What is Hyperledger Fabric?

How is it different than tr aditional blockchains?

How does Hyperledger Fabric work?

Hyperledger Fabric for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)

Hyperledger Fabric for Cross Border Remittances

Hyperledger Fabric — Latest Released Version

Hyperledger Fabric Future Ecosystem

Hyperledger Fabric stands as an open-source blockchain platform geared towards enterprises and is the fruit of collaborative efforts under the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger initiative. Originally ideated by Digital Asset and IBM, it has since evolved into a cooperative venture spanning multiple industries, now under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. Of the numerous projects under the Hyperledger umbrella, Fabric was the pioneer to transition from the developmental phase, emerging in July 2017. Its core mission is to enable the construction of adaptable, scalable, and fortified blockchain networks tailored for enterprise-level applications and industry-specific solutions.

Hyperledger Fabric falls within the category of private blockchain frameworks and is just one of several projects encompassed by the comprehensive Hyperledger blockchain platform. It adheres to a permissioned network model and operates through the execution of smart contracts, referred to as chaincode.

The Hyperledger Fabric Vision

Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source blockchain framework hosted by the Linux Foundation under the Hyperledger project. Its vision is to provide a foundation for developing enterprise-grade blockchain solutions with a focus on flexibility, scalability, and confidentiality. The primary target for Hyperledger Fabric is enterprise adoption, and it strives to provide the tools and features necessary for businesses to implement blockchain solutions securely and efficiently.

Hyperledger Fabric’s vision is to serve as a versatile and secure foundation for a wide range of enterprise blockchain applications, fostering collaboration and innovation in various industries. It has already gained popularity in industries such as supply chain, finance, healthcare, and more, where trust, privacy, and scalability are critical concerns.

How is it different than traditional blockchains?

Hyperledger Fabric differs from traditional public blockchains in several fundamental ways:

Permissioned vs. Permissionless Network

Fabric is typically used in permissioned networks where participants are known and must be authenticated. Access to the network is restricted to authorized entities. This is ideal for businesses and organizations that require control over who can participate. Public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are permissionless networks, meaning anyone can join and participate without needing prior approval. This openness is a core characteristic of traditional blockchains.

Consensus Mechanisms

Fabric offers flexibility in consensus mechanisms, supporting pluggable algorithms. Organizations can choose the consensus mechanism that aligns with their trust requirements. Common options include Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) and Kafka-based consensus. Traditional Blockchain: Public blockchains often rely on proof-of-work (PoW) or proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms, which are resource-intensive and rely on miners or validators to secure the network.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Fabric allows for the creation of private channels where only selected participants can access transaction data. Additionally, data within a channel can be encrypted, ensuring sensitive information remains hidden. Public blockchains are transparent by design, and all transaction data is visible to anyone on the network. While addresses can be pseudonymous, the transaction history is public.

Smart Contracts

Fabric supports the execution of smart contracts known as chaincode. Chaincode is typically written in familiar programming languages like Go, Node.js, and Java unlike traditional blockchains which use specific programming languages like Solidity (Ethereum) or custom scripting languages.

Governance

Governance in Hyperledger Fabric networks is typically managed by the participating organizations. There is no need for cryptocurrency-based incentives, as in traditional public blockchains. Public blockchains rely on decentralized governance, driven by miners, validators, and token holders. Changes to the protocol often require a high degree of community consensus.

Practical Applications

Fabric is favored for enterprise applications, including supply chain management, trade finance, healthcare, and identity verification, where privacy, control, and regulatory compliance are critical whereas public blockchains are commonly used for cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), and open-source projects, emphasizing openness and decentralization.

How does Hyperledger Fabric work?

A Hyperledger Fabric network consists of distinct organizations or members that engage with one another within the network’s framework. Fabric is typically used in a permissioned network where participants are known and authenticated. Organizations interested in participating in the network set up and configure their nodes. To illustrate, an organization could represent a bank within a financial network encompassing various financial institutions, or it might embody a shipping partner participating in a supply chain network.

When viewed through the lens of Fabric’s components, each organization is equipped with a Fabric certificate authority and one or more peer nodes. Fabric uses a Membership Service Provider (MSP) to manage user identities and authentication. MSPs define the rules for identity validation, ensuring that only authorized users can interact with the blockchain network.

Fabric maintains two types of databases: the world state database and the transaction log (ledger). The world state database represents the current state of assets, while the ledger stores the complete history of transactions.

