📡 We invite you to review Blockstream's progress in our Q2-23 update 🛰️ \ stacker news ~bitcoin

📡 We invite you to review Blockstream's progress in our Q2-23 update 🛰️

5395 sats \ 100k boost \ 12 comments \ @blockstream_official 14 Sep 2023 bitcoin

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Last month marked the sixth anniversary of the activation of Segregated Witness (SegWit), underscoring the importance of open-source software and the value of running your own Bitcoin node. To honor this historic date, we are using this quarter's update to take an in-depth look at a few of our own open-source Bitcoin products and the progress made in their development over the past three months.

Among the highlights are the latest on evolving cypherpunk multi-tool Jade and a new partnership with ZeroSync to broadcast zero-knowledge proof systems over Blockstream Satellite. We also share updates on a range of other Blockstream-led open-source projects under development set to play a key role in the open infrastructure that will underlie a hyperbitcoinized future.

https://blog.blockstream.com/blockstream-quarterly-q2-23/

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645 sats \ 0 replies \ @0x032e5661c6 14 Sep 2023

Thanks @blockstream_official for sharing the link to the Blockstream Quarterly Q2-Q3 report.

Was a good read. It was especially interesting to see how far along Jade has come. Jade appears to be one of the better open-source hardware wallets in the market.

I like Liquid. I've used it in the past.

Here are some questions or observations that i was hoping @blockstream_official would be able to answer.

Liquid has about 67 members in its federation comprising of major exchanges, Bitcoin infrastructure companies, digital asset managers, wallet providers and other Bitcoin-focused companies.

Of these 67 members, 15 operate signers that run custom-built hardware security modules (HSMs) and specialized software to produce blocks and manage the pegged bitcoin in an 11-of-15 multi-signature wallet.

Are these 15 signer members rotated amongst the 67 members?
What is the rotation period?
What is the process of selecting these signer members?
How do you prevent signer members from the same parent company or VC funded bias from colluding together to harm the Liquid federation?
How are conflicts resolved amongst Liquid federation members?
Are Liquid federation memberships accepted from US sanctioned countries like Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Cuba and Russia?

In addition to the 11-of-15 multi-signature wallet, the Liquid federation’s wallet implements an Emergency Withdrawal Procedure (EWP) by using a 4,032 block (28 days) timelock after which a 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet is able to spend from federation wallet.

Which Liquid federation members are part of this 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet?
What is the process of selecting these members for the 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet?
Are these members rotated amongst the Liquid federation 67 members?
How do you prevent members from the 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet from the same parent company or VC funded bias from colluding together to harm the Liquid federation?

Blockstream rebranded C-Lightning to Core Lightning (CLN). This was a good move.

Are there plans for Blockstream to rebrand Liquid (L-BTC) to remove BTC from the token name to help reduce confusion between Liquid and Lightning?

In addition to the above, Liquid Network has emergency backup keys held solely by Blockstream.

What prevents Blockstream, or a rogue employee, or pressure from a despot government regime from harming the Liquid federation?
How do we know for certain that a government does not already have access to a copy these Emergency Backup Keys?

FYI, I’m a fan of Liquid. I acknowledge Bitcoin layer-2 is hard to pull off and tradeoffs must exist. I am simply after some extra transparency on above questions while the network continues to grow, liquidity increases and before the next bull-run arrives. Thank you.

A snapshot of the Liquid ecosystem in 2022.

351 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 14 Sep 2023

Blockstream is so awesome -- like, the canonical company doing all the good things in the ecosystem, at so many layers! Would love to see more terrestrial redundancy built out, e.g., mesh network stuff.

I don't really know how they actually make any money, though. Does anybody know? Presumably Back and others in leadership had a shit-ton of btc from the old days that they sold over time at a zillion-fold profit (this is all conjecture, but seems likely). But aside from that, is it just hardware sales? I assume Liquid is not actually generating non-trivial revenue for them.