Smart contract pioneer, Clause, has taken the plunge and linked with the well-known blockchain framework Hyperledger Fabric via the launch of an app. The move comes as the company prepares to end its Beta phase and move to a commercial footing.

It’s only the fourth app-level integration that Clause has rolled out so far, the others are with payment system Stripe, and signature systems HelloSign and DocuSign – all of which can usefully integrate with their smart contracts. Adding a blockchain framework is therefore filling an important missing piece in the jigsaw.

Interestingly, Clause has long highlighted the fact that it is thoroughly blockchain agnostic. That is still the case, but, nevertheless, this international smart contract startup, which has bases in New York and London, has made a formal link to Hyperledger Fabric. To some degree this also then steers the many law firms and corporates it works with to do the same, though, as said, Clause and its users can still work with whatever network they wish to. For example Clause also works with the Ethereum blockchain.

The news follows the recent announcement of its deeper integration with DocuSign, permitting signatures to trigger computable elements of Clause contracts.

Michael Grover of Clause, explained in a statement that: ‘Hyperledger Fabric is an enterprise grade permissioned distributed ledger platform with a focus on developing solutions using a modular architecture. Hyperledger Fabric is a framework hosted by the Hyperledger Project of the Linux Foundation.’

He added that companies such as IBM, Oracle, Amazon and Microsoft host versions of Hyperledger Fabric, and that some truly huge companies were already using this blockchain network, such as Walmart, for business purposes.

For example, Grover explained, Walmart uses Hyperledger Fabric to track more than 25 products from four different suppliers.

See video here. Great evidence that big businesses are using blockchain tech.

And, if you’re wondering what Hyperledger Fabric is all about, check out this short video below as well:

All very exciting…..but, is this a big deal? The simple answer is that if you don’t wish to rely on any particular party’s DMS or paperwork to keep a permanent and reliable record of a contract and its outputs, and have a digital audit trail, then you may well want to look at an alternative approach, such as using a blockchain. For example, the Walmart and supplier project. And, when you add in smart contracts the capabilities of the approach become even more powerful.

Clause also repeated that their public Beta is rapidly coming to a close, marking the end of their primarily experimental phase and the beginning of a new ‘market ready’ phase – see Artificial Lawyer article on its significance.

All in all, another important step forward. Founder, Peter Hunn, and team, are now rapidly releasing application after application to make Clause thoroughly useable once the Beta comes to an end. Exciting times.

You can learn more about the Hyperledger Fabric App here.

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