Thomson Reuters is partnering with Ethereum, Imperial College of London, UCL, and tech partners Oraclize, Crypto Compare and Ethcore to host a weekend-long blockchain hackathon in Canary Wharf, London.

The market data firm says the main purpose of the event is to engage with the nascent blockchain developer community and to experiment with "never before seen beta tech" in a controlled environment.



This latter would be a reference to Thomson Reuters BlockOne ID for Ethereum, one of a set of tools that will be made available to developers who will be challenged to come up with solutions for data-driven smart contracts and - topically, given the recent attack on the DAO - Ethereum smart contract security.



Alongside the top-line tech and academic partners, Thomson Reuters has also roped in support from Barclays Bank, Innovate Finance, Coinsilium, Clearmatics and Tramonex.



Thomson Reuters has been quietly collaborating with customers on blockchain and distributed ledger initiatives and proof-of-concept projects for some time, but is ramping up its involvement more publicly, having recently joined the bank-backed blockbuster blockchain consortium R3.