Blockstream
Blockstream is the Bitcoin-infrastructure company that Adam Back and others founded in 2014, builder of the Liquid sidechain and the Core Lightning implementation, employer of several Bitcoin Core developers, and a $3.2 billion firm after its 2021 Series B.
Blockstream is a blockchain technology company founded in 2014 to build infrastructure for Bitcoin, cofounded by the cryptographer Adam Back, who serves as its chief executive, along with the entrepreneur Austin Hill, the Bitcoin developer Pieter Wuille, Erik Svenson, and others. The company originated the concept of pegged sidechains, develops the Liquid Network sidechain and the Core Lightning implementation of the Lightning Network, runs a Bitcoin mining business, and employs several of the developers who maintain the Bitcoin Core software. A 2021 Series B financing valued it at 3.2 billion dollars.12
Founding and the Sidechains Paper
Blockstream was incorporated in 2014, drawing together a group of established Bitcoin engineers and cryptographers, with Back as chief executive and Austin Hill among the founders. In October 2014 the founding team published the white paper "Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains," whose authors were Back, Matt Corallo, Luke Dashjr, Mark Friedenbach, Gregory Maxwell, Andrew Miller, Andrew Poelstra, Jorge Timón, and Pieter Wuille. The paper proposed letting bitcoins move between the main Bitcoin blockchain and separate chains through a two-way peg, so that new features could be tested and run on a sidechain while remaining denominated in bitcoin and pegged to the main ledger.34
The premise was that experimental functions which Bitcoin's conservative development process would not adopt directly, such as confidential transaction amounts, faster settlement, or the issuance of other assets, could be deployed on a pegged sidechain that borrowed Bitcoin's currency without altering Bitcoin itself. The company raised a 21 million dollar seed round in 2014 and a 55 million dollar Series A in 2016, with investors including the venture firm Horizons Ventures and AXA Strategic Ventures.12
Liquid, Core Lightning, and Other Products
Blockstream's principal sidechain product is the Liquid Network, which it launched in 2018 as a federation operated by exchanges, brokers, and trading desks. Liquid is a Bitcoin layer built on Blockstream's open-source Elements platform; it offers faster and final settlement than the main chain, confidential transactions that hide amounts and asset types, and the issuance of tokens including stablecoins, and it is secured by a federation of functionaries rather than by open proof-of-work mining. Blockstream initially launched Liquid with about two dozen institutional members.56
The company also develops Core Lightning, formerly named c-lightning, one of the principal implementations of the Lightning Network, a system of off-chain payment channels that settles small Bitcoin transactions rapidly and cheaply before recording net results on the main chain. Its other products include Blockstream Satellite, which broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain from space so that nodes can stay synchronized without a conventional internet connection, the open-source Blockstream Jade hardware wallet, and an enterprise mining and hosting business that the company expanded after acquiring the ASIC maker Spondoolies.67
Funding and Bitcoin Core Developers
In August 2021 Blockstream closed a 210 million dollar Series B financing that valued the company at 3.2 billion dollars, a round led by Baillie Gifford and iFinex, the operator of the Bitfinex exchange, with the proceeds directed at expanding the mining business and the Liquid Network. The Series B made the Victoria, British Columbia, company one of the more highly valued firms built specifically around Bitcoin infrastructure.82
Blockstream has employed a number of the developers who write and maintain Bitcoin Core, the dominant implementation of the Bitcoin protocol, a fact that has drawn both credit for funding open-source work and criticism that a single private company exercises outsized influence over the protocol's direction. Cofounder Pieter Wuille, a longtime Bitcoin Core maintainer who led the Segregated Witness upgrade, worked at Blockstream before leaving for the payments company Chaincode Labs in 2023. The company's research division, Blockstream Research, has employed Andrew Poelstra, a coinventor of the Taproot upgrade, Bulletproofs, and Confidential Assets, and Russell O'Connor, author of the experimental blockchain programming language Simplicity.96
Sources
- "Blockstream," Bitcoin Wiki, on the 2014 founding, Adam Back as chief executive, Austin Hill and the cofounders, the seed and Series A rounds, and the product line. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Blockstream ↩
- "A Deep Look at the Company Blockstream and Their Bitcoin Technology," Blockonomi, on the founders, sidechains, Liquid, Lightning, the funding history, and the 3.2 billion dollar valuation. https://blockonomi.com/blockstream-bitcoin/ ↩
- Back, Adam, et al. "Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains," October 2014, the pegged-sidechains white paper and its author list. https://blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf ↩
- "Blockstream Releases Sidechain White Paper on Liquid and Strong Federations," Bitcoin Magazine, on the October 2014 sidechains paper and the two-way peg concept. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/blockstream-releases-sidechain-white-paper-liquid-and-strong-federations ↩
- "Liquid: A Bitcoin Sidechain," Blockstream, on the Liquid federation, confidential transactions, asset issuance, and the 2018 launch with institutional members. https://blockstream.com/assets/downloads/pdf/liquid-whitepaper.pdf ↩
- "About," Blockstream, on the 2014 founding, the founders, and the products Liquid Network, Core Lightning, Blockstream Satellite, Blockstream Jade, and Elements, and the research program. https://blockstream.com/about/ ↩
- "Blockstream 2018 Review: Countdown to Ignition," Blockstream, on the launch of the Liquid Network and c-lightning and the mining and satellite products. https://blockstream.com/2019/01/03/en-blockstream-2018-review ↩
- "Blockstream Secures $210M Series B Financing," Blockstream, on the August 2021 round, the 3.2 billion dollar valuation, the lead investors Baillie Gifford and iFinex, and the mining and Liquid focus. https://blog.blockstream.com/en-blockstream-secures-210m-series-b-financing/ ↩
- "The Focus of Blockstream Research," Blockstream, on the research division and its developers including Andrew Poelstra and Russell O'Connor, and on Pieter Wuille's Bitcoin Core maintainership. https://blog.blockstream.com/blockstream-research-the-focus/ ↩
Local network
Blockstream's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.
An interactive diagram of Blockstream's connections, drawn on a canvas and explored with a pointer. The same connections are listed as links in the Connected and Mentioned-in sections below.
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