Hyperledger is not a blockchain, but it is a project that was initiated by the Linux Foundation in December 2015 to advance blockchain technology. This project is a collaborative effort by its members to build an open source distributed ledger framework that can be used to develop and implement cross-industry blockchain applications and systems. The principal focus is to develop and run platforms that support global business transactions. The project also focuses on improving the reliability and performance of blockchain systems.

Projects under Hyperledger undergo various stages of development, starting from proposal to incubation and graduating to an active state. Projects can also be deprecated or in end-of-life state where they are no longer actively developed. For a project to be able to move into the incubation stage, it must have a fully working code base along with an active community of developers.