Within a network, an organization is defined by a unique root certificate associated with that particular entity. Users and other entities, such as peer nodes, within the organization are similarly identified through certificates that stem from this root certificate. This interrelated certificate structure ensures that other organizations within the network can attribute a user to their respective organization. These certificates also define the permissions granted to each entity on the network, distinguishing between read-only access and full access to a channel.

The root certificate for an organization is securely stored within the Fabric certificate authority (CA). The Fabric CA assumes the responsibility of issuing certificates for users within an organization and manages related operations. A robust enterprise-grade Fabric CA leverages various components and offers flexible deployment options, including the use of a Hardware Security Module (HSM) to safeguard the root certificate.

In addition to the certificate authority, an organization establishes one or more peer nodes to act as functional components that execute tasks on behalf of the organization. Specifically, a peer node provides endorsements for proposed transactions within the network, stores and executes smart contract code (referred to as chaincode in Fabric), and maintains a local ledger copy for reference. Fabric clients typically interact with peer nodes for ledger inquiries, introduction of new chaincode to the network, or submission of new transaction proposals. Typically, a peer node operates on a dedicated computing resource.

Additionally, the Fabric network features an ordering service that is shared among all participating organizations, serving as a pivotal component for transaction processing. The Ordering Service collects endorsed transactions, orders them into blocks, and sends the blocks to committing peers. The Ordering Service ensures the consistency and sequence of transactions across the network. When a participant initiates a transaction, it is first proposed to endorsing peers. These peers execute the chaincode and sign the result if the transaction is valid. The transaction is then sent for ordering.

Governance of the Fabric network is typically managed by the participating organizations. Organizations collectively make decisions regarding network upgrades, policies, and access control.

Hyperledger Fabric Features

Hyperledger Fabric is known for its rich set of features that make it a preferred choice for building enterprise-grade blockchain solutions. Here are some of the key features of Hyperledger Fabric:

Permissioned Network: Fabric is designed for permissioned networks, where participants are known and must be authenticated. This is ideal for businesses and organizations that require control over who can join the network.

Modular Architecture: Fabric’s modular architecture allows for flexibility in its components. It includes separate components for consensus, membership services, and smart contracts (chaincode). This modularity enables organizations to customize and replace specific components to suit their requirements.

Privacy and Confidentiality: Fabric places a strong emphasis on privacy and confidentiality. It allows for the creation of private channels where only selected participants can access transaction data. Additionally, data within a channel can be encrypted, ensuring sensitive information remains hidden.

Smart Contracts (Chaincode): Fabric supports the execution of smart contracts known as “chaincode.” Chaincode is written in programming languages like Go, Node.js, and Java, making it accessible to a broader range of developers.

Consensus Flexibility: Fabric provides flexibility in consensus mechanisms. It supports pluggable consensus protocols, including Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), Kafka-based consensus, and more. This allows organizations to choose the consensus algorithm that suits their trust requirements.

Membership Services: Fabric uses a Membership Service Provider (MSP) to manage user identities and authentication. This ensures that participants can verify each other’s identities on the network.

Private Channels: Fabric allows the creation of private channels where transactions are visible only to the selected participants. This is crucial for consortiums and private business networks.

Endorsement Policies: Transactions in Fabric are subject to endorsement policies, ensuring that a predefined number of endorsing parties must validate a transaction before it can be added to the blockchain.

World State Database: Fabric maintains a world state database that represents the current state of assets. This database allows for efficient querying of asset data.

Ordering Service: The Ordering Service collects endorsed transactions, orders them into blocks, and sends the blocks to committing peers. It ensures the consistency and sequence of transactions across the network.

Rich Query Capabilities: Fabric supports rich query functionalities, enabling participants to perform complex queries on the blockchain ledger.

Identity Management: Fabric offers robust identity management features, allowing organizations to control access and permissions based on user roles.

Integration with Legacy Systems: Fabric is designed to integrate with existing enterprise systems and databases, allowing for smooth adoption without disrupting current operations.

Governance: Governance in Fabric networks is typically managed by the participating organizations. There is no need for cryptocurrency-based incentives, as in traditional public blockchains.

Pluggable Membership Services: Organizations can choose the membership service provider (MSP) of their choice, making it adaptable to various identity management solutions.

These features collectively make Hyperledger Fabric a versatile and robust blockchain platform for building secure, scalable, and private enterprise blockchain solutions across various industries and use cases.

