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Hedera has become a founding premier member of the Linux Foundation's newly launched decentralized trust initiative, and contributed its entire source code, including its hashgraph consensus algorithm and all core services, tools and libraries, to the Foundation. The contribution, which forms the new project "Hiero," aims to allow developers to collaborate on decentralized trust technologies globally under an open-source framework.

The mission of the The Linux Foundation's Open Wallet Foundation (OWF), launched in September 2022, is to develop an open source engine to enable secure and interoperable multi-purpose wallets anyone can use to build solutions. The OWF aims to develop open source software, key building blocks, and best practices that anyone can use to build multi-platform, interoperable, secure, and privacy-protecting digital wallets that will support a wide variety of applications from identity credential to payments. The OWF community is currently working on its governance and structure with the goal of launching in early 2023.

"A few months ago, the Linux Foundation (LF) announced its intent to launch the Open Wallet Foundation (OWF) in early 2023. The OWF aims to develop open source software, key building blocks, and best practices that anyone can use to build multi-platform, interoperable, secure, and privacy-protecting digital wallets that will support a wide variety of applications from identity credential to payments. "

The choice of Stellar is a bit surprising given that IBM has been working with the Linux Foundation on Hyperledger Fabric for years. But Hyperledger Fabric is permissioned, private distributed-ledger technology. IBM wanted something more open that any organization could join if it met certain criteria. In World Wire, IBM has created kind of a virtual private network within Stellar. Organizations can register assets and become part of the network, but IBM carefully vets each participant and validator. By contrast, Ripple says it does not know who runs the validator nodes on its distributed ledger. It's really about knowing the validators, but without creating this walled garden that you have to have special permission to join.

Hyperledger is a collective of open-source blockchains and tools hosted by the Linux Foundation and aimed at enabling enterprises to create their own distributed ledgers. Because Hyperledger is open-source, others can freely build on top of it. Large-scale enterprises such as IBM, Walmart and Fujitsu have developed projects using Hyperledger."

Telegram, the messaging app company turned blockchain startup, has released an early desktop wallet for its "gram" token. Now users can download the test app for MacOS, Windows and Linux 64 bit on Telegram's official website and get their keys on the TON testnet.

Along with the aforementioned Project Ensemble collaborations, the HKMA provided updates on its other initiatives to spearhead the journey of fintech development in Hong Kong. The HKMA will collaborate with other members of the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust on interoperability aspects of DLT-based FMIs in the Ensemble Sandbox. Also, the HKMA has completed the initial phase of six tokenization use cases across four main themes under Project Ensemble and will publish a report detailing the results of the experimentation in 2025. The HKMA is working closely with the People's Bank of China to establish a cross-boundary linkage between Hong Kong's Faster Payment System (FPS) and the Mainland's Internet Banking Payment System (IBPS). This linkage will support 24/7, instant, small-value, cross-boundary remittances using account proxies like mobile numbers. A pilot launch is expected to be around mid-2025 tentatively.

The Linux Foundation published an updated report on how its open-source distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are powering central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives globally. It explains the advantages of open source development for CBDC projects, emphasizing transparency, collaboration, and the adaptability of community-driven solutions. The paper also showcases projects using Hyperledger Fabric, Besu, Iroha, and other tools across various implementation stages-from research (European Central Bank, France, Norway) to pilots (India, Brazil, Philippines) to live deployments (Nigeria, Eastern Caribbean). These implementations demonstrate how open-source blockchain technologies can improve payment efficiency, enhance security, enable programmability through smart contracts, and support financial inclusion.