PRESS RELEASE
SORAMITSU Co., Ltd.
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
SORAMITSU Celebrates 10 Years of Hyperledger Iroha
→ From Cambodia’s national payment infrastructure to digital currency and savings initiatives across Asia and the Pacific, a decade of open-source collaboration is shaping the next chapter: Hyperledger Iroha 3 and SORA Nexus.
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
SORAMITSU Celebrates 10 Years of Hyperledger Iroha
→ From Cambodia’s national payment infrastructure to digital currency and savings initiatives across Asia and the Pacific, a decade of open-source collaboration is shaping the next chapter: Hyperledger Iroha 3 and SORA Nexus.
TOKYO, Japan — October 13, 2026 — SORAMITSU today celebrates ten years since Hyperledger Iroha was accepted into the Hyperledger Project’s incubation programme on October 13, 2016. Initially proposed by contributors from SORAMITSU, Hitachi, NTT DATA and Colu, Iroha has grown through international collaboration into open-source technology supporting payments, digital assets and financial infrastructure.
The anniversary honours the developers, institutions and communities that have brought Iroha into practical use. It also looks forward to Hyperledger Iroha 3 and SORA Nexus, through which SORAMITSU is working to connect institutions and markets while preserving their ability to govern their own systems.
“Congratulations to the Hyperledger Iroha open source community for achieving another major milestone, this time for 10 years of pioneering, building and leading! Global Blockchain Business Council is grateful and wishes Hyperledger Iroha and its contributors such as Soramitsu much success into the next decade”
Sandra Ro
CEO, Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC)
The anniversary honours the developers, institutions and communities that have brought Iroha into practical use. It also looks forward to Hyperledger Iroha 3 and SORA Nexus, through which SORAMITSU is working to connect institutions and markets while preserving their ability to govern their own systems.
“Congratulations to the Hyperledger Iroha open source community for achieving another major milestone, this time for 10 years of pioneering, building and leading! Global Blockchain Business Council is grateful and wishes Hyperledger Iroha and its contributors such as Soramitsu much success into the next decade”
Sandra Ro
CEO, Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC)
A decade of open-source progress
Iroha began with a practical goal: make distributed ledger technology easier to use in real applications. Its focus on digital assets, identity and permissions helped developers build systems for businesses, financial institutions and individuals. The release of Iroha 1.0 in May 2019 marked an important step from that ambition to production use.
Iroha 2 introduced a substantial architectural redesign. By February 2025, LF Decentralized Trust was highlighting its role in central-bank digital currency proofs of concept in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Across successive generations, the project has pursued the same objective: shared technology that institutions can operate and developers can extend.
“Congratulations on the tenth anniversary of Hyperledger Iroha’s acceptance as a project.
“When I co-proposed Iroha while serving on the Hyperledger Governing Board, blockchain was still in its early days. Although its potential was recognised, concrete applications had yet to take shape. Against that backdrop, I hoped that establishing Iroha as a project would help accelerate blockchain adoption, even in a small way.
“As a co-proposer, I am delighted by the significant achievements since then, including work applying Iroha to CBDCs in various countries. I hope Iroha will continue to contribute to the advancement of blockchain and achieve further growth.”
Toshiya Cho
Senior Evangelist, Hitachi, Ltd.
Bakong: open technology at national scale
A defining achievement is Bakong, co-developed by SORAMITSU and the National Bank of Cambodia and officially launched on October 28, 2020. Built on Hyperledger Iroha, Bakong connects participating financial institutions and supports payments in Cambodian riel and US dollars.
According to the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Stability Review 2025, Bakong processed approximately 1.326 billion transactions in 2025, up 118.7% from the previous year. Total transaction value reached KHR 899.1 trillion, approximately 4.5 times Cambodia’s GDP. Riel-denominated payments accounted for 58.2% of transactions by number.
The report also records QR-payment connectivity arrangements with eight regional economies and four international payment service providers. Bakong demonstrates what open-source infrastructure can achieve under central-bank leadership, in collaboration with the wider financial sector: a shared foundation for everyday payments and growing international connectivity.
Iroha began with a practical goal: make distributed ledger technology easier to use in real applications. Its focus on digital assets, identity and permissions helped developers build systems for businesses, financial institutions and individuals. The release of Iroha 1.0 in May 2019 marked an important step from that ambition to production use.
Iroha 2 introduced a substantial architectural redesign. By February 2025, LF Decentralized Trust was highlighting its role in central-bank digital currency proofs of concept in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Across successive generations, the project has pursued the same objective: shared technology that institutions can operate and developers can extend.
“Congratulations on the tenth anniversary of Hyperledger Iroha’s acceptance as a project.
“When I co-proposed Iroha while serving on the Hyperledger Governing Board, blockchain was still in its early days. Although its potential was recognised, concrete applications had yet to take shape. Against that backdrop, I hoped that establishing Iroha as a project would help accelerate blockchain adoption, even in a small way.
