TSCCall20260303 - hiero-ledger/governance GitHub Wiki

Hiero Technical Steering Committee Meeting

TL;DR: The TSC reviewed community and mentorship updates, heard a guest presentation from Hart Montgomery on the future of digital trust and open standards at LF Decentralized Trust, and introduced HIP-1398 on the TSS ceremony for review ahead of a proposed vote next week. The group also noted progress on moving the cryptography repository into Hiero and deferred AOB items to the next meeting.

Details

Organization: Hiero
Date: March 3, 2026
Time: 10:00 AM ET
Recording: https://zoom.us/rec/share/rEFxxENMiIdksSB88zTB-nKHdt9e8t_P1vK97gWjEUFexe6UF1SuXOaLB6Sp8CvW.QICefO--CgrlmfZq

TSC Attendees

  • Brandon Davenport
  • Hendrik Ebbers
  • Alex Popowycz
  • Michael Kantor
  • Milan Wiercx van Rhijn
  • Richard Bair

Guests

  • Angelina Ceppaluni
  • Bhargava Tejas
  • Diane Mueller
  • Giuseppe Bertone
  • Hart Montgomery
  • Jason Fabritz
  • Jessica Gonzalez
  • Joseph Sinclair
  • Keith Kowal
  • Mark Blackman
  • Michael Garber
  • Mike Cave
  • Priyanshu Yadav
  • Raphaël Messian
  • Robert Walworth
  • Sophie

Agenda Items

  1. Short overview of last TSC call
  2. Any updates/events from communities or members?
  3. Reminder to attend public community calls and bring more activity into Hiero Discord channels
  4. Update on Mentorship program
  5. Presentation: "Looking Ahead on Digital Trust" by Hart Montgomery
  6. HIPs
  7. Any other business (AOB)

Guests

As every Hiero meeting the TSC meeting is a public meeting and everybody can attend it.
You can find all the information about the TSC meetings and all other Hiero meetings in our public calender.

Code of Conduct

As in every meeting we start with a short notice of the antitrust policy of Linux Foundation and an introduction of our Code of Conduct.

Meeting Summary

  • As a recap of the previous TSC call, Hendrik noted discussion of the proposed solo-docs repository and the initial introduction to the LF Decentralized Trust mentorship program.
  • Jessica Gonzalez highlighted the upcoming LFDT mentorship meetup event and encouraged maintainers and contributors to attend, especially those interested in mentoring or submitting project ideas.
  • Hendrik also pointed attendees to recently published Maintainer Days recordings, including sessions on the LFDT mentorship program and newcomer onboarding.
  • Mark Blackman provided a project update on the cryptography repository used for consensus node/TSS work, noting that after cleanup and legal review it should be ready to move from the Hedera repository space into the Hiero organization in the coming weeks.
  • The group was reminded to attend public community calls and to use the Hiero Discord channels more actively for maintainer and contributor discussions.
  • Hendrik shared that the Hiero mentorship effort is now organizing project ideas in the governance wiki and that at least one proposal had already been created, with more expected before the application deadline.
  • Hart Montgomery delivered a presentation on the future direction of digital trust within LF Decentralized Trust, covering trends such as decentralized identity, open standards, digital public infrastructure, privacy-preserving computation, tokenization, decentralized machine learning, and post-quantum cryptography.
  • Hart emphasized a shift from “code only” toward “code plus standards,” with LFDT supporting open, consensus-driven standards processes that can move faster than traditional standards bodies.
  • The presentation also covered standards governance options, including more lightweight and more formal approaches, and described how IP and contributor agreements can be handled for standards-oriented projects.
  • During Q&A, attendees discussed standards adoption, the importance of participation from major industry stakeholders, collaboration opportunities with AI-related Linux Foundation efforts, and usability concerns around web-of-trust style identity systems.
  • Hart also shared examples of ongoing LFDT technical efforts and labs, including work around proof-of-personhood, zero-knowledge tooling, and cryptographic standardization.
  • The final agenda topic was an introduction to HIP-1398, presented by Joseph Sinclair with support from Mark Blackman.
  • Joseph explained that the HIP proposes a one-time TSS ceremony, based on a Powers of Tau process, to generate public proving data needed to support WRAPS proofs and future TSS-enabled network operation.
  • The ceremony software would run independently of consensus node software, with outputs stored in public read-only archives and later distributed for use in subsequent releases.
  • Questions focused on operational risk, historical scope, and mirror node implications; Joseph explained that the process is well known, heavily tested, and isolated, and that mirror node handling for the cutover distinction is already being addressed.
  • Mark noted that the purpose of this week’s discussion was to introduce the HIP and allow time for review, with the expectation of a TSC vote at the following meeting.
  • Due to time limits, AOB topics were not discussed, and Jessica’s remaining items were moved to the top of the agenda for the next TSC meeting.

Presentations

Looking Ahead on Digital Trust — Hart Montgomery

  • Overview of where LF Decentralized Trust sees ecosystem growth across decentralized identity, interoperability, privacy tooling, tokenization, and digital public infrastructure.
  • Discussion of a growing need for open standards developed in public, consensus-driven communities alongside open-source code.
  • Explanation of LFDT standards structures and trade-offs between lightweight participation models and more formal IP-oriented governance.
  • Examples of emerging work in proof-of-personhood, trust graphs, zero-knowledge proof standardization, and post-quantum cryptography.
  • Open discussion with the Hiero community on standards adoption, enterprise participation, UI challenges, and cross-foundation collaboration.

Key Decisions

  • No formal votes were taken during this meeting.
  • The cryptography repository transfer into Hiero is expected to proceed soon, with coordination between Andrew Brandt and Jessica Gonzalez.
  • HIP-1398 was formally introduced to the TSC for review, with a target of voting on it at the next meeting if questions are resolved.
  • AOB items, including the governance discussion linked in issue #544, were deferred to the next meeting.

Prepared by: Brandon Davenport, Dir of Product, Hgraph