Blockstream


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Blockstream is a blockchain technology company led by co-founder Adam Back and founded by Gregory Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, Jonathan Wilkins, Matt Corallo, and others. Blockstream intends to develop software to "break off" transactions from the bitcoin network,[2] and charge a fixed monthly fee to allow people to use alternative "sidechains".[3]

Blockstream

Official Blockstream logo

Company typeCorporation
IndustryCryptocurrency software
Founded2014
Founders
  • Adam Back
  • Gregory Maxwell
  • Pieter Wuille
  • Matt Corallo
  • Mark Friedenbach
  • Jorge Timón
  • Austin Hill
  • Jonathan Wilkins
  • Francesca Hall
  • Alex Fowler
Headquarters,

Canada

Key people

  • Adam Back (CEO)

Number of employees

50-100[1] (2014)
Websiteblockstream.com

Blockstream employs a large number of prominent Bitcoin Core developers.[4]

The company has raised $76M to date from investors, including venture capital firms Horizons Ventures and Mosaic Ventures.[5][6]

Products

The Liquid Network

On October 12, 2015, Blockstream announced the release of its Liquid sidechain prototype which could allow for the transfer of assets between the sidechain and the main blockchain.[7][8][9] On October 11, 2018, a production-ready implementation of the sidechain was officially launched, called the Liquid Network.[10] Blockstream produces software that facilitates interoperability between the Bitcoin main chain and the sidechain.[11][page needed] Blockstream claims that Liquid reduces the delays and friction involved in a normal transfer of bitcoin. Blockstream asserts participating exchanges–including Bitfinex, BitMEX and OKCoin[10]–can make near-instant exchanges between their accounts and orderbooks.[citation needed] The company has proposed that the Liquid sidechain, which is a pegged sidechain, be added to the bitcoin protocol.[12][13][14]

Blockstream Satellite

In 2017 Blockstream announced the availability of one-way satellite broadcasting of the full Bitcoin blockchain. In 2018 Blockstream extended the Bitcoin satellite network[15] to four satellites across six coverage zones, adding Asia and Pacific region coverage, and released API specifications to allow users to send data over its network. The network as of 2019 is only a one-way network and the user still needs a connection to the Bitcoin network to send transactions, which can include SMS gateways [16] or higher cost internet which would be expensive for receiving full Bitcoin block data, but is cost effective to send a single transaction.

Initiatives

In addition to its corporate initiatives, Blockstream is also involved in a number of community steering and open source programs.

Bitcoin

Blockstream employs a number of prominent Bitcoin Core developers.[4] The company has been attempting to make it possible to "break off" transactions from the Bitcoin network, making the number of transactions the network could handle less important.[17]

Lightning Network

A Lightning Network overview.

Blockstream hired Rusty Russell, a developer well known for his work on the Linux kernel, to develop an implementation of the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN). Russell has a four-part LN explanation on his blog.[18] The Lightning Network proposes to reduce transaction costs by allowing nodes to hold some transaction data in the cache before submitting it to the chain.[19]

In May 2017, Segregated Witness activated on Litecoin, enabling the Lightning Network to be used.[20] In May 2017 Christian Decker of Blockstream sent the first microtransaction using Lightning on Litecoin.[21]

Issued Assets

In April 2017, Blockstream released a paper on Confidential Assets,[22] an extension of Confidential Transactions (which is itself derived from an Adam Back proposal for homomorphic values applied to Bitcoin[23]).

References

  1. ^ "Blockstream Crunchbase Profile". Crunchbase. December 20, 2018. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  2. ^ Popper, Nathaniel (2016-01-14). "A Bitcoin Believer's Crisis of Faith". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  3. ^ Shin, Laura. "Will This Battle For The Soul Of Bitcoin Destroy It?". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  4. ^ a b https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/business/dealbook/bitcoin-cash-split.html
  5. ^ "Our Investment in Blockstream". Mosaic Ventures. Retrieved 2016-05-10.
  6. ^ "Bitcoin startup blockstream raises 55 million in funding round". Wall Street Journal. 4 February 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  7. ^ Casey, Michael J. "BitBeat: Blockstream Unveils Much-Awaited First Sidechain Prototype". WSJ (Blog).
  8. ^ Vigna, Paul. "BitBeat: Blockstream Releases Liquid, First 'Sidechain'". WSJ (Blog). Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  9. ^ Chishti, Susanne; Barberis, Janos (February 29, 2016). "Application Stacks". The FINTECH Book: The Financial Technology Handbook for Investors ... Wiley Publishing. p. 219. ISBN 978-1-119-21887-6.
  10. ^ a b "New Crypto Consortium Seeks to Alleviate Liquidity Problems". Bloomberg. 11 October 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  11. ^ Swan, Melanie (January 1, 2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-1-4919-2049-7.
  12. ^ Allison, Ian. "Blockstream announces Liquid movement of Bitcoin quickly and securely between exchanges". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  13. ^ Evans, Jon. "Liquid Bitcoin". TechCrunch. AOL. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  14. ^ "Blockstream Jumps Into Liquid – PYMNTS.com". PYMNTS.com. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  15. ^ "Who Needs Verizon? Blockstream Broadcasts Entire Bitcoin Blockchain From Space". Forbes. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  16. ^ Rusnak, Pavol. "Simple PushTX server to push Bitcoin transactions via SMS (using Nexmo)". github (Blog). Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  17. ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.html
  18. ^ "Blockstream". WeUseCoins. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  19. ^ Poon, Joseph; Dryja, Thaddeus (14 January 2016). "The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments DRAFT Version 0.5.9.2" (PDF). Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  20. ^ Blockstream [@Blockstream] (10 May 2017). "Blockstream's Christian Decker @Snyke completes first Lightning network payment on Litecoin. See. Blog post soon!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  21. ^ Suberg, William (12 May 2017). "Blockstream Sends First Litecoin Lightning Microtransaction". Retrieved 26 August 2017.
  22. ^ Andrew Poelstra, Adam Back, Mark Friedenbach, Gregory Maxwell, and Pieter Wuille. "Confidential Assets" (PDF). Blockstream.com. Retrieved 21 May 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ "ignopeverell/grin". GitHub. Retrieved 21 May 2018.