Can someone explain in one sentence what #[0] is?
#blockstream
Discussion
Thanks for the sats but do tell
A bitcoin infrastructure company that has a list of bitcoin products and solutions, including mining operations, a software and hardware wallet, several L2 implementations (CLN and Liquid), runs the Blockstream Satellite network, and does R&D for Bitcoin Core.
Wow, that’s massive. Thank you!
Blockstream is a company which has focused on building the Bitcoin ecosystem through a number of projects, products, and services including the hardware and software for the Liquid™ side chain (operated by an independent federation of exchanges and other companies), the Green™ mobile and desktop software wallets, Jade™ hardware wallet, Core Lightning implementation of the ⚡️Lightning Network protocols, and their tokenized mining financial instrument, the Blockstream Mining Notes (BMN).
That's already a bit of a run-on sentence. Each of those products and services requires whole paragraphs of explanation. Most of their software is free and open source.
Liquid is at the nexus of their offerings. It's a side chain operating on L-BTC tokens with are cryptographically pegged, 1:1 to ₿ through an 11/15 multi-signature contract on the main Bitcoin blockchain, which enables secure processing of transactions on the side chain without counter party slippage.
The side chain supports a number of asset types and tokens (including the BMN, and USDt (Tether) and enables trustless issuance of new tokens along with some enhanced script (smart contract) features (especially atomic swaps which facilitate various peer-to-peer transactions without trusted intermediaries). It also offers transaction confidentiality (transaction amounts are blinded so only participants, and third parties granted unblinding keys, can see how much of a given UTXO was in each output (spent vs. returned as change, for example).
Blockstream has funded research and Code contributions to Bitcoin core since its inception (some founders were already core contributors). They provided significant support and code for SegWit (segregated witness) and taproot (Schnorr signature aggregation) as well as having supported interns who contributed PSBT (a standard for partially signed Bitcoin transactions), miniscript (a higher level set of scripting libraries which support composition of Bitcoin script fragments and "compiles" into the standard Bitcoin script transaction processing language) as well as the output descriptors support in core (enhanced enumeration of payment addresses from a given seed/secret, including support for enumeration/generation of certain types of multisig addresses).
They also contributed a number of optimizations to the core software and were the primary developers of libsecp (the cryptographic libraries upon which Bitcoin and almost all other cryptocurrencies depend).
Their Esplora is the open source codebase underlying the Blockstream Explorer web service (for viewing parsed details of any block or transaction on Bitcoin or Liquid blockchains). Esplora can be run entirely on your own systems (along with Bitcoin and optionally Liquid full node software) to allow for completely private search and analysis of this blockchain data (so you don't have to trust Blockstream, Inc. to refrain from tracking your browsing.
They also maintain an online store which accepts ₿ (on chain or over the ⚡️network) and L-BTC. It was the first online shop accepting Lightning payments (under #reckless hash tag).
Another of their research projects, reportedly nearing fruition, is Simplicity™ which is an enhanced script engine rigorously built using formal verification tooling and methods. That's slated to be deployed to the Liquid side chain first (possibly this year) and will also be available for adoption by Bitcoin core — if a critical mass of support emerges from the broader Bitcoin community.
Yes. I work for them (in IT/Ops). No. I don't speak on their behalf.
You will likely see a surfeit of FUD,🔥 flames, and mudslinging about Blockstream.
Caveat lector (let the reader beware).
Thank you for taking the time. There is no zap option on your comment…
Yeah. I know. I'm looking for a decent HOWT0 guide on how to set up for incoming zaps.
I've been sorta holding out for Greenlight support.
Greenlight is a new approach to supporting Lighting in a manner that allows self-custody. Think of it as an online proxy between an online Core Lightning / Bitcoin node and mobile or desktop/laptop wallets (such as Green™)
Green☜☞Light(ning) … get it?
The custodial challenge of Lightning⚡️has always been that a Lightning node has to have trustworthy access to a Bitcoin full node (or, at least a pruned node), and to a "watchtower" service (just another dæmon or process in the case of CLN).
These online services are necessary to establish liquidity channels (links to other nodes in the Lightning Network) and to respond to channel closure events (especially to watch for hostile unilateral closure using outdated settlement pre-images). So they can't be reliably hosted on phones, laptops, nor even in most homes.
The usual approach has been to trust Lightning wallets with your funds. That's reasonable for small balances (especially zaps and tipping, and even for most online retail). My old balance on BlueWallet sometimes got as high as two grand (USD) even though I never put more than couple hundred in (this was during a great NgU — Number-go-Up cycle).
Blockstream's approach is to ensure that we're never in custody of customer funds. That's why Green hasn't had LN support in the past.
With Greenlight you can think of the relationship between your Greenlight service provider and your locally hosted wallet (Green, but also any other wallet that adds support for the protocol) as being analogous to the way in which your desktop system interacts with your hardware wallet. Keys to the funds are stored in the local wallet while the Greenlight service holds pre-signed transactions for channel closure and acts as proxy to Core Lightning for spending and channel/liquidity management operations (initiated and authorized locally).
(I don't yet know if Greenlight will also support a BOLT12 Offers service as well. If so it would be authorized to issue LN invoices (BOLT11) to accept incoming payments for specific goods and services; BOLT12 is a work in progress in any event. I have heard that there are no plans to enable routing services through Greenlight nodes — for that you'd still need to host your own full nodes. I do know that anyone should be able to host their own Greenlight services. So a skilled systems operator could provide LN/Greenlight self-hosting for their own families, communities, or as a subscription service).