the Linux Foundation'southward function is nestled in a square of red-roofed buildings that resemble homes rather than technology work spaces. Inside the Linux Foundation's office sits Brian Behlendorf, the executive director of Hyperledger.

Behlendorf, who has been a leading effigy in the open up-source software movement for years, explained that the Linux Foundation has put together a serial of collaborative software projects to depict attending to specific technologies. In the instance of Hyperledger, the project was initiated in December 2022 to raise sensation of distributed ledgers and smart contract systems.

The Hyperledger community currently consists of xv technology code bases, or projects, the first of which were Hyperledger Textile and Hyperledger Sawtooth. Behlendorf told Cointelegraph that each are general purpose distributed ledger systems, yet there are deep architectural differences betwixt them.

Companies that are part of Hyperledger Greenhouse

For example, Hyperledger Fabric is intended as a foundation for developing applications or solutions with a modular architecture. It allows for components such as consensus and membership services to be plug-and-play. Hyperledger Fabric has been adopted by major cloud service providers including Alibaba, Amazon Spider web Services, Microsoft Azure, Baidu, Google, Huawei, IBM, Oracle, SAP and Tencent.

On the other hand, Hyperledger Sawtooth provides a flexible architecture that separates an organization'south core organization from its application domain. This allows smart contracts to specify business concern rules for applications without needing to know the underlying design of a core system. Salesforce'due south blockchain platform is based on Hyperledger Sawtooth.

Blockchain for the aerospace industry

With a market size estimated at over $900 billion in 2022, the global aerospace parts manufacturing marketplace is expected to abound at a charge per unit of 4.1% between 2022 to 2027, with the U.s.a. exhibiting the largest market place for aircraft parts manufacturing. But unfortunately, achieving trust is one of the greatest challenges for companies operating in the aerospace manufacture.

Lisa Butters, a general manager at Honeywell, told Cointelegraph that blockchain tin can help ensure trust within the billion-dollar aerospace industry. Honeywell Aerospace has been providing products and services to leading commercial shipping across the earth for over a century. In 2022, Honeywell developed a blockchain-based platform called GoDirect Merchandise, which is powered by Hyperledger Fabric.

Co-ordinate to Butters, GoDirect Merchandise is an "Amazon-like" online market place for used aerospace parts, which is a $four billion per yr industry. The platform leverages blockchain to prove the parts' origin, while ensuring that each complies with safety standards. Butters said:

"GoDirect trade is similar to Carfax for used cars, except that blockchain rather than word of oral cavity provides consumers with documented information about office pedigree and previous ownership."

Butters mentioned that each aviation slice added to the GoDirect Trade platform immediately connects the layers of the supply chain. Everything is combined into a single, shared ledger of transactions, which is meant to transparently rails an item's move. Traditionally, aviation parts are given paper "nascence certificates" to certificate their movements, ownership and more. But newspaper documents are difficult to go along track of and are prone to forgery.

According to Butters, less than 3% of the $4 billion in used aerospace parts sold per year is conducted online due to the notion that aerospace parts are typically tracked and resold using newspaper documents. This makes the process of selling parts online nearly impossible. Butters added that $seven million in transactions have already taken place on the GoDirect platform:

"The marketplace has just been running for but a year and already caters to the top 100 airlines in the globe. Over 70 manufacturing and global repair shops partner with Honeywell."

Yet while aircraft dismantlers, aerospace repair shops and major airline manufacturers utilize GoDirect Trade to list and purchase parts, a blockchain-based ecosystem doesn't always fare well with major airline companies. Butters explained that the problem with building out a blockchain platform like GoDirect Trade is getting enterprises to share data.

To that cease, Hyperledger Material serves as a private, permissioned blockchain network requiring companies to be given permission to access the platform and view data. Once access is granted, specific organizations tin set up a digital storefront on GoDirect Merchandise. Afterward, trusted companies on the network can load their aerospace parts directly to the platform via an application programming interface and past transferring a text file to Honeywell. According to Butters, GoDirect's target acquirement in sales for this year is $20 million, which she noted will increment to $250 meg by 2022:

"Nosotros are using blockchain to build trust between our buyers and sellers. We look to see a growing involvement in organizations looking to apply our platform."

American Express creates flexible rewards using blockchain

American Express's vice president of engineering, Michael Concannon, told Cointelgraph that the company is leveraging blockchain technology for its flexible rewards program. Designed to let merchants create offers using AmEx Membership Rewards points on their ain platforms, Concannon explained that the goal of the flexible rewards program is to provide engagement with partners while rewarding card members.

For instance, when customers use their AmEx cards today, they are typically rewarded one signal per dollar spent. Those rewards can be put toward souvenir cards, travel or to encompass contempo card charges. However, a retailer partnering with AmEx might want to employ rewards to target a brand or product, a particular day of the week or a client contour. Blockchain enables those retailers to leverage rewards in a variety of means.

Hyperledger Fabric powers the flexible rewards blockchain. According to Concannon, AmEx uses a Hyperledger Fabric network, while merchants run AmEx hosted nodes. Merchants are able to add together information to those nodes, which so triggers smart contracts to create rewards points.

Once rewards points are created, AmEx's node moves those points from its blockchain network into its existing rewards arrangement and backend. This allows carte members to consume their points and view them in the traditional manner.