“As a co-proposer, I am delighted by the significant achievements since then, including work applying Iroha to CBDCs in various countries. I hope Iroha will continue to contribute to the advancement of blockchain and achieve further growth.”
Toshiya Cho
Senior Evangelist, Hitachi, Ltd.
Bakong: open technology at national scale
A defining achievement is Bakong, co-developed by SORAMITSU and the National Bank of Cambodia and officially launched on October 28, 2020. Built on Hyperledger Iroha, Bakong connects participating financial institutions and supports payments in Cambodian riel and US dollars.
According to the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Stability Review 2025, Bakong processed approximately 1.326 billion transactions in 2025, up 118.7% from the previous year. Total transaction value reached KHR 899.1 trillion, approximately 4.5 times Cambodia’s GDP. Riel-denominated payments accounted for 58.2% of transactions by number.
The report also records QR-payment connectivity arrangements with eight regional economies and four international payment service providers. Bakong demonstrates what open-source infrastructure can achieve under central-bank leadership, in collaboration with the wider financial sector: a shared foundation for everyday payments and growing international connectivity.
Bakong’s original payment-gateway design links participating banks and customer applications to the NBC Bakong Core.
Conceptual SORA Nexus overview. Institutional data spaces connect for interoperability while defining their own access and visibility rules.
Reaching new communities and use cases
Experience gained in Cambodia has informed further work with central banks across Asia and the Pacific. In Lao PDR, SORAMITSU and the Bank of the Lao PDR began the DLak — Digital Lao Kip — proof of concept in 2023, following a feasibility study initiated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
In the Solomon Islands, the Bokolo Cash proof of concept, announced in 2023, explored domestic payments, interbank transactions and simulated cross-border transfers. In Papua New Guinea, SORAMITSU worked with the Bank of Papua New Guinea and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on the Digital Kina proof of concept, whose completion was marked in January 2025. These projects give institutions practical environments in which to evaluate digital currency before making wider deployment decisions.
Iroha’s applications extend beyond payments. Palau Invest, an Iroha 2-based digital savings bond prototype introduced in 2024 with METI support, was designed to connect domestic savings with national development. SORAMITSU also joined the Asian Development Bank’s cross-border securities settlement initiative, announced in 2022, while its Byacco payment system brought digital payments to the University of Aizu in Japan.
Beyond payments, SORAMITSU explored identity, insurance and supply-chain applications. In 2019, SORAMITSU and PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA) completed a proof of concept for a self-sovereign identity solution, using Iroha to store cryptographic proofs of verified documents shared between partners, with the aim of making KYC and customer onboarding more efficient.
Earlier work with SOMPO Holdings explored blockchain-based weather-derivative workflows, while a supply-chain proof of concept with Toray Industries examined traceability for recycled materials.
Experience gained in Cambodia has informed further work with central banks across Asia and the Pacific. In Lao PDR, SORAMITSU and the Bank of the Lao PDR began the DLak — Digital Lao Kip — proof of concept in 2023, following a feasibility study initiated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
In the Solomon Islands, the Bokolo Cash proof of concept, announced in 2023, explored domestic payments, interbank transactions and simulated cross-border transfers. In Papua New Guinea, SORAMITSU worked with the Bank of Papua New Guinea and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on the Digital Kina proof of concept, whose completion was marked in January 2025. These projects give institutions practical environments in which to evaluate digital currency before making wider deployment decisions.
Iroha’s applications extend beyond payments. Palau Invest, an Iroha 2-based digital savings bond prototype introduced in 2024 with METI support, was designed to connect domestic savings with national development. SORAMITSU also joined the Asian Development Bank’s cross-border securities settlement initiative, announced in 2022, while its Byacco payment system brought digital payments to the University of Aizu in Japan.
Beyond payments, SORAMITSU explored identity, insurance and supply-chain applications. In 2019, SORAMITSU and PT Bank Central Asia Tbk (BCA) completed a proof of concept for a self-sovereign identity solution, using Iroha to store cryptographic proofs of verified documents shared between partners, with the aim of making KYC and customer onboarding more efficient.
Earlier work with SOMPO Holdings explored blockchain-based weather-derivative workflows, while a supply-chain proof of concept with Toray Industries examined traceability for recycled materials.
Byacco’s QR-payment interface for the University of Aizu’s local payment system.
Operational flow of the DLak digital-currency proof of concept announced in 2023.
Palau Invest’s savings-bond prototype app, introduced in 2024.
The next chapter: data spaces for a connected economy
SORA Nexus is designed around data spaces: environments in which banks, central banks and other institutions organise their data, authority, policies and applications. Each data space can contain multiple lanes, and each lane belongs to one data space. Lanes provide transaction routing and certification capacity within that environment.
Hyperledger Iroha 3, now in development, provides the underlying technology for public, permissioned and consortium networks. Its development brings together deterministic execution, explicit permissions and programmable assets through the Iroha Virtual Machine. Kotodama, its smart-contract language, is designed to make application and financial rules executable and independently verifiable.
