Bitcoin's first sidechain "Liquid" released, enabling fast and secure transactions
Process High-Speed, Large-Scale BTC Transactions
Liquid, released by Blockstream (1*), a startup founded in 2014 by top-tier Bitcoin developers, is regarded as the most advanced implementation of sidechain technology.
Based on the actual Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain, Liquid is used among major companies to process fast and large volumes of BTC transactions.
The development period for Liquid has been fairly long. Blockstream first announced this idea in 2015. In May 2017, a beta version of the sidechain was opened and tested on the BTC mainnet. And this week, all of Blockstream’s partners have finally made it available for actual transactions.
The initial users (launch partners) include 23 Bitcoin companies such as exchanges, brokers, and other institutions. They assist in managing the sidechain and use Liquid for transaction transmission;
Includes BitBank (bitbank), BitMEX, Zaif, Korbit, OKCoin, Bitfinex, and many others (2*).
According to CoinMarketCap, many of the large exchanges account for 50–60% of Bitcoin transaction volume.
Blockstream CTO Samson Mow said the following:
“It will strengthen the Bitcoin ecosystem by enabling safer and faster transactions. This is ready for commercial use. For now, we are simply awaiting exchange integrations.”
