Soramitsu and Iroha Engineering Unite to Transform Japan's Digital Landscape with IWAFUNE BaaS Platform

→ The collaboration aims to promote the spread of digital currencies, digital personal authentication, digital traceability, and digital certificates within Japan

Soramitsu Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo, President: Kazumasa Miyazawa, hereinafter referred to as Soramitsu) and Iroha Engineering Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo, President: Takashi Hosoe, hereinafter referred to as Iroha Engineering) have entered into a business partnership.

This collaboration will see Iroha Engineering taking over part of the development of the blockchain operational management platform "IWAFUNE," developed by Soramitsu. Iroha Engineering will enhance IWAFUNE, based on the open-source blockchain platform Hyperledger Iroha, to which Soramitsu has significantly contributed, by adding a GUI-based operational management function. This enhancement significantly reduces the labour and time involved in blockchain operational management. Furthermore, it will offer modules for the easy development of applications such as digital currencies, digital personal authentication, digital traceability, and digital certificates, thereby significantly reducing the duration and labour of application development.

Hyperledger Iroha has been used both domestically and internationally as the foundation for issuing CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) and local digital currencies. This includes the official operation of Cambodia's CBDC, Bakong, the CBDC pilot project "DLAK" in Laos, and Japan's first blockchain-based digital local payment system, Byacco, adopted by Aizu University.

This business partnership aims to accelerate the use of digital currencies within Japan and promote digital personal authentication, traceability, and certificates for purposes other than digital currencies.

Through this partnership, IWAFUNE becomes a joint intellectual property of Soramitsu and Iroha Engineering. Soramitsu focuses on sales, marketing, and development support within Japan, while Iroha Engineering works on functional enhancement, contracted and customised development, and customer and partner development for IWAFUNE.

Both companies are committed to collaborating to promote the spread of blockchain technology and its broader application in Japan.

About SORAMITSU

soramitsu.co.jp

SORAMITSU is an award-winning global financial technology company with expertise in developing blockchain-based solutions for digital asset and identity management. Our mission is to use blockchain to promote innovation and solve pressing societal challenges.

Utilising blockchain, SORAMITSU has developed a digital currency infrastructure backbone for the National Bank of Cambodia, a CBDC Proof-of-Concept with the Bank of the Lao PDR and with the Central Bank of Solomon Islands, a closed-loop payment system for the University of Aizu in Japan, an identity verification system prototype for Bank Central Asia in Indonesia, shortlisted in the Monetary Authority of Singapore CBDC Challenge, participated in Asia-Pacific's first proof-of-concept test of a cross-border multi-currency security settlement system using distributed ledger technology with the Asian Development Bank, and in collaboration with the Risk Assurance Group and Orillion Solutions developed the technology core of the Fraud Intelligence Blockchain.

SORAMITSU is an active contributor to many open source projects, such as Klaytn, South Korea's leading Layer-1 blockchain, KAGOME, the C++ Polkadot Host implementation, the SORA crypto-economic system, the Polkaswap DEX, and the DeFi wallet, Fearless Wallet. SORAMITSU also collaborated with Filecoin to develop FUHON, a C++ implementation of their protocol. In addition, SORAMITSU is the developer of and major contributor to the open-source blockchain platform Hyperledger Iroha, a project of Hyperledger Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation, tailored for enterprise and public-sector use. As founding contributors to the Hyperledger Project and cooperation partners of the Web3 Foundation, SORAMITSU is building the digital infrastructure of the future.

Based on these experiences, SORAMITSU aims to deploy cutting-edge technology on a global scale in order to expedite financial inclusion and health, mitigate economic inefficiencies, and contribute to the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

About Iroha Engineering

iroha-engineering.com

Iroha Engineering was established to develop and consult on systems utilising P2P and blockchain technologies. The company focuses on implementing systems based on Hyperledger Iroha, a cornerstone of its business, and named after the Soramitsu-developed Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Iroha platform. This open-source, permissioned blockchain platform is designed to assist businesses and financial institutions in managing digital assets and IDs and is used by central banks.

Iroha Engineering also promotes using blockchain technology outside the fintech domain, including traceability mechanisms for major manufacturers and Web3 systems using NFTs.

Moving forward, the company plans to accelerate the practical use of blockchain in production systems by leveraging IWAFUNE, a joint intellectual property with Soramitsu.