Blockstream

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Basics

  • Location: Montreal, founded in 2014.
  • The company is focused on developing bitcoin applications specifically sidechains with its Liquid, as well as other applications. Blockstream has raised $76M to date from investors including Khosla Horizons Ventures and Mosaic Ventures.
  • “Creating ways to handle bitcoin micropayments and a technology called sidechan that offers firms more flexibility handling bitcoin transfers. Working with Intercontinental Exchange.”
  • Blockstream is one of the largest contributors of funding for Bitcoin Core.

Projects

  • Liquid sidechain; On October 12, 2015, Blockstream announced the release of its Liquid sidechain which could allow for the transfer of assets between the sidechain and the main blockchain. The firm claims over $1.8 billion in assets, including stablecoins, tokenized bonds and securities, have been issued on Liquid to date (14-10-2024), with over 3,844 BTC (around $250 million) locked onchain.
  • Elements Project; Blockstream released an open source codebase and testing environment for its sidechains product to public under open source license.The Elements Project is a community effort to create and test new extensions to the Bitcoin protocol, whose early contributions include Confidential Transactions by Gregory Maxwell, and Segregated Witness by Pieter Wuille.
  • Blockstream has released source code for the smart contracts on blockchain language Simplicity; Simplicity has been built to be compatible with Blockstream’s Elements platform, Elements is an open source, sidechain-capable blockchain platform
  • Is open sourcing its Proof-of-Reserve tool for increased transparency; most proof-of-reserve operations require substantial transactions that put exchanges at high security risks; Blockstream's innovative tool uses common sense and UTXO values to prove the extent of reserves; however, revealing UTXO values themselves is not a safe method, a problem Blockstream is currently working to rectify
  • From the Bitcoin Optech Newsletter #69 (23-10-2019):

"Blockstream Green Tor support: Version 3.2.4 of the Blockstream Green Wallet adds built-in Tor support for both iOS and Android. While Tor was supported in previous Android versions, it required a separate application whereas both Android and iOS versions are now bundled with Tor support."

"In 2019, Blockstream launched Blockstream Pool and announced it had been previously mining for a select few high-profile clients like Fidelity. Blockstream said it bought $25 million worth of mining machines from MicroBT. The machines are to be deployed through Blockstream's facilities in Canada and the U.S."

Team, Partners and Funding

Team

Old employees

  • Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn quit the Bitcoin project over a dispute involving a failed block size increase, which Hearn claimed was being opposed by Maxwell of Blockstream.
  • Ben Gorlick and Johnny Dilley quited Blockstream to join with a startup called Crowd Machine (cloud computing) where they no serve as the CTO and Chief of system architecture, respectively.

Partners

Funding

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