Digital Currency Group (DCG) today announces the launch of its fourth subsidiary, DCG Connect, a membership-based organization dedicated to helping enterprises accelerate from blockchain exploration to production, with a group of founding corporate members including IBM, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CIBC, CME Group, Foxconn, Mastercard, New York Life, Prudential, and Transamerica.
DCG Connect will accelerate the deployment of blockchain technology across industries, and develop tools to help enterprise adopters successfully navigate the universe of blockchain service providers. DCG Connect’s founding corporate members include a diverse group of global organizations that are building and deploying blockchain applications for use at scale along with dozens of blockchain and bitcoin startup members, who can join and leverage this ecosystem free of charge.
The DCG Connect ecosystem aims to be a focal point for facilitating collaboration and scaling of blockchain businesses. DCG Connect will work with companies to build blueprints for how platforms, products, and technologies can fit together to create enterprise-ready solutions for deployment. Blockchain technology is a rapidly evolving medium for global connectivity and requires new models for collaboration around the many emerging products and services.
Digital Currency Group sees many technologies playing a role in blockchain development and has been helping corporations leverage blockchain technology and digital currencies for a variety of use cases. As with any new technology, market participants will define the technology stack in terms of how their products complement, enhance, and compete with each other. The team at DCG views technology companies and systems integrators as critical for accelerating blockchain deployment, and has plans to build a brand neutral multi-vendor marketplace accessible across multiple technology platforms. As an investor in over 100 blockchain startups and a partner to dozens of global corporations, DCG will provide the connective tissue needed to scale this nascent industry.
DCG Connect and its members will work together to identify and engage with startup companies and their products, and to collaborate on driving business models that sustain enterprise ready blockchain technology. In addition, DCG Connect will support open source blockchain frameworks such as Hyperledger Fabric, one of the five Hyperledger projects hosted by The Linux Foundation.
“We believe DCG’s commitment to the ecosystem of companies founding Hyperledger Fabric networks is a huge validation of the technology,” said Marie Wieck, general manager, IBM Blockchain. “We’re excited to see so many startups and enterprises moving to build on Hyperledger Fabric, and it makes sense to work with DCG to reach and serve this community better.”
In addition, AWS will deepen its collaboration with DCG to spur innovation and facilitate frictionless deployment of blockchain solutions to address real-world business challenges.
DCG aims to reduce the noise in this ecosystem and ease the burden on startups to educate customers on the value of their technology. Startups participating in DCG Connect include Chain, Gem, Filament, Bloq, Skuchain, Tierion, Netki, AlphaPoint, BigchainDB, and BlockCypher, all industry leaders who have made tremendous strides in delivering real value to their customers. The DCG team has distilled best practices from these industry leaders to reduce the burden on the next generation of startups.
DCG’s Director of Development, Meltem Demirors, who is leading this new subsidiary, noted “After two years working with bitcoin and blockchain companies and corporate leaders, we identified that a significant issue hindering the widespread, global adoption of blockchain is the inability to quickly connect with the right combination of partners for testing and deployment of the technology to address real-world business challenges.”