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Description
Keynote: State of Blockchain - Christopher Ferris, Distinguished Engineer & CTO of Open Technology, IBM
About Christopher Ferris
An IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO Open Technology in the IBM Cloud organization, Christopher has been involved in the architecture, design, and engineering of distributed systems for most of his 37+ year career in IT and has been actively engaged in open standards and open source development since 1999. He has technical responsibility for all of IBM's strategic open source and standards initiatives, including OpenStack, Cloud Foundry, Hyperledger Project, Open Container Initiative, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Mesos, Node.js and Docker. He represents IBM on the Hyperledger Governance Board, is a Maintainer of the Hyperledger Fabric project and chairs of the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee.
A
As
I
talked
earlier,
you
know
watching
technology
is
really
at
its
base
in
terms
of
what
the
idea
means
sort
of
redefining
the
internet
of
trust.
You
know
how
do
you
in
a
distributed
non
aggregated
way,
establish
trusted
transactions
on
the
Internet?
Really,
you
know
if
you
look
whether
it's
Bitcoin
or
aetherium
or
hyper
ledger.
This
is
really
changing
a
lot
of
the
ways
that
we
will
transact
with
each
other
in
the
future
and
here
to
give
us
an
update
on
the
blockchain
landscape.
A
B
So
morning
everybody
so
I'm
gonna
talk
about
the
state
of
blockchain
at
the
Linux
Foundation
and
as
Jim
mentioned
I'm
CTO
for
open
tech
at
IBM
and
according
to
Todd,
that
means
chief
travel
officer.
I
was
actually
an
Amsterdam
yesterday
morning
attending
a
hackathon
over
the
weekend.
So
if
I
fall
over
and
a
fit
of
narcolepsy,
you
know
don't
just
just
give
me
a
kick
and
wake
me
up
so
watching
what
is
it?
Well,
essentially,
you
know
you
know
this
technology
is
has
been
around
for
a
few
years.
B
It
was
actually
sort
of
inspired
by
a
guy
named
Satoshi,
Satoshi
Nakamoto,
who
invented
blockchain
or
actually
applied,
blockchain
I
should
say
an
event
at
a
protocol
called
Bitcoin
a
cryptocurrency.
Now
people
have
been
since
that
time.
People
have
been
trying
to
figure
out
well.
Could
we
apply
this
technology
to
various
other
use
cases
such
as
in
finance,
not
just
for
a
cryptocurrency
purposes,
but
to
facilitate
in
healthcare
right?
You
could
use
blockchain
technology
to
securely
transmit.
B
You
know
things
like
you
know,
drug
dispensing
activity
at
a
hospital
to
ensure
that
that
can't
be
tampered
with
and
then
supply
chain.
You
know
think
about
supply
chain,
transparency,
understanding.
Where
did
you
get
these
potatoes
that
went
into
your
Patino
into
your
french
fries
and,
and
we
have
the
ability
to
think
about
how
we
might
instrument
all
these
different
types
of
activities
in
essentially
antagonistic
type
environments,
and
yet
know
that
the
information
can
be
trusted
that
everybody
actually
shares
the
same
copy
of
information?
This
is
essentially
what
block
chain
of
distributed.
B
Ledger's
are
all
about.
Now,
as
I
mentioned,
you
know
before
we
started
the
hyper
ledger
project
last
year
and
in
fact
it
was
almost
exactly
a
year
ago
this
week
that
we
launched
the
foundation
the
technologies
that
were
available,
many
of
them
open
source,
but
here's
the
problem,
many
of
them
had
limited
throughput,
so
Bitcoin,
for
instance,
Bitcoin
can
sustain
about
a
grand
total
of
seven
transactions,
a
second
whoo-hoo,
so
anybody
who's
been
working
on
any
kind
of
enterprise
systems
know
that
ain't
gonna
cut
it
for
just
about
anything
right.
B
It
was
designed
for
cryptocurrency,
and
this
is
something
that
actually
freaked
out
a
lot
of
the
enterprise
CTOs
and
so
forth
that
we're
starting
to
think
about
how
they
might
apply
this
technology
in
their
enterprise,
cryptocurrency
I
mean
essentially
was
designed
by
anarchists
right,
and
so
you
know
the
bank
and
to
disrupt
banking
in
particular,
and
so
the
banks
aren't
going
to
go
down
the
path
of
embracing
Bitcoin,
poor
governance
right.
This
is
a
you
know.
B
This
is
inherent
in
something
like
you
know:
the
Dow
attacked
that
happen
late
last
year,
actually,
where
somebody
actually
got
in,
and
you
know
that
they
had
set
up
and
established
this
distributed
autonomous
organization
where
the
software,
the
smart
contract,
essentially
was
the
governance
for
this
community.