Hyperledger Fabric UseCases

Hyperledger Fabric, as an enterprise-grade blockchain platform, has found applications in a wide range of industries and use cases. Its key features, including privacy, flexibility, and scalability, make it suitable for various business scenarios. Here are some common use cases for Hyperledger Fabric:

Supply Chain Management

Fabric is widely used for tracking and tracing goods through complex supply chains. It ensures transparency and immutability of data, reducing fraud, errors, and inefficiencies. Companies use Fabric to authenticate products, monitor their journey from manufacturer to consumer, and verify the authenticity of goods.

Some of the informative use-cases are mentioned here. To view an up-to-date list of more than 160 use-cases, check here.

Use-Case 1 — Facilitate real-time information sharing among approved stakeholders, resulting in reduced costs and paperwork associated with each vehicle transaction.

Organisations Involved — Vinturas, Axess Logistics (Sweden), NVD (Ireland), Autolink (Norway), Groupe CAT (France), IBM

Use-Case 2 — Allow parties involved in selling, buying, delivering and paying for a cargo of minerals to collaborate securely in real time, sharing electronic information rather than couriering or emailing paper documents that are often subject to interception and fraud.

Organisations Involved — KrypC, MineHub, BHP, ING

Use-Case 3 — Streamline and automate the process of generating invoices, establishing a centralized and accessible repository for all transaction information. This fosters an exceptional level of trust among all participants in the supply chain. Since implementing this solution in its operations, Walmart has witnessed a noticeable revolution in the management of freight and relationships with carriers. What was once a significant volume of invoice disputes, around 70%, has been nearly eradicated, leaving only a minimal fraction of discrepancies, approximately 1.5%.

Organisations Involved — Walmart, DLT Labs

Use-Case 4 — A mine-to-manufacturer traceability system ensuring that a conflict mineral, Tantalum is mined, transported, and processed under approved conditions with an unbroken chain of custody. Tantalum is a rare mineral essential for making capacitors for devices like smartphones and laptops. A small region of Africa produces 60% of the world’s supply, with Rwanda as the main exporter. But tantalum was sometimes smuggled in from conflict-ridden Congo, where it was mined by children or workers enslaved by warlords.

Organisations Involved — Circulor

Use-Case 5 — With Volvo’s plan to switch 50% of their car production to EVs by 2025 and 10–20kg of cobalt required per car battery, both mining and recycling sources of cobalt are critical to their success.

Circulor had developed a tracking solution on Oracle Blockchain Platform, based on Hyperledger Fabric. The solution integrates identity, GPS, yield, and mass-balance calculations to ensure that only safe and sustainable sources of cobalt make it through the extensive supply chain involving the large battery suppliers, their recycling ecosystem, logistics vendors, and Volvo cars manufacturing facilities.

Organisations Involved — Circulor, Oracle, Volvo

Use-Case 6 — Creating a digital token for each unit of plastic waste that is collected and tracked. This token is used to record every step of the recycling process, from collection to sorting, washing, and eventually turning the waste into reusable plastic pellets. Each time the plastic waste moves through a new step in the process, it is scanned and the information is recorded on the blockchain. This enables all parties involved in the recycling process to have full transparency into where the plastic waste came from and what happened to it at each step in the process. This transparency can help build trust and ensure that the plastic waste is being recycled responsibly.

Organisations Involved — Wipro

Financial Services

Use-Case 1 — Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has launched a live retail CBDC called “DCash” using Hyperledger Fabric. The DCash involves the secure minting of a digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar (DCash) as legal tender. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) is the monetary authority of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), and is the sole authority to mint, issue, and redeem DCash.

Organisations Involved — BITT

Use-Case 2 — Streamline cross-border transactions, and simplify paperwork-intensive activities. Using Fabric, the China Construction bank processed over $140 billion worth of transactions and decreased settlement time from two days to ten minutes.

Organisations Involved — China Construction Bank

Use-Case 3 — Bank guarantees are often required when organizations rent properties, ensuring that the rent will be paid even if the tenant cannot. The Lygon platform digitizes the process, which has several advantages, such as improved speed and resiliency.

Organisations Involved — ANZ Bank, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Use-Case 4 — Using CBDC to settle French treasury bond (OAT) transactions. Blockchain offers the potential to reduce settlement cycles to T+1 and potentially T+0. With custodians as blockchain wallet managers, it’s possible to remove the need for reconciliation yielding major cost savings.

Organisations Involved — Agence France Trésor (AFT), BNP Paribas CIB, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, Societe Generale

Use-Case 5 — Provide secure and transparent financial services, such as asset tokenization, fund management, and trading. IntainMarkets, allows individuals and organizations to easily tokenize their assets, such as real estate or artwork, and trade them in a secure and decentralized way. This can help to increase liquidity, reduce costs, and streamline transactions.

