Corporate support for the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is gathering momentum, with 86 new companies adding their weight to the initiative to promote the uptake of Ethereum as the foundation for running smart contracts in Fortune 500 enterprises
The EEA aims to connect Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter experts "to define enterprise-grade software capable of handling the most complex, highly demanding applications".
Initially proposed in late 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a cryptocurrency researcher and programmer, Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality. It has grown increasingly popular among large corporates looking to deploy blockchain technology for a host of internal processes.
JP Morgan, CME Group, BNY Mellon and Banco Santander were among the big banks lending support to the initiative at its launch in February. Three months on and the coalition has now tripled in size, adding 86 new members from across the corporate spectrum.
From the financial sector the membership has been swelled by the arrival of The DTCC, Alpha Point, Broadridge, Rabobank, ING, Mitsubishi UFJ, National Bank of Canada, San Francisco Stock Exchange, State Street Emerging Technologies Center, Taishin Financial Holdings and the Taiwan Fintech Association among others.
Julio Faura, chairman of EEA and head of blockchain r&d at Santander says: “The enthusiasm around EEA is remarkable. Our new members come from varying industries such as pharma, mobile, banking, automotive, management consulting, and hardware as well as the startup community driving innovation."