Originally posted on http://www.vmware.com by Eloy Ontiveros

To drive enterprise adoption of Ethereum, VMware launched VMware Blockchain for Ethereum, available in beta. Two months since its debut, 100 customers are participating in the beta program. Today, VMware is announcing new enterprise features for an upcoming VMware Blockchain for Ethereum beta release. Additionally, VMware is announcing strategic customer Tel Aviv Stock Exchange as well as new integrations with Fireblocks and Web3 Labs – who are innovating with VMware’s Ethereum compatible blockchain platform.  

Blockchain technology provides a revolutionary business transformation opportunity for enterprises by allowing them to build distributed network ecosystems, multi-party applications, and digital asset experiences. VMware Blockchain for Ethereum builds upon VMware’s enterprise blockchain platform for businesses to easily build, efficiently operate, and quickly scale Ethereum-based blockchain networks. It also gives customers flexibility and choice by adding Ethereum support in addition to its existing support for the Daml smart contract language.

“The strong response to VMware Blockchain’s Ethereum beta launch is a testament to the vision we set as a company: To bring enterprise-grade blockchain technology to the largest companies and brands on the planet. We are proud to have leaders like the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Fireblocks, Web3 Labs on this journey with us,”

Kit Colbert, Chief Technology Officer, VMware.

Customer Co-Innovation

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israel’s Ministry of Finance will prepare for the issuance of government bonds on a new blockchain platform. Project Eden is a pilot issuance of digital government bonds by digital-asset technology leaders, VMware and Fireblocks.

“The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is proud to collaborate with VMware and Fireblocks to build a globally recognized digital asset exchange to issue and trade tokenized government bonds and other digital assets in the future. The transformational platform will be based on leading blockchain, smart contract and tokenization technologies. We chose VMware Blockchain as proven blockchain foundation to exceed stringent enterprise requirements and scale TASE’s 5-year strategic plan. The platform is expected to benefit the exchange, its custodians, and their clients by reducing costs, shortening the periods of time involved in the issuance and clearing of government bonds, increasing transparency, and reducing risk,”

Orly Grinfeld, EVP Head of Clearing at Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Ecosystem Integrations

VMware is pleased to announce two new strategic integrations with VMware Blockchain for Ethereum customers to leverage to quickly build end-to-end solutions.

Fireblocks, is an award-winning digital asset and crypto technology platform used by over 1,500 customers. Fireblocks supports VMware Blockchain for Ethereum for institutional grade, digital asset issuance, exchange and custody.  

“Leveraging the technical and security expertise of Fireblocks and VMware, regulated financial institutions such as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange may safely issue, store, and transfer digital assets without jeopardizing operational efficiency for customers and trading teams,” said Michael Shaulov, Chief Executive Officer at Fireblocks. “As the world continues to become increasingly digitized, it’s critical to have a trusted, dependable and scalable technology layer so that enterprise clients may onboard their digital asset operations at scale across fast-growing markets.”

Web3 Labs is a leading web3 and blockchain technology and strategy company specializing in solutions for enterprise. Their Web3j library makes it easy to build Ethereum applications with the Java platform. Since its inception in 2016 it has been downloaded over two million times and is widely used across a number of enterprise blockchain initiatives from building next generation financial markets infrastructure to identity platforms. Along with their Eprirus data and analytics platform, which is coming to VMware Blockchain, Web3j provides key infrastructure to integrate blockchain networks with enterprise.

“We are enormously excited to partner with VMware, a world-class software brand to drive enterprise adoption of the Ethereum technology stack. VMware Blockchain for Ethereum supports Web3j out of the box. This allows java developers to work with Ethereum blockchains, without the additional overhead of having to write your own integration code for the platform. We look forward to deepening integrations with VMware Blockchain in the future,”

Conor Svensson, Founder and CEO of Web3 Labs and Best-Selling Author of The Blockchain Innovators Handbook.

What’s New in Upcoming Beta Release

Built for enterprise use cases, VMware Blockchain for Ethereum is an EVM compatible platform that will provide high throughput performance, unique ZKP-based programmable privacy capabilities, enterprise-grade operations, and governance features.

In the next beta release (1) , VMware continues to address enterprise Ethereum gaps with two new features:

Privacy SDK

The beta release will introduce a Privacy SDK enabling developers to build and test an end-to-end private token transfer dApp. The SDK consists of a client-side Zero Knowledge Proof library that interacts with on-chain Solidity token contracts using standard JavaScript integration libraries such as Ethersjs or Web3js. The token contracts can be modified to change token details, token supply and privacy budgets. The SDK enables generation of Zero Knowledge proofs, and the on-chain token contracts leverage pre-compiled contract code to perform proof validation. With this approach, the complexity of Zero Knowledge Proof cryptography is abstracted from developers, enabling them to focus on the dApp and token design.

Governance Controls

VMware’s approach is to leverage both smart contract-based governance actions for controlling network membership as well as a powerful BFT reconfiguration framework. That allows for upgrades, key management, adding/removing consensus members, and other operational tasks to be performed in a trusted and authenticated manner (i.e., operations performed with byzantine trust guarantees by a set of untrusting operators). Together, these approaches will provide enterprise customers with rich, yet easy-to-use governance capabilities that address most enterprise requirements.

The beta supports standard Ethereum APIs, commonly used development tools such as Truffle, Hardhat, Remix, Web3j, Ethersjs and wallets like MetaMask and Fireblocks to enable a seamless developer experience. To get started quickly, Solidity developers can deploy the new VMware Blockchain for Ethereum Developer Kit on their local machine or on a Linux VM on any cloud platform.

Join the Beta Program

Customers interested in joining the VMware Blockchain for Ethereum beta program, click here to register. Visit our blog for more information on VMware Blockchain for Ethereum, click here.

(1) The next beta release of VMware Blockchain for Ethereum is expected in VMware’s Q4 FY23.

Jens Koegler

Jens Koegler is VMware's Healthcare Industry Director in EMEA. He is helping our healthcare customers develop and run modern applications to drive innovation and ensure better patient care through a digital foundation that includes data center, hybrid cloud, mobile, networking and security technologies. VMware plays a strategic role in the healthcare industry. Its leading innovations in enterprise software help ensure consistent patient care and reduce IT access time for healthcare professionals so they can spend more time with their patients. Jens plays a key role in helping customers understand how new applications, devices, the latest IT technologies and digital transformation are driving innovation in healthcare.