This
distributed
community
and
there
was
a
known
bug
in
the
smart
contract
and
some
guy
exploited
it
and
started
draining
money
out
of
the
account
of
the
the
etherium
foundation
to
the
tune
of
about
50
million
dollars.
B
Now
you
could
say
ethically
whether
or
not
that
was
a
right
or
wrong
thing
to
do,
but
it
was
legal
right
and
so
then
you
have
this
problem
that
the
rest
of
the
people
in
the
Commuter
like
well,
that
was
bad.
He
shouldn't
do
that.
Let's,
let's
vote
him
off
the
island,
and
so
they
effectively
did
that
and
they
forked
and
now
there's
two
different
communities,
that's
sort
of
the
classic
and
the
the
next
generation.
B
But
again
there
was
no
real
decision
beforehand
about
well.
How
do
we
handle
the
dispute
like
that?
Where
somebody
legally
takes
advantage
of
some
loophole
or
a
bug
in
the
software
right
and
figures
out
well,
how
are
we
going
to
manage
that?
How
are
we
going
to
manage
any
kind
of
dispute
resolution
around
something
like
barching?
B
We
have
for
most
of
the
technologies
that
were
available.
There
was
no
real
privacy.
There
was
anonymity
right,
but
there
wasn't
really
privacy
and
confidentiality.
So
you
know
if,
if
we're
exchanging
information
universally
well,
if
I'm
to
financial
institutions
and
I'm
trading
bonds
or
other
kinds
of
instruments,
I
don't
necessarily
want
anybody
to
know
what
I'm
doing
just
the
two
of
us,
Todd
and
I
should
be
the
only
two
that
understand
what
we're
trading
and
Jim
should
have.
B
No
idea
right,
because,
if
Jim
finds
out,
the
Todd
and
I
are
trading
on
IBM
he's
gonna
either
go
buy
and
sell
IBM
right.
So
we
need
to
have
that
and
again,
if
we're
going-
and
you
heard
what
Bruce
said
earlier,
if
we're
gonna
rely
exclusively
on
cryptography
and
encryption
to
provide
confidentiality
well,
most
banks,
most
financial
institutions
are
just
just
unwilling
to
go
down
that
path,
so
we
need
better
solutions
for
confidentiality
and
privacy.
B
Now,
again,
most
of
the
technologies
have
been
designed
for
this
sort
of
permissionless
environment,
where
anybody
can
join
right
and
they
join
anonymously
right,
and
that
was
actually
a
problem
for
most
enterprises.
They
want
to
have
a
network
that
people
understand
that
they
understand
who
is
involved,
something
we
call
a
permission
to
network
where
it's,
basically
by
invitation
and
we
can
build.
B
You
know
we
can
construct
a
governance
model,
maybe
a
legal
framework
for
how
we're
going
to
deal
with
dispute
resolution
within
the
confines
of
this
particular
private
network,
something
we
call
a
consortium
network
and
again,
as
I
mentioned,
there
was
really
no
settlement
finality
in
a
lot
of
these
systems,
because
you
can
indeed
and
in
that
in
the
Bitcoin
world
or
in
etherium,
as
we
saw
with
the
Dow,
you
can
permanently
Fork.
And
so,
therefore,
there
is
the
potential
that,
if
somebody
doesn't
like
the
outcome,
they
could
convince
everybody
else.
B
Will
this
all
go
this
way
instead?
So
that
was
the
problem
again.
This
is
a
technology
that
is
essentially
perfect
for
open
source
right,
it's
potentially
very
revolutionary.
We
don't
want
to
have
any
one
player
in
the
ecosystem
that
controls
all
of
it.
We
don't
want
it
to
be
monetized
only
by
an
IV
amber
somebody
like
that.
B
We
want
it
to
be
used
universally
by
multiple
parties.
It
requires
special
skills
and
it
requires
a
diverse
set
of
special
skills
right.
You
have
to
have
deep
cryptocurrency
to
crack
cryptographic,
capabilities,
deep
understanding
of
distributed
computing,
containerization
databases,
database,
query,
engines
and
so
forth.
There's
a
whole
lot
of
different
disciplines
that
are
required
to
build
this
technology
effectively
and
it
needed
a
strong
governance
model.
B
So
you
know
I
about
a
year
ago
or
next
year
and
a
half
ago,
I
gave
Jim
a
call
and
said:
hey
we're
thinking
of
doing
this,
and
he
was
like
this
is
like
this
is
perfect.
This
is
the
perfect
project,
so
we
established
the
hyper
ledger,
project
or
organization.
Almost
exactly
your
this
week
and
again,
it's
the
intent
is
to
develop
open
source
for
blockchain
and
distributed
ledger
technologies,
hosted
obviously
by
the
Linux
Foundation,
and
it
would
be
a
global
initiative
right
and
in
fact
it's
it's.
