TUCSON, Ariz.–A blockchain initiative that is backed by CUNA, the Mountain West Credit Union Association and numerous credit unions will have a live demonstration next week.
Called CULedger, the CU-backed effort will have a demonstration of its proof-of-concept during an event here on May 9. Rick Cranston of the Mountain West CU Association gave a demonstration of CULedger last month.
CUNA introduced CULedger in 2016.
CUNA also noted that a distributed ledger—custom built for independent digital identity projects by the Sovrin Foundation—has been accepted into incubation under Hyperledger, a collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.
“Trust defines the relationships that credit unions have with their members,” said Jim Nussle, CUNA president/CEO. “The CULedger initiative’s purpose is to leverage blockchain technology to provide credit unions and their members with innovative, cutting-edge products and services. Sovrin’s identity service will help credit unions safeguard their members’ identity and personal data, which is absolutely critical to maintaining that trust. Having Indy incubated by Hyperledger is a major validation of CULedger’s leadership in this exciting new industry.”
In a statement, CUNA said the project, Hyperledger Indy, is designed to give people, organizations and things control over their digital identities while giving the enterprise new solutions to the digital identity challenges. Hyperledger Indy’s code base enables creating and managing decentralized, self-sovereign identities using distributed ledgers. It also provides a robust cross-ledger identity management capability to other incubated projects such as Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth, Corda and others, CUNA explained.
Hyperledger Indy offers tools, libraries, and reusable components for providing digital identities rooted on blockchains or other distributed ledgers.
According to CUNA, the Sovrin Foundation, being incubated within Hyperledger means Indy will attract more developers who want to take advantage of digital identity that is decentralized, self-sovereign and independent of any silo. This joint effort will result in accelerated development to solve digital identity challenges that span not just the different Hyperledger projects, but any device, application, domain, or service on the Internet, CUNA explained, adding that the digital identities are designed to give people and organizations an increased ability to exchange and verify identity information easily, securely and privately.
Implementations of Indy can be deployed within a single enterprise or community, across an ecosystem of partners, or for the Internet as a whole—the latter being the purpose of the Sovrin ledger as a global public utility for independent identity, CUNA explained.