The current state of enterprise blockchain

Why technology is in demand for enterprise blockchain

The report analyses the most popular enterprise blockchain solutions and their growth over the last year. It also looks at prominent case studies and their associated technologies.

Hyperledger Fabric

Hyperledger Fabric develops applications with a modular architecture. The solution enables plug-and-play for components, such as membership services and consensus. The technology’s modular and multi-purpose design makes it applicable for a broad range of industry use cases.

Hyperledger Fabric is the most popular enterprise blockchain solution, with 38% of the top 100 global companies implementing it, including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Visa. Let’s take a look at some prominent case studies for this technology in the last one year (October 2021 – October 2022).

• In June 2022, Hitachi announced its shift to paperless and secure procurement using Hyperledger Fabric. Its procurement divisions process thousands of contracts each month.

“Procurement wanted to digitize its processes while maintaining security and trust. Blockchain provides an immutable record that provides that trust,” says Kazuyoshi Masuya, senior engineer of the service delivery division for Hitachi, Ltd.

By switching to paperless procurement processes, Hitachi has benefited the environment and saved time and money in its purchasing activities. Hitachi used to process 333 cases per month, which jumped to more than 400 contracts after adopting the paperless blockchain-based Hyperledger Fabric solution. The solution’s rollout to all Hitachi divisions will be completed by March 2023, saving the company 1,225 hours of labour each month.

• In December 2021, the Hyperledger Foundation announced that MineHub and KrypC would use its Hyperledger Fabric 2.2 solution to improve the supply chain of the mining and metals industry. BHP and the Sumitomo Corporation use Vancouver-based MineHub, an enterprise-grade open mining blockchain supply chain platform for digital trade. MineHub wanted to create a decentralized collaborative platform to digitize supply chain transactions, link hundreds of companies, and negate the need for staff resources.

“I’ve been working at the intersection of technology and commodities for a while,” says Hugh Halford-Thompson, vice president of partnerships and integrations at MineHub Technologies. “Large companies spend billions of dollars on their IT systems. They then export data from their system, put it in an email, and someone at the other end puts that all into their own company’s billion-dollar IT system. That’s wrong.”

Ethereum

Ethereum is an open-source decentralized platform that builds and runs smart contracts. Ethereum’s global decentralized network enables the creation of decentralized applications (DApps) that can run without the risk of downtime, censorship, fraud, and third-party interference. Around 24% of the top 100 companies in the world are using Ethereum’s enterprise blockchain platform, including Samsung, Bank of America, and Toyota.

One of the most significant events to shape the blockchain and crypto world was the Ethereum merge, which concluded in September 2022. This shift allowed the Ethereum blockchain network to move from the proof-of-work consensus to proof-of-stake, resulting in energy savings of approximately 99.95%. This will foster higher adoption, particularly among corporates. Besides promoting sustainability, the merge will improve the efficiency and security of the Ethereum network.

Quorum

The Quorum Blockchain Service (QBS) is a ledger service that enables enterprises to grow and operate blockchain networks at scale. The platform offers end-to-end blockchain development without the need to manage infrastructure. QBS has been operating since 2016, with many prominent customers, including Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Amazon. ConsenSys acquired Quorum in August 2020.

• In July 2022, ConsenSys made QBS publicly available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. QBS will address node and infrastructure problems on the blockchain, enabling the formation, governance, and management of Quorum-based blockchain networks. This will allow businesses to fix process logic and application development rather than infrastructure.

“Prescryptive Health is thrilled with the public launch of ConsenSys’ Quorum Blockchain Service. QBS delivers the ability to grow and operate Prescryptive’s blockchain network at scale and ensures compatibility across the Ethereum ecosystem with industry-defining standards for developer and operations tooling,” says Tony Little, vice president of solution architecture for Prescryptive.

“QBS and ConsenSys are essential partners of Prescryptive, bringing transparency to the prescription drug market. With QBS, Prescryptive has launched a patented blockchain-based health platform that gives consumers the power to own their prescriptions for the first time, putting the consumer at the center by enabling transparency and control of health plan data, prescription drug pricing, costs, and interactions with prescribers and pharmacists,” Tony adds.

• In July 2022, BEE4, a Brazilian fintech company, announced plans to launch the first local tokenized stock marketplace. The company will replicate a stock exchange structure and allow public offerings of up to $19 million for mid-sized companies (with revenue between $1.8 million and $55 million). The platform will run on the Quorum network based on the Ethereum blockchain.

Corda

Corda is a private permissioned blockchain platform customized for high-value transactions in regulated markets, such as financial services. Corda provides greater privacy, scalability, security, and integration ease with existing systems in comparison with public blockchains. Around 13% of the top 100 companies globally use Corda. Many companies in the financial sector use it, including S&P Global Inc., Charles Schwab, and the Royal Bank of Canada.

• In August 2022, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, chose R3’s Corda DLT software for its Project Ion platform. Project Ion is an alternative settlement platform that processes an average of 100,000 bilateral equity transactions daily.

DTCC designed its private permissioned DLT platform in collaboration with some of the world’s leading financial institutions, including JPMorgan, Barclays, BNY Mellon, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, and Goldman Sachs.

“This is a milestone achievement for the equity markets and reflects the deep level of collaboration and partnership between DTCC and our clients,” says Murray Pozmanter, managing director and president of DTCC’s clearing agency services and head of global business operations.

“Project Ion is an important step forward in advancing digitalization in financial markets and opens the door to exciting, new opportunities to drive greater efficiencies, risk management, and cost savings for the industry,” Murray adds.