B
Sort
of
came
with
this
notion
that
this
isn't
just
about
one
project
or
even
just
a
couple
of
projects.
We
want
to
create
sort
of
this
umbrella
organization,
where
we're
dealing
with
potentially
bringing
together
all
different,
diverse
approaches
to
how
we
might
solve
this
problem.
Because,
again,
as
I
mentioned,
we
are
trying
to
solve
some
very
difficult
gnarly
problems.
A
lot
of
the
consensus
research
that's
going
on
today
is
really
sort
of
bleeding
edge
right.
B
Nobody
really
knows
how
are
we
going
to
get
past
seven
transactions,
a
second
to
get
to
the
scale
of
this
technology?
That's
going
to
be
usable
and
useful
to
enterprises
that
are
trying
to
get
to
thousands
of
transactions
per
second
or
even
beyond,
and
so
we've
created
the
hyper
ledger
project
with
this
notion
that
it
is
an
umbrella
organization
where
we're
gonna
have
a
set
of
framework.
B
So
we've
about
three
and
I'll
talk
about
those
in
a
bit
and
then
maybe
we
have
a
number
of
different
other
capabilities
that
we
build
out
around,
whether
it's
tooling
to
help
provision
and
deploy
it
like
cello,
two
to
deploy
chain
code
or
what
we
call.
You
know.
Smart
contract
languages
things
these
are
tools
that
essentially
facilitate
the
use
of
these
other
platforms
and
that's
exactly
what
we've
got
mandala
so
a
year
ago
today
we
hadn't
yet
hired
an
executive
director
and
I
know.
B
Jim
is
really
psyched
about
this,
but
Brian
has
really
been
sort
of
the
perfect
person
to
fit
the
role
of
executive
director
for
the
hyper
ledger,
project
and
I
think
he
actually
travels
more
than
I
do,
which
is
saying
something
but
he's
out
there
really
sort
of
constantly
helping
people
understand
what
we're
doing
and
he's
really
done.
A
fantastic
job
of
growing
the
organization
Blythe
masters,
who
is
a
chief
executive
of
digital
asset
Holdings.
B
B
We
started
out
with
I
think
it
was
11,
Premier
members
and
we're
now
up
to
13
and
I
think
there's
a
few
others
in
the
pipeline,
some
really
interesting
ones.
Most
recently
we
had
Airbus
and
American
Express
join
us
as
premiere
members,
but,
most
importantly,
we've
been
growing
the
general
membership
population
considerably.
B
We
started
with
30,
which
was
in
and
of
itself.
It
was
amazing.
We
started
with
30
we're
now.
Over
a
hundred
and
ten
members
total,
almost
a
hundred
general
members
have
joined
since,
which
is
a
two
hundred
and
seventy
percent
growth,
that's
really
fantastic
and
then
we've
we
established
a
new
class
of
membership
for
associate
members
so
that
we
could
get
other
non
nonprofits
and
and
NGOs
and
and
various
regulatory
bodies
to
come
and
also
participate
in,
join
and
what
we're
doing
there,
and
so
actually,
this
afternoon,
Brian
gives
his
talk
on
hyper
ledger.
B
He's
going
to
talk
a
little
bit
about
sovereign
and
the
role
that
they're
going
to
help
play
in
a
setting
up
some
identity
work
in
the
hyper
ledger
project.
You
know
from
a
marketing
perspective,
it's
been
a
huge
hit.
It's
really
garnered
a
whole
lot
of
attention,
surprising
amount
actually
with
about
600
or
more
hits
in
any
given
month.
I
mentioned
that
we
had
seventy
percent
growth.
This
just
blows
my
mind
because,
actually
you
know
the
the
largest
open
source
foundation,
which
is
open,
stack,
didn't
grow
this
fast.
B
So
that's
just
something
to
sort
of
keep.
In
the
back
of
your
mind
there
we
now
have
five
top
level
projects
and
I'll
talk
a
little
bit
about
those
149
engineers
contributing
to
these
various
projects.
We've
got
a
diverse
technical
leadership.
You
know
we
started
where
each
of
the
premier
members
got
to
designate
an
individual
to
represent
them
on
a
technical
steering
committee
and
about
halfway
through
the
year
we
said
now
we're
gonna
have
an
election.
B
B
B
We
had
a
member
summit
back
in
December,
which
is
the
first
time
to
bring
the
entire
hyper
layer
community
together
over
a
hundred
different
members,
came
and
participated
in
that
that
was
really
a
quite
a
quite
a
great
event.
From
my
perspective,
it
wasn't
your
typical
conference.
It
was
an
awful
lot
of
sort
of
interaction
out
in
the
hallways
really,
and
it
wasn't
just
about
the
presentations.