For public transaction processing, lanes certify admission and ordering before eligible transactions are merged and executed by the global chain. A lane certificate does not establish successful payment. An independently signed data space root has its own state and local finality.
The aim is to help institutions connect domestic payments, cross-border exchange and digital assets while retaining control over institutional policy and private data. Work on established financial messaging, including ISO 20022, is intended to support integration with existing systems.
The architecture also aims to coordinate related obligations across independently executing data spaces: completing both legs of a currency exchange together, for example, or linking the delivery of a security with its payment. Development and validation of Iroha 3 and the SORA Nexus architecture are continuing.
SORA Nexus is designed around data spaces: environments in which banks, central banks and other institutions organise their data, authority, policies and applications. Each data space can contain multiple lanes, and each lane belongs to one data space. Lanes provide transaction routing and certification capacity within that environment.
Hyperledger Iroha 3, now in development, provides the underlying technology for public, permissioned and consortium networks. Its development brings together deterministic execution, explicit permissions and programmable assets through the Iroha Virtual Machine. Kotodama, its smart-contract language, is designed to make application and financial rules executable and independently verifiable.
For public transaction processing, lanes certify admission and ordering before eligible transactions are merged and executed by the global chain. A lane certificate does not establish successful payment. An independently signed data space root has its own state and local finality.
The aim is to help institutions connect domestic payments, cross-border exchange and digital assets while retaining control over institutional policy and private data. Work on established financial messaging, including ISO 20022, is intended to support integration with existing systems.
The architecture also aims to coordinate related obligations across independently executing data spaces: completing both legs of a currency exchange together, for example, or linking the delivery of a security with its payment. Development and validation of Iroha 3 and the SORA Nexus architecture are continuing.
Conceptual SORA Nexus architecture. Data spaces organise institutional data, authority, policy and applications. Each data space can contain multiple lanes; each lane belongs to one data space.
Conceptual public transaction path within SORA Nexus. A data space may contain several lanes. Public lanes certify admission and ordering; the global chain merges eligible transactions, executes them and records the outcome. Certification alone does not confirm a successful payment.
“Hyperledger Iroha’s first decade has shown what happens when open-source engineering meets institutions committed to serving their countries and communities. Bakong in partnership with the National Bank of Cambodia, and our partners’ work across Asia and the Pacific have made that purpose tangible.
“The next decade should make it easier for these systems to work together. With Iroha 3-powered SORA Nexus, our ambition is to connect economies globally, promoting high economic growth, while enabling central banks, corporations, and other institutions to retain control of their currencies, policies, and data.”
Dr Makoto Takemiya
Co-Founder and Group CEO, SORAMITSU
“The next decade should make it easier for these systems to work together. With Iroha 3-powered SORA Nexus, our ambition is to connect economies globally, promoting high economic growth, while enabling central banks, corporations, and other institutions to retain control of their currencies, policies, and data.”
Dr Makoto Takemiya
Co-Founder and Group CEO, SORAMITSU
Building the next decade together
SORAMITSU thanks Iroha’s contributors, maintainers, researchers, partners and users, together with the Linux Foundation, the Hyperledger community and LF Decentralized Trust. It welcomes developers and institutions to help shape the next decade of open financial infrastructure.
About SORAMITSU
SORAMITSU is a global financial technology company originating in Japan, developing blockchain-based payment infrastructure, digital assets and identity solutions. A founding contributor to Hyperledger Iroha, SORAMITSU works with central banks, public institutions, enterprises and decentralised ecosystems to improve economic efficiency and broaden access to financial services. Learn more at soramitsu.co.jp.
About Hyperledger Iroha
Hyperledger Iroha is an open-source blockchain project within LF Decentralized Trust. Supported by an international contributor community, it provides technology for digital assets, identities, permissions and programmable transactions.
Media and partnership enquiries
SORAMITSU Co., Ltd.
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
info@soramitsu.co.jp
SORAMITSU thanks Iroha’s contributors, maintainers, researchers, partners and users, together with the Linux Foundation, the Hyperledger community and LF Decentralized Trust. It welcomes developers and institutions to help shape the next decade of open financial infrastructure.
About SORAMITSU
SORAMITSU is a global financial technology company originating in Japan, developing blockchain-based payment infrastructure, digital assets and identity solutions. A founding contributor to Hyperledger Iroha, SORAMITSU works with central banks, public institutions, enterprises and decentralised ecosystems to improve economic efficiency and broaden access to financial services. Learn more at soramitsu.co.jp.
About Hyperledger Iroha
Hyperledger Iroha is an open-source blockchain project within LF Decentralized Trust. Supported by an international contributor community, it provides technology for digital assets, identities, permissions and programmable transactions.
Media and partnership enquiries
SORAMITSU Co., Ltd.
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
info@soramitsu.co.jp