IBM, India's Tata join U.S. tech platform's governing council
12/08/2019 13:00
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuters) - International Business Machines
Corp IBM.N and Tata Communications TATA.NS have joined the
governing council of Hedera Hashgraph, a distributed public
ledger platform that aims to be faster and runs at a larger
scale than current blockchain technologies, a top official at
Hedera said.
Backed by Digital Currency Group and hedge fund BlockTower
Capital, Hedera raised $124 million in August last year amid a
slumping cryptocurrency market.
While digital currencies took a hit last year following
intense global regulatory scrutiny, blockchain developments
within companies continued. Cryptocurrencies though made a huge
comeback earlier this year, led by bitcoin BTC=BTSP , which has
soared more than 200% so far in 2019.
Hedera's governing council is crucial to its success, Leemon
Baird, the company's co-founder and chief scientist, told
Reuters in an interview. Hedera aims to have 39 members of the
governing council. Aside from IBM and Tata, the other members
include Nomura Co Ltd 9716.T and Deutsche Telekom AG
DTEGn.DE .
All members of the Hedera governing council have equal say
in approving updates to the Hedera platform codebase and in
setting policies for the many nodes that will constitute
Hedera's decentralized network.
"The members of the governing council are the actual owners
of the company. They aren't just advisers. They are Hedera,"
said Baird. "Hedera is an LLC (limited liability company) that
is split 39 ways -- 39 companies own it, control it, and make
all the decision."
Council members, however, serve a maximum of two consecutive
three-year terms and act as stewards of the platform.
In a statement commenting on joining Hedera's governing
council, Jerry Cuomo, vice president of blockchain technologies
at IBM, said IBM is interested in exploring "the relationships
between public networks and industry-specific networks."
A year after Hedera raised financing from institutional
investors and high net worth individuals, Baird said it has been
fine-tuning its platform. It plans to open the platform to the
public later in the summer.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
((gertrude.chavez@thomsonreuters.com; 646-223-6322; Reuters
Messaging: rm://gertrude.chavez.reuters.com@reuters.net))