Shielded Technologies Joins Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as Premier Member

Set to Support Planned Contribution of Midnight Smart Contract Language to LF Decentralized Trust

CAYMAN ISLANDS and SAN FRANCISCO and LAS VEGAS, Aug. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Shielded Technologies (Shielded), the core developer of the Midnight Network, and Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LF Decentralized Trust), the premier open source foundation for decentralized technology, announced that Shielded has joined LF Decentralized Trust as a Premier Member. As the technical arm of Midnight, Shielded is also committing to supporting the Midnight Foundation's planned contribution of the Midnight smart contract language to LF Decentralized Trust.

"We are joining LF Decentralized Trust as a premier member to accelerate the development and enterprise adoption of open source, privacy-first technologies, making data protection a core, foundational building block of Web3," said Bob Blessing-Hartley, CTO, Shielded Technologies. "LF Decentralized Trust has established itself as the collaborative backbone for decentralized innovation while Shielded brings a critical and missing component to the table—the rational privacy at the core of Midnight network. Collectively, we will build the next generation of internet infrastructure, one that is not only transparent and resilient but also fundamentally respects user privacy."

Blessing-Hartley will join the Governing Board of LF Decentralized Trust. He joins leaders from DTCC, Hedera, and Hitachi, all premier members of LF Decentralized Trust.

"By joining LF Decentralized Trust as a premier member and committing to supporting Midnight's proposed code contributions, Shielded is taking a leadership stance on the importance of open development and open governance of code at the core of decentralized networks," said Daniela Barbosa, General Manager of Decentralized Technologies at the Linux Foundation and Executive Director of LF Decentralized Trust. "As developers of the privacy-enhancing technologies powering the Midnight network, Shielded is pushing the state of the art in terms of accountability and transparency. The expertise, support and contributions they bring to LF Decentralized Trust further cement our role as the proven neutral home for truly decentralized trust and transaction technologies."

About Shielded Technologies
Shielded Technologies is an emerging engineering company pioneering privacy-enhancing, decentralized technologies designed for real-world compatibility. A spinout from leading Web3 venture studio Input Output, Shielded brings deep cryptographic expertise as the core technology partner for the Midnight Network — a new blockchain that leverages advanced cryptographic proofs and a cooperative tokenomics design to protect data and metadata while ensuring auditability and compliance. In collaboration with the Midnight Foundation, Shielded is shaping a global ecosystem that upholds the fundamental freedoms of association, commerce, and expression.

About LF Decentralized Trust
LF Decentralized Trust is the neutral home for the open development of technologies that empower organizations to innovate with secure and resilient code. It is the Linux Foundation's flagship organization for a broad range of technologies and standards that deliver the transparency, reliability, security and efficiency required for a digital-first economy. Supported by a diverse, global base of members and communities, LF Decentralized Trust champions open source best practices across a growing ecosystem of blockchain, ledger, identity, cryptographic, and related technologies. To learn more, visit: www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org.

About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, OpenStack, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, Zephyr, and more, are critical to the world's infrastructure. The Linux Foundation is focused on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. 

For a list of trademarks of the Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contacts
Emily Fisher
LF Decentralized Trust
[email protected]

Tony Albanese
Shielded Technologies
[email protected]

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SOURCE LF Decentralized Trust