Hart Montgomery is a research scientist in cryptography at Fujitsu Labs. Hart completed his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford in 2014, during which he was awarded a Stanford Graduate Fellowship. He joined Fujitsu Laboratories of America in 2015. His current research interests are spread throughout cryptography but in general emphasize blockchain and applications of cryptographic protocols to distributed ledgers, lattice-based cryptography, and basic cryptographic primitives.  Hart also serves on the Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee.

Abstract

While cryptocurrencies have the potential to revolutionize money, permissioned blockchains—or distributed ledgers—might have the potential for more impact in the business world.  In this talk I will briefly explain how distributed ledger technology works and when permissioned blockchains can be useful.  I will then go through some applications related to finance, and talk about the current state of the technology (with a focus on Hyperledger).  Finally, I will conclude by offering some thoughts on the future of distributed ledgers and the directions I think the technology will go in the future