It's
really
more
about
the
just
like
this.
This
this
event
here
is
where
it's
really
about
people
getting
together
and
talking
about
where
they're
gonna
go
with
this
stuff.
B
You
know
when
we
started
the
project.
There
was
proposals
from
a
number
of
different
member
of
the
initial
members
of
the
community
to
contribute
various
projects
to
be
worked
on.
Ibm
was
one
of
those
Intel
was
another
and
they
had
something
called
sawtooth
lake,
which
is
a
distributed
ledger
technology
platform.
That's
was
implemented
in
Python
in
Intel
research,
with
the
with
the
intention
of
providing
an
environment
that
you
could
use
to
experiment
with
different
approaches
to
consensus
for
dealing
with
smart
contracts,
so
a
very
flexible
type
thing
and
they
actually
invented
something
called
poet.
B
So
for
those
of
you
who
aren't
deeply
familiar
with
how
Bitcoin
works,
but
it
does
work
on
a
consensus
model,
that's
called
proof
of
work
right
with.
Basically,
you
solve
a
puzzle,
write
something
that's
designed
to
take
about
ten
minutes,
so
you're
gonna
compute
a
hash
basically-
and
it
takes
about
ten
minutes
to
do
this
by
most
computational
sources
and
whoever
gets
it
first
wins
a
Bitcoin
and
they
get
to
mine
a
block.
B
Well,
the
problem
with
that
is,
it's
very
expensive,
generates
a
lot
of
heat
users,
an
awful
lot
of
energy
to
do
this
computation
and
again,
you've
got
thousands
upon
thousands
upon
thousands
of
different
nodes.
All
doing
this
Intel
came
up
with
this
really
great
idea
of
applying
their
trusted
execution
environment.
Sgx.
To
this
notion
that
said
a
proof-of-work,
we
get
a
proof
of
a
elapsed
time
so
we'll
randomized.
B
Essentially
sleep
come
up
with
some
predetermined
time
for
how
long
you're
going
to
wait
before
you
say:
I
won,
oh
no,
I
didn't
sorry,
and
so
they
developed
this
thing
called
poet
out
of
sawtooth
lake
and
then
they've
also
developed
some
interesting
things
around
smart
contracts.
Aroha
is
our
most
recent
addition.
This
was
contributed
by
a
fin
tech,
startup
in
Japan
called
Sri,
Mitsu
and
collaborations
with
some
academic
institutions
in
Japan,
along
with
Hitachi
and
NTT,
and
this
is
sort
of
a
very
simple
sort
of
hyper
ledger
fabric.
B
Atop
of
our
third
platform,
which
is
fabric,
which
was
contributed
by
IBM
and
digital
assets
and
is
probably
the
the
most
active
project
of
the
three.
The
three
the
three
projects
and
again
the
fabric
essentially
is
a
blockchain
distributed.
Ledger
platform
designed
to
the
architectural
II
modular
orsucci
can
substitute
consensus
encryption.
You
can
substitute
the
back-end
data
stores
pretty
much
in
a
plug
in
play
mode
with
the
with
the
intent
of
being
sort
of
truly
enterprise
grade
software.
B
They've
they've
been
working
on,
improving
this
notion
of
proof
of
elapsed,
time
and
they've
actually
sort
of
got
a
version,
two
of
that
that
they
just
predict
introduced
to
the
rest
of
the
community.
Last
month
and
they've
been
working
on
enhanced
performance
again,
the
platform
itself
wasn't
designed
to
be
performing.
It
was
really
designed
for
experimentation,
but
they're.
Finding
that
it
actually
has
use
potentially,
is
something
that
you
might
deploy
in
your
enterprise.
B
Aroha
is
again
their
newest
one.
The
project
was
only
added
in
late
November,
December
timeframe
and
so
they're
working
on
some
improvements
of
their
deployment
using
darker
swarm,
they're
working
on
some
of
the
network
stability.
They
also
have
a
very
unique
approach
to
consensus
and
they're
trying
to
tune
that
and
then
they're
working
also
on
aligning
the
API
is
that
they
use
with
the
hyper
layer
fabric
project
to
improve
the
potential
for
interoperability
and
integration
of
those
two
and
then
finally
fabric.
B
So
that's
you
know,
that's
real
money
and
we're
driving
towards
consolidation
right.
So
we've
been
talking
with
Intel
about
integrating
poet
into
the
hyper
laser
fabric.
We've
been
working
with
Sarah
Mitsu
and
the
community
around
roja
to
integrate
their
api's
so
that
they
can
actually,
instead
of
having
to
have
their
own
unique,
bespoke
back-end,
they
can
apply
their
front-end,
their
client
technology
on
top
of
the
hyper
ledger
fabric
and
then
again,
blockchain
is
looking.