• Corda has been the DLT of choice for central banks of many nations when conducting multiple Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilots. Some of the major projects are:

• Project Jura is an initiative of the Banque de France, Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements’ (BIS) Innovation Hub, along with Accenture, Natixis, Credit Suisse, R3, the Union Bank of Switzerland, and SIX Digital Exchange. The experiment used wholesale CBDC to improve the speed, transparency, and efficiency of cross-border settlements.

“As a small open economy, Switzerland requires efficient and robust cross‑border payment and settlement arrangements. Project Jura explores how DLT can be successfully leveraged to map out future‑proof cross‑border settlement between financial institutions,” says Andréa M Maechler, member of the governing board for Swiss National Bank.

• Project Helvetia Phase II is a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub, Swiss National Bank, and SIX in Q4 2021. The project used Corda to highlight that wholesale CBDC could settle tokenized assets.

• Project Dunbar is a partnership between the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank Negara Malaysia, and the South African Reserve Bank with the BIS Innovation Hub. It tested the use of CBDCs for making international settlements in Q1 2022. The project worked with Corda and Quorum’s DLTs to develop prototypes.

• Sweden’s central bank, Riksbank, partnered with R3 for a pilot project on Corda in Q2 2021. The project’s goal was to determine the feasibility of issuing a digital complement to cash called e-krona.

• Digital Tenge is an initiative of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan in collaboration with Accenture and R3. It studied the potential effect of Retail CBDC as a third form of central bank money, besides central bank reserves and cash. The Digital Tenge Pilot also explored the viability of offline payments, customized anonymity, tokenization of ownership, and incorporation with existing arrangements.

AntChain

AntChain is the technology division of China-based Ant Group. The company designs innovative technologies, including blockchain, data analytics, IoT, and intelligent risk management. In 2020, market intelligence provider IDC ranked AntChain first in China’s Blockchain-as-a-Service market. The AntChain solution is capable of processing and supporting 1 billion transactions and 1 billion user accounts daily.

In October 2022, the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) announced its partnership with Oracle, Microsoft, AntChain, and AliYun to create a blockchain operating system for the digital transformation of global trade. The GSBN is an independent non-profit technology alliance between 8 international shipping lines and terminal operators. The latter handles a third of all international shipping containers.

The GSBN has been working with Oracle, Microsoft, AntChain, and AliYun to construct modern and efficient international trade infrastructures. Its technical approach focuses on ensuring that infrastructures are reliable, strong, and scalable. GSBN members’ data is encrypted before being sent to the platform.

Symbiont Assembly

Symbiont Assembly is a blockchain platform for building and running smart contract DApps. The platform ensures security, integrity, and availability for critical use cases in financial services. Symbiont has partnered with institutions to improve the distribution of index data (Vanguard) and all aspects of the mortgage industry (Ranieri Solutions).

In December 2021, Symbiont announced that, in partnership with State Street Corporation and Vanguard, its DLT Assembly completed the margin calculation process for a live trade of a 30-day foreign exchange forward contract. The companies aimed to apply blockchain technology for the margin processing of foreign exchange forwards and swaps. The collaboration also looked at automating the post-trade workflow process and reducing counterparty risks in the over-the-counter currency market.

“State Street Digital is incredibly pleased to have collaborated with both Vanguard and Symbiont on this monumental industry initiative to digitize the margining process around collateralized foreign exchange forward contracts that will reduce our customers’ operational challenges through process automation and state-of-the-art technologies,” says Nadine Chakar, head of State Street Digital.

“Our newly launched division, State Street Digital, was created to help drive innovation and address the industry’s digital transformation. We appreciate the collaboration on this project and look forward to future partnerships and further developing of our digital capabilities for the crypto and digital assets environment,” Nadine adds.

Hedera Hashgraph

Hedera is a third generation DLT that allows fast, fair, and secure applications to benefit from the efficiency of Hashgraph on a decentralized and trusted public network. Hedera is a carbon-negative network, which is important for companies looking to decarbonize their entire value chains.

The global carbon market is currently worth roughly $851 billion, and about $3 billion is being invested in ESG assets daily. TYMLEZ developed its platform upon realizing that the race to net zero by 2030 will cause exponential growth in the number of companies seeking solutions to equip themselves and achieve decarbonization goals.

In March 2022, the TYMLEZ Group announced a strategic partnership with the HBAR Foundation Sustainable Impact Fund. The latter finances projects that concentrate on greater transparency in environmental markets working on the Hedera network.

The collaboration will provide TYMLEZ with features not available in legacy blockchain technologies. TYMLEZ will provide fully scalable, enterprise-grade, sustainability reporting solutions consisting of signed, granular, real-time, and carbon-relevant data directly through IoT devices.

What’s next?

The past year has seen an increase in the creation and adoption of public, private, and industry-focused blockchain networks. While new networks continue to pop up, older and more established ones are also growing.

Using an existing network, such as Hyperledger or Corda, can speed up the deployment of new products and provide greater transparency in the supply chain network. Private blockchains, on the other hand, have several limitations, particularly regarding the number of market participants.

However, the overall enterprise blockchain industry appears to be in its infancy. In 2021, more than 800 companies were building their blockchain networks on the 12 DLT platforms that we analysed.

The scope for mass blockchain technology adoption for corporate usage is immense. With higher adoption rates and growing trust among market participants, the market will prosper in the coming years.