Blockstream, Liquid is finally live, the San Francisco startup that has been working on this sidechain project for 3 years now.
Liquid, built off-chain, will be used to process transactions with large volumes and greater speed in order to facilitate the work of companies in the crypto sector. These are 23 bitcoin companies, including Altonomy, Atlantic Financial, Bitbank, Bitfinex, Bitmax, BitMEX, Bitso, BTCBOX, BTSE, Buull Exchange, DGroup, Coinone, Crypto Garage, GOPAX, Korbit, L2B Global, OKCoin, The Rock Trading, SIX Digital Exchange, Unocoin, Xapo, XBTO and Zaif.
Blockstream revealed the idea for this project in 2015 and was subsequently launched as a beta version in the summer of 2017.
“This will bolster the bitcoin ecosystem because you can trade more securely and rapidly,” explained Blockstream Samson Mow’s CSO.
How does it work
An exchange will be able to convert its bitcoins into LBTC, the Liquid token, pegged to the bitcoin value. Once sent, the exchanges will be able to send the money through a secure and fast system compared to the bitcoin blockchain.
In practice, this is not a real sidechain, but what Blockstream calls a “federated sidechain”.
“If there’s one thing our traders need, it’s speed. Liquid delivers that in spades. Liquid’s instant settlements will allow our traders to achieve faster bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, more efficient arbitrage, and even better pricing though tighter spreads,” explained Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex.