Organisations Involved — Intain

Use-Case 6 — Allow external asset manager and custodian banks to optimize their data sharing processes in an ultra-secure way in order to radically improve their compliance workflows. Wecan Comply simplifies exchanges between independent managers and custodian banks.It improves data accuracy, control efficiency in a fully secured environment and in real time.

Organisations Involved — WeCan Comply

Use-Case 7 — The Central Bank of Nigeria launched a live CBDC in October 2021 on Hyperledger Fabric under the Project name “GIANT.” Two applications were made available to citizens, the eNaira speed wallet and eNaira merchant wallet. By November 2021, there were already 600k app downloads and more than $1.2M USD minted in late November 2021. The main objectives for launching a digital Naira were to improve the availability and access to central bank money, tax and revenue collection, support a resilient payments system, enable efficient welfare distribution, and facilitate remittances and cross border payments.

Organisations Involved — Central Bank of Nigeria

Use-Case 8 — Enable the electronic exchange of tax forms within the European Union. The initial application involved the digital transformation of the Long Term Supplier Declaration (LTSD) form, which verifies the materials and country of origin for products or materials. Currently, over 80% of these forms are processed manually on paper, leading to potential errors and the risk of intentional fraud each year. However, with both the buyer and seller adopting the new system, the entire form can be completed in a matter of minutes. Additionally, this transition has reduced the cost of completing a single tax form by 75%, decreasing it from €120 to €30.

Organisations Involved — KrypC, SIEMENS, Henkel

Trade Finance

Hyperledger Fabric is employed in trade finance to streamline and automate processes such as letters of credit, bills of lading, and customs documentation. It helps reduce delays, errors, and fraud in international trade transactions.

Use-Case 1 — UAE Trade Connect (UTC), a trade finance platform, aims to de-risk trade finance transactions in the banking and financial sector. UTC is built through a co-creation approach with a consortium of 9 banks. With more banks already planning to join the platform, UTC intends to soon become the national trade platform, paving the way for other trading actors to enter the network. Since the go-live, UAE Trade connect processed invoices valued at over AED 43 billion ($11.7 billion).

Organisations Involved — Avanza Innovations

Use-Case 2 — Replace manual processes and enable participants in worldwide supply chains to collectively expedite the digitalization of the shipping sector. It offers a range of solutions to address major challenges in the industry, such as cargo release, trade finance, and bills of lading. Since its introduction between March 2021 and September 2022, Cargo Release has been employed by more than 10,000 customers to receive instant updates on over 1 million shipments. GSBN is capable of handling more than 100 transactions per second, resulting in a substantial enhancement of container turnaround times, thus diminishing port congestion and environmental impact.

Organisations Involved — GSBN

Healthcare Data Management

Fabric ensures secure and efficient sharing of healthcare data among stakeholders, including hospitals, clinics, insurers, and patients. It enhances data integrity, access control, and interoperability in healthcare systems.

Use-Case 1 — Scientists around the world depend on data sourced from various national and international health organizations. However, can they consistently have confidence in the accuracy and dependability of the data they acquire and reference in their research? HACERA has introduced the MiPasa.com data aggregation and analytics platform, which places a strong emphasis on validating the source of datasets and safeguarding them against unauthorized alterations using blockchain technology. This platform securely stores the dataset’s hash, the digital signature of its originator, and pertinent metadata for subsequent retrieval and validation.

Organisations Involved — Hacera, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft

Use-Case 2 — Through IBM Health Pass, individuals have the capability to securely share their health data, including vaccination records, test results, and medical documents, with trusted entities like healthcare providers, employers, and travel authorities. This approach ensures the information’s integrity and eliminates the risk of tampering. As a result, it simplifies various healthcare-related procedures such as scheduling medical appointments, processing insurance claims, and meeting travel prerequisites. The primary objective of IBM Health Pass is to empower individuals with enhanced control over their health information, strengthen privacy and security measures, and promote more efficient and dependable healthcare procedures.

Organisations Involved — IBM

Digital Identity

Fabric is used to build decentralized identity solutions. It provides individuals with control over their personal data and enables them to share it securely with trusted parties. Fabric-based identity systems are valuable in applications like identity verification, access control, and KYC (Know Your Customer) processes.

Use-Case 1 — Verified.Me serves as a network for digital identity verification. It assists in authenticating users’ digital identities by utilizing personal information that users willingly agree to disclose to trusted entities, including their financial institutions, governmental organizations, and service providers they intend to engage with.

