Blockstream expands technical team to become blockchain standards leader

Rage Review : Blockstream is a company full of talents. It not only has many core developers in the Bitcoin community, but also hired Christopher Allen as a standards and identification operations expert to handle the company's open source Hyperledger blockchain project. Not long ago, the company announced a strategic partnership with the "Big Four" accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to provide blockchain services to customers. However, considering the company's position on Bitcoin block upgrades, many people in the Bitcoin community are dissatisfied with the company. Many people believe that Blockstream has always refused to support various major upgrade plans because they are worried that the upgrade of the Bitcoin blockchain may reduce the value of their company's products.

Translation: Nicole

Blockstream has hired online security pioneer Christopher Allen as a standards and identity operations specialist, a position that will see him work on the company’s open-source Hyperledger blockchain project.

The venture startup, a provider of enterprise tools focused on bitcoin blockchain technology, is one of 10 new companies joining Hyperledger. Blockstream is the largest investor in Bitcoin Core and the leading volunteer developer community for the ecosystem.

In the statement, Allen implicitly indicated that he hopes to position Blackstream as a leader in the ecosystem and become increasingly accepting of other blockchain protocols and technologies.

Christopher Allen

Allen said:

“The Standards Group will allow members of the blockchain community to demonstrate a shared vision, increase market share, join public goods, align investments, and seek mutual support, which is the real goal of ecosystem leadership.”

Blockstream announced today that it has added another experienced coder to the company’s talent pool, which already includes investor Adam Back, Confidential Transactions author Greg Maxwell, and Segregated Witness author Pieter Wuille.

Allen is probably best known as the co-author of the IETF TLS, which supports today's secure e-commerce on the Internet. He was also the co-founder of Consensus Development, a company that helped Netscape develop SSL in the late 1980s, the widely used communications security protocol.

Allen said his mandate at Blockstream includes all technical standards work, decentralized identity, and strategic initiatives at international standards organizations such as W3C, IETF, and Oasis.

Blockstream has raised $76 million in venture capital from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Khosla Ventures, Real Ventures, AXA Group, etc. In January 2016, the company announced a strategic partnership with the “Big Four” accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to provide blockchain services to clients.