JPMorgan Unveils 'Juno' Project at Hyperledger Blockchain Meeting

JPMorgan has unveiled what it calls a "distributed cryptoledger", presented during this week's meeting of the technical steering committee for the Linux Foundation-led open-source Hyperledger Project.

The prototype, dubbed Juno, was presented by developer Will Martino on 3rd March. JPMorgan executive director David Voell said during the meeting that the proposal has been under development since September of last year, and that it is one of several concepts that he said the bank has been working on.

Juno provides support for a smart contract language called 'Hopper' within a permissioned ledger network. Further, Juno was inspired by a consensus algorithm called Tangaroa, itself based on another consensus algorithm called Raft, which it contends offers improved scalability over proof-of-work mining.

By contrast, consensus on the Juno platform is reached through an election-type system, according to the presentation.

The meeting also featured a demonstration of how value could be transferred between participants on the network. Nodes in the network hold an election that determines a 'Leader' and a group of 'Followers'.

Once the election is complete, the client-side node issues a command to the Leader – in that case, transferring $10 between two of three accounts created by the client, which is then distributed to the group of Followers.

The project's GitHub page goes on to explain:

"Once the command has been replicated to a majority of nodes, the command is applied by the Leader and a response to the Client is issued. Followers also apply the final transfer command around this time. After all this is completed, it's time to test resiliency of the network. As such, the Leader is terminated. Eventually a Follower calls for an election and is chosen as the new Leader."

Both Martino and Voell cautioned in the meeting that the prototype remains in-progress, and that future versions of the Juno project would be released with additional extensions.

Overall, JPMorgan sought to emphasize the scalability of the distributed ledger, and its interest in continuing to develop the project with input from the community.

The presentation is the latest from the Hyperledger Project, launched late last year with 300 major firms and startups among its membership.

Last month, the committee elected its first chair and heard a presentation by tech giant Intel that included details about a blockchain test focused on a fantasy sports league.

More details on the proposal can be found below:

NPD Juno Distributed Cryptoledger

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