Samsung Targets Blockchain Consortia With Nexledger Tech

Global technology giant Samsung today unveiled its Nexledger blockchain platform, alongside a series of other announcements.

The solution is portrayed as an enterprise-grade blockchain platform hosted with cloud computing, in a Korean Herald report today. But details uncovered by CoinDesk indicate that Samsung may be targeting the increasingly crowded consortia business model with this latest release.

A trademark filed by Samsung for the Nexledger name describes the technology as a permissioned blockchain system created specifically to form a consortium.

The trademark describes Nexledger as:

"A platform based on permissioned blockchain model that is composed of only trusted participants in order to block potential access from unspecified nodes whose trust is not guaranteed."

The consortia model aims to optimize blockchain network effects by giving potential competitors access to the distributed ledger solution, while ensuring only data required for a transaction is visible by the counterparties.

Similar to other groups of banks and other corporations such as R3 and Hyperledger, Nexledger appears to be a broadly applicable solution.

Other functions described in the trademark filing include smart contracts for financial services, a loyalty point program and authentication for financial services.

Part of that authentication process could include biometric verification, the data of which would also be logged on the blockchain, according to a ZDNet report, also today.

Today's news is the latest development in the South Korean electronics giant’s ongoing blockchain efforts.

Last July Samsung revealed it had invested in South Korean blockchain-as-a service platform Blocko, and months later joined Hyperledger, the Linux-led blockchain consortium working with open source technology.

Samsung image via Shutterstock