The online wholesale retailer Boxed was the first to partner with AmEx on the flexible rewards program. Boxed conducted a pilot with AmEx in March 2022. Today, its website offers eligible card members nine boosted Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on Boxed.com, the Boxed mobile application and on selected products.

In 2022, Rakuten, formerly known as Ebates, partnered with AmEx to offer its customers flexible rewards. The partnership allowed new users of the platform to earn AmEx Membership Rewards points instead of cash back for chapter link purchases. Rakuten expanded this offer to all of its members in Oct of last twelvemonth.

Concannon further noted that Rakuten was the first AmEx partner to employ a behavioral-based model to advantage customers. He explained that Rakuten users can earn points unrelated to card spend, simply rather based on certain behaviors. "If consumers link their accounts to Rakuten they are able to redeem their rewards as Amex Advantage Points," he said.

An additional blockchain-based use case is besides currently in the works for AmEx. During Hyperledger Global Forum 2022, Concannon spoke about a system chosen Vendor Invoicing Validation and Reconciliation, which is a homegrown application that leverages Hyperledger Fabric to enable AmEx contractors and vendors to reconcile their invoices. Concannon explained to Cointelegraph:

"We match the invoice of our purchase orders, the timesheets and approval of those timesheets. All of this is integrated into our backend systems, while other nodes accept API and web access to vendor partners."

The system would allow AmEx to conduct faster payments and reduce cycle time. Moreover, a blockchain network provides visibility to all transactions fabricated from the vendor partner. In addition to AmEx'south flexible rewards program, the company filed for a patent for a blockchain based proof-of-payment system in 2022.

Concannon noted that the patent is currently going through typical examination motions, including back and forth correspondence with the patent part, adding: "I don't anticipate terminal disposition on the application for some other year or so."

Blockchain for the gemstone industry

Klemens Link, the head of development at Gubelin Gem Lab — a gemmological laboratory that determines the authenticity of the stones used in Gubelin's jewellery — mentioned the potential blockchain can bring to the billion-dollar precious stone industry. Link told Cointelegraph that the gemstone market place still relies on paper records to trace the origins of stones:

"The industry has traditionally relied on paper records which leaves gemstones vulnerable to value manipulation, fraud, theft and other unethical practices."

To combat the challenges associated with tracing gemstones, Gubelin Gem Lab has partnered with blockchain company Everledger to launch its Provenance Proof Blockchain.

Link explained that Gubelin Gem Lab's Provenance Proof Blockchain is an open platform powered by Hyperledger Fabric that can be used by any industry player free of accuse. "The vision was to create a digital log book for each and every gemstone telling the story from the mine all the way to the market," he explained.

Gubelin Precious stone Lab has created the Emerald Paternity Exam, which leverages the Provenance Proof Blockchain. The Emerald Paternity Exam uses DNA-based tiny particles encoded with a mine's information to tackle the effect of determining a stone's origin. These particles are applied on a gemstone at its source to enable the full traceability of a stone'south birthplace throughout its lifetime.

Data from the gemstone is recorded every stride of the way on the Provenance Proof Blockchain network, which is transparent and immutable. A smartphone with cyberspace access is required for the processes associated with the Emerald Paternity Exam.

Currently, the Provenance Proof Blockchain is being leveraged by Moyo Gemstones, an ethical gemstone collaboration from Tanzania that has a strong relationship with the Tanzanian Women Miners Association, referred to equally TAWOMA. By allowing the gemstones mined past TAWOMA to be deeply traced from source to market, transparency is increased throughout the supply concatenation, empowering the female miners to work safely, mine better and improve financial security.

Link further explained that gemstone purchasers can now understand that the jewel they're purchasing hasn't been a product of bad practices, such equally unethical mining, fraud or value manipulation, increasing the value of a gemstone.

Yet, there are withal challenges that must be overcome. For instance, Link explained that it'due south been difficult to cater to the needs of small players located in remote areas with limited internet access. Another challenge is related to privacy, as Link noted that finding the remainder between providing transparency for consumers and respecting privacy for stakeholders has been tough: "We don't want to hazard anybody's security through exposing private data." Link noted that 200 companies are currently using the Provenance Proof Blockchain, adding:

"When we started this project roughly ii years ago intermediate stakeholders were arguing with us, claiming that we'll destroy their businesses past irresolute the industry to be more transparent. Now, we're positively surprised by the high number of stakeholders who either ask us where they tin can find Provenance Proof traceable gemstones or who want to join the initiative."

Blockchain provides trust within trustless systems

Due to its open up-source nature, Behlendorf told Cointelgraph that he is unable to provide an exact number of the businesses leveraging Hyperledger Textile. However, while Honeywell, American Express and Everledger rely on Hyperledger Fabric to bring trust to traditionally nontransparent industries, in that location are a scattering of other major companies doing the same.

For case, Hyperledger Cloth is existence used by Voatz to bring transparency to national voting systems. It is also being practical to ensure trusted and reliable COVID-19 data is generated for health officials.

Related: Blockchain Voting Systems Could Be the Future, only Current Flaws Persist

Behlendorf further explained that when he joined Hyperledger as its executive managing director in 2022, he asked the community if Hyperledger should focus on i particular solution or serve every bit a core courage that could cater to multiple architectures. He said:

"Nobody really felt like they could decide at the starting time which one of the architectures was going to be the ane to hang everything off of. However, nosotros knew all these projects had to focus on blockchain technology and they all had to compliment each other in some ways by bringing trust and transparency to a number of industries."