Organisations Involved — SecureKey Technologies, Inc., Avast, BMO, CIBC, Desjardins, National Bank of Canada, RBC, Scotiabank and TD.

Use-Case 2 — Safely receive, manage and share the academic and extra-curricular accomplishments via unique links, multiple platforms and social media.

Organisations Involved — EduChain, Niftify, Repton

Use-Case 3 — Provide a secure and transparent way of verifying credentials and certificates, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses etc., on a blockchain network.

Organisations Involved — Infosys

Use-Case 4 — A Digital credential verification platform that allows users to create digital credentials for various qualifications, such as degrees, certifications, and diplomas, and store them on the blockchain. These credentials can be shared with employers, educational institutions, or any other third-party who needs to verify them.

Organisations Involved — SnapCert

Cross-Border Payments

Fabric facilitates cross-border payments by ensuring secure and transparent transactions between financial institutions and across borders. It reduces the cost and time involved in international money transfers.

Use-Case 1 — Project Aber was a joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) trial conducted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabian central banks. The project aimed to explore the feasibility and potential benefits of using CBDCs in cross-border transactions between the two countries. It resulted in faster settlement times and increased transparency.

Organisations Involved — IBM, Central Bank of Saudi Arabia, Central Bank of UAE

Energy Trading

In the energy sector, Fabric is utilized for managing and tracking the generation, distribution, and trading of energy resources. It enables transparent and auditable energy transactions in a complex grid network.

Use-Case 1 — Pebbles aims to develop a digital platform for regional energy trading and demonstrate local electricity markets business potential. It aspires to use Blockchain infrastructure to enable private energy producers to sell their electricity to local consumers without involving any traditional operators.

Organisations Involved — SIEMENS, Allgäuer Überlandwerk, AllgäuNetz, University of Applied Sciences at Kempten, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology.

Food Safety and Traceability

Fabric is employed in the food industry to enhance food safety and traceability. It allows consumers to verify the origin of food products, enabling faster recalls in case of contamination or safety issues.

Use-Case 1 — IBM Food Trust is a collaborative network of growers, processors, wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers, retailers, and others, enhancing visibility and accountability across the food supply chain. IBM Food Trust is used across a wide range of actors along global food supply chains. Examples include

Walmart’s Food Traceability Initiatives (e.g., tracking mangoes in US stores and pork in China stores) brought significant improvements. In the case of pork in China, it introduced the ability to upload certificates of authenticity to the blockchain, addressing trust issues in the system. As for mangoes in the US, the time required to trace their origin plummeted from 7 days to a mere 2.2 seconds.
Farmer Connect, in collaboration with Nova Coffee (a woman-owned coffee processor working with 2,880 local small-scale farmers in Rwanda), launched FarmerID. This innovative platform has successfully recorded and verified data from 80 farmers on the blockchain. As a result, consumers purchasing coffee can now easily verify if the farmers behind their coffee have received fair compensation and whether the coffee was predominantly produced by female farmers.

Organisations Involved — Walmart, IBM

Use-Case 2 — Chocolate4all Project aims towards sustainable farming in Honduras. It ensures that all parties involved in the supply chain can share data in a secure and decentralized manner, reducing the risk of fraud and ensuring that cocoa farmers receive fair compensation for their products.

Organisations Involved — IBM, Heifer International

Smart Contracts for Legal Agreements

Fabric’s smart contracts (chaincode) enable the automation of legal agreements and contracts. It ensures that the terms and conditions of contracts are executed automatically when predefined conditions are met.

Use-Case — By converting PDFs and Word documents into “smart documents,” DriveChain permits the extraction of data in mere seconds, thereby improving data processing efficiency and document review accuracy.

Organisations Involved — Hogan Lovells, BNP Paribas, Integra Ledger

Real Estate and Land Registry

Fabric can be used for digitizing land titles, property records, and real estate transactions. It enhances transparency and reduces fraud in real estate deals and property management.

Use-Case — Digital Transformation of Abu Dhabi’s Land Registry

Organisations Involved — Tech Mahindra

Insurance and Claims Processing

Insurers use Fabric to streamline the claims process, reducing paperwork and fraud. It enables quicker and more transparent settlements.

Use-Case 1 — Allianz developed a system to simplify the process of filing international motor insurance claims, which has now been implemented across 23 European subsidiaries. This solution targets the simplification of self-insurance or captive insurance policies, which are often intricate due to their coverage of multiple jurisdictions. Blockchain technology creates a unified record for each claim decision, resulting in reduced time and cost associated with administrative tasks and expediting the settlement process.

