Enterprise Ethereum Alliance: Everything You Need To Know

Ethereum Enterprise Alliance

EEA – The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is the new hot topic in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world.

In this article, I am going to tell you everything you need to know about the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

As it is evident from the name, you might think that EEA has something to do with the Ethereum platform.

Yes, that’s right!

So before jumping into EEA, I want you to understand briefly what Ethereum is. And for those of you who want an in-depth explanation of Ethereum, see our guide: Ethereum Cryptocurrency: Everything A Beginner Needs To Know.

Ethereum

Ethereum

As the official Ethereum project website says:

“Ethereum is a decentralized platform for applications that run exactly as programmed without any chance of fraud, censorship, or third-party interference.”

It is too technical!!!

Okay, let me give you a less technical definition:

  • Ethereum is an open-source, decentralized blockchain platform for applications and smart contracts. It has its native cryptocurrency called Ether, which is a crypto-fuel to perform operations on Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum uses EVM – Ethereum Virtual Machine – to compile codes written in Ethereum’s native language, Solidity. And as the code is executed on the blockchain, it can’t be manipulated or tampered with.

Let’s now return to the original topic of EEA – The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Here are articles that you should read to learn about Ethereum:

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

The EEA official website defines itself as follows:

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance connects Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter experts. Together, we will learn from and build upon the only smart contract supporting blockchain currently running in real-world production – Ethereum – to define enterprise-grade software capable of handling the most complex, highly demanding applications at the speed of business.

In much simpler language, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (aka EEA) is a group which comprises of many companies of all shapes and sizes.

The EEA connects Fortune 500 enterprises (like Accenture, Microsoft, Intel, JP Morgan, Wipro, etc.), startups, and academics with Ethereum subject matter experts. All these companies share a common thing- they all are blockchain enthusiasts.

This group (or alliance) was formed and launched only a few months ago at the end of February 2017.

It was launched with 30 founding member companies:

The aim of EEA (Enterprise Ethereum Alliance)

The EEA aims to build a private version of Ethereum’s blockchain for its eligible members to address their specific business needs.

The core aim of the EEA is:

Build, promote, and broadly support Ethereum-based technology best practices, standards, and a reference architecture.

It means that it will enable participants like a bank to make their own, in-house private Ethereum blockchain. Similarly, another participant can also implement a private blockchain for tracking its supply chain management.

And whenever one member company makes a code base on the Ethereum blockchain which is useful to another member company, it can be shared. This kind of coordination and development will be governed and facilitated by the EEA.

Vision of EEA

These are the four visions from the official website of the EEA:

1- Be an open-source standard, not a product.

The EEA will define open-source standards for the development and operation of Ethereum’s blockchain across its member companies.

2- Address enterprise deployment requirements.

The EEA will facilitate and govern cross-deployment across its members for various business needs and use cases wherever applicable. For example, if one bank implements a blockchain-based KYC platform on Ethereum, then the EEA can help another member company to implement the same when and where required. This will save a lot of money in development cost.

3- Evolve in tandem with advances in public Ethereum.

EEA members will be making their private blockchains using Ethereum technology, but they can always get subject matter experts and best practices from the existing public blockchain of Ethereum. Hence, both the public and private versions will advance together.

4- Leverage existing standards.

Ethereum’s public blockchain started in July 2015, making it already 3 years old. The standards and experience of the old blockchain can be leveraged by the new blockchains which the EEA members will form in the future.

EEA Board Members

EEA Membership

EEA is now a collaboration of more than 100 companies and Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin. But anyone with a mindset of developing and improving private or public blockchain technology can be a part of it.

To be a member, you have to fill out an application form specifying your name and other personal details. The form will ask you to mention your company size and other relevant details. As soon as you complete and submit the form, you will get this message:

Thank you for your interest! You’ll be receiving a DocuSign document for the Membership Agreement as well as some other information.

The application form is here.

Here are the membership fee details:

Benefits of Membership

If you are an individual member or a company member of the EEA, you will be entitled to the following benefits:

  • May chair Working Groups
  • May Create & Participate in Working Group
  • Access to Open Code
  • Invitation to All Member Meetings
  • May Host EEA Meet Up
  • Company logo on EEA Website
  • Included in New Member Press Release
  • Post Company Hosted Events to EEA Online Calendar
  • Discount on EEA Sponsorships

EEA Members

EEA was launched in February 2017 with 3o companies, including giants like Microsoft and JP Morgan. And within a few month’s time, in May 2017, EEA added 86 more members across various businesses and industries.

At present, the total membership of the EEA stands at 116, which is phenomenal growth in just a few months. Some of the companies which joined recently are DTCC, Infosys, Deloitte, MUFG, and Toyota.

The Future of EEA

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance project can play an important role in standardizing approaches for privacy, permissioning and providing alternative consensus algorithms to improve its usability in enterprise settings, and the resources the project and its members are contributing should accelerate the advancement of the Ethereum ecosystem generally. I look forward to continuing to work with everyone involved.

-Vitalik Buterin on EEA

The EEA is not the only one who is striving to standardize the blockchain technology and development. The other rivals of the EEA are IBM’s Hyperledger and R3cev.

  • Hyperledger is an open-source, collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.
  • R3 is an innovation firm focused on building and empowering the next generation of global financial services technology.

Though the EEA is the youngest in this list, it looks promising as it keeps gaining tremendous support. Since its launch, EEA has more than tripled in size.

And this sudden rush to join the EEA has also lead to a spike in the price of ETH which grew by 400% since the first week of May 2017.

Time will tell if the EEA flourish or flounder, but this kind of growth in Ethereum is hard to ignore as many investors are reaping serious profits.

So let me know: What do you think about the EEA? Do you own any ETH? Do you see Ethereum becoming the next Bitcoin? Share your views in the comments section below!

If you like this post, do share it with your friends on Facebook & Twitter!

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