When Will We See Real-World Solutions? (Part V)

Key Highlights

• Hedera Hashgraph is focused on enterprise solutions of distributed ledger technology (DLT) adoption
• Several large brands, including Nomura, Deutsche Telekom, Swisscom, and DLA Piper are already users of Hashgraph

Listen to the full podcast version of this interview

Transcript of Part V

What’s the road map for you? Testnet, Mainnet, what do we expect to see?

So, we have finished the first round of the community testing. The Mainnet has been live since August.We’re in the process now of preparing for the second round of community testing. At that point, we will open up a network to up to a 100,000 users in the first round, we allow 5000 users, we’ll continue to harden the platform and we expect the platform to go live this summer, there are already more than 300 companies developing products on our test networks. We would expect them to launch roughly the same time or shortly thereafter, but really that’s just a starting point. You know that, that’s a major milestone, no question, but it’s the starting point. Our focus is enterprise, we are the enterprise grade distributed ledger.

It solves the problems that prevent enterprise adoption of public DLT. And what that means is that we approach the market in the same way that software companies approach enterprise software.

And we’re engaging enterprises and precisely the same way. It’s also the case that our council members are each individually have tens of billions of market cap and the best brands in the market, and they’re all going to be users.

Tell me some of the brands and the blue chip companies.

Yeah, the first five that we announced, and we just announced them a few weeks ago: 

• Number one was Nomura. Of course, out of Tokyo, global financial services organization and bank
• Number two, Deutsche Telekom, the largest teleco in Europe
• Number three was Swisscom, blockchain, their blockchain division of Swisscom, another major teleco in Europe 
• Number four was DLA Piper. They are one of the top global law firms. And I was very glad that they joined us. Just the fact that a global law firm felt comfortable enough to participate on a governing council like this I think says a lot about our company and the way we’ve approached this. That a global law firm feels comfortable enough to participate in it
• And number five is magazine Luiza, which is maybe unknown to most of the world. But they are the primary, or the leading online retailer in Latin American then, so Central and South America

So those were the first five. The next five will be announced in three or four weeks, something along those lines. And we’ll continue announcing these out through the end of the year until we’ve achieved the full 39. And I think there’s another, one more point that I think is worth making. 

These are not marketing agreements with these council members. This is a corporation, it’s a, Hedera Hashgraph is an LLC. And until a few weeks ago, there was one member which was Swirled, the holder of the IP. Now there are six members. And there will be 39 members. And there is a board of managers and I report to that board of managers. They have control if they want to fire me. I have given them permission to do so. I’ve literally given the company away to this governing council. 

So it’s like nothing else in the market. It’s an enterprise DLT platform governed by real enterprises that are going to use it, and their leaders in their respective industries and this is how we lead the entire market, to adopt this new category of technology.

Keep Watching

Part I: Mance Harmon on Why Hashgraph is a Better Alternative to Blockchain
Part II: The Advantages of Not Being Open Source
Part III: How Hedera Hashgraph Will Spend $100M
Part IV: How the U.S.-China Trade War Impacted Hashgraph
Part V: When Will We See Real-World Solutions?
Part VI: Can Hashgraph Co-Exist With Other Blockchain Players?
Full Interview: In Conversation with Mance Harmon