Organisations Involved — Allianz

Use-Case 2 — Traditional insurance systems require insured customers to present their physical card at the clinic, mail-in their medical receipts and claims for approval, followed by complicated administrative duties and time-consuming settlement procedures that many detest. Built on Hyperledger Fabric, MediConCen’s solution is the first blockchain medical ecosystem in Hong Kong, aimed at liberalizing the walled network to enhance the expected medical coverage, as well as greatly relieving clerical duties.

With MediConCen’s solution, patients can display their unique QR code at clinics, enabling digital signatures and smart contracts to automate the claims process. This eliminates the need for mail-in medical receipts and tedious administrative duties. The platform provides transparency and efficiency to all stakeholders, with comprehensive general ledgers and encrypted personal data ensuring security and privacy.

Organisations Involved — MediConCen

Intellectual Property Rights

Fabric can be used for tracking and protecting intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, and trademarks. It enhances the transparency of IP ownership and transactions.

Use-Case — IPwe’s Smart Intangible Asset Platform (SIAM) is designed to address known issues in the IP space, such as disparate and confusing data, inefficiency, and the inability to transact or leverage patents for value realization. The solution involves standardizing and consolidating patent data into NFTs, enabling efficient microtransactions of patent assets through smart contracts, and providing a verified evidence trail for legal auditing.

Organisations Involved — IPwe, CasperLabs

These use cases demonstrate the versatility and adaptability of Hyperledger Fabric in addressing various industry-specific challenges.

Hyperledger Fabric for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)

Hyperledger Fabric has been explored for CBDC-related initiatives:

Singapore

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) actively explored blockchain technology, including Hyperledger Fabric, for its Project Ubin, which focuses on CBDC development and cross-border payments.

Nigeria

The Hyperledger Fabric variant of the DLT has been adopted for eNaira, Nigeria’s digital currency. This lets Central Bank of Nigeria gain the capability to efficiently support and oversee the wallets associated with the eNaira.

Japan

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) and the European Central Bank (ECB) replicated the liquidity saving mechanisms utilized in the BOJ-NET and TARGET2 systems (which are the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems of the two central banks) into a publicly available DLT application, Hyperledger Fabric version 0.6.1. Subsequently, a series of tests were conducted to evaluate the performance and viability of the replicated functionalities. The project was named ‘Stella’ and findings of phase 1 are published in the report here.

The islands of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has launched a live retail CBDC called “DCash” using Hyperledger Fabric. The DCash involves the secure minting of a digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar (DCash) as legal tender. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) is the monetary authority of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU), and is the sole authority to mint, issue, and redeem DCash.

DCash was the first central bank digital currency to be introduced in a currency union. DCash is government issued and pegged to the national currency, making it more immune from the speculation that has roiled other digital assets like Bitcoin and Luna.

Hyperledger Fabric for Cross Border Remittances

China

China Construction Bank uses Hyperledger Fabric to streamline cross-border transactions, and simplify paperwork-intensive activities. Using Fabric, the bank processed over $140 billion worth of transactions and decreased settlement time from two days to ten minutes.

Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates (UAE)

In 2019, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) collaborated on a joint endeavor known as Project Aber. This project aimed to assess the capabilities of Digital Currency and Distributed Ledger technology, with a specific focus on transforming cross-border payments between the two countries. As part of this initiative, a unique digital currency was introduced by both nations, designed for settlement purposes among commercial banks within their respective jurisdictions as well as across borders.

Hyperledger Fabric — Latest Released Version(As on Oct 2023)

Hyperledger Fabric’s latest version v2.5.4 was released on August 2, 2023. The new feature enabled purging the history of private data from a peer while preserving a hash of the private data as immutable evidence on the blockchain. It is useful for purging private data on demand for privacy reasons or to adhere to government regulations.

Hyperledger Fabric Future Ecosystem

The hyperledger community supports the LTS releases, provides bug fixes, and ensures backward data compatibility. With new folks getting acquianted with Hyperledger fabric, the community and its adoption is going every year.

Hyperledger has found several use-cases that are live across different geographies and industries. As cross-chain communication becomes more important in the blockchain space, Hyperledger Fabric might work on protocols and standards to facilitate interoperability with other blockchain networks. Future versions of Hyperledger Fabric may include optimizations to increase transaction throughput and reduce latency further.