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.