IBM and Intel's Brewing Blockchain Tug-of-War

When the governing board of Hyperledger approved a new supply chain project earlier this month, it marked a significant departure for the open-source blockchain consortium.

It's built on top of the Sawtooth framework, which Intel contributed to Hyperledger.

Prior to this, Hyperledger confined its work to the lower layers and eschewed the custom-design of blockchain application code with industry players in mind.

The approval of Sawtooth Supply Chain as a high-level project massively heightens its profile and means it enters Hyperledger's formal project lifecycle and receives the support which goes along with that.

From the sidelines of the enterprise blockchain world, it looks like a tug-of-war has broken out, with IBM and its favored Hyperledger implementation, known as Fabric, on the one side, and the Intel-backed Sawtooth on the other.

While IBM argues that putting Hyperledger's imprimatur on an app-level project could undermine the consortium's position as a neutral player, others characterized the tech giant's resistance to the proposal as an attempt to stifle competition.

Choosing his words carefully, TSC chair Middleton told CoinDesk that part of his job is to ensure diversity within Hyperledger and to retain those strengths from which blockchain gains its preeminence.

Rather than be elevated to a top-level project, Sawtooth Supply Chain, in his opinion, should have been placed in Hyperledger Labs.

"In Fabric, we are about 40 percent of that total. I mean, it used to be 100 percent. So the number is constantly coming down. Yes, IBM is very committed to the success of Hyperledger. But by the same token, we are also trying not to be overbearing in that investment," said Ferris.

Elsewhere at last week's Hyperledger Forum in Basel, Switzerland, some important members of the community took the opportunity to show their respect to IBM. Casey Kuhlman, CEO of Monax, said the fact that the Sawtooth Supply Chain project has been brought under the auspices of Hyperledger speaks for itself; despite misgivings, IBM ultimately did not stand in the project's way, he said, adding that in his opinion Big Blue has behaved like a "Very reasonable member of the community."