Hyperledger, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, has open-sourced a bond trading platform built on top of its Sawtooth Lake distributed ledger, CoinDesk reported.

First announced in September 2016, the project was developed in collaboration with R3 blockchain consortium and eight participating banks. It aimed to demonstrate how bond trading and settlement can be streamlined using distributed ledgers.

The working proof-of-concept has now also been displayed as a public demo on Sawtooth's website. The open-source code for the proof of concept is also now listed on GitHub, which states that the platform needs further investment before it can be taken into production:

“Real-world bond trading, clearing, and settlement is significantly complex, so we have attempted to select a core set of functionality that demonstrates how these platforms might be built on blockchain technology. Further investment would be required to move these concepts into production.”

Using a blockchain, the platform tracks and categorizes transactions including holdings, receipts and settlements. The portfolio-tracking section lists the name, coupon rate and principal values of bonds held on a user's individual account. In addition, a search enables users to look up bonds by CUSIP code, yield and price.