A lightning network payment has been sparking up a twitter marathon, The
payment, slowly increasing in value, is currently at 3.68M satoshis (~140$) and
has been making rounds all around the globe (and even space!). It has exchanged
hands between more than 200 members of the lightning community, been to more
than 35 countries and has even been sent to space by Trezor’s CTO Pavol Rusnak
broadcasting an invoice through Blockstream’s satellite network.
Feed for tag: blockstream
Blockstream published a few updates to its block explorer that was launched
last year 2018. The most obvious of the changes is the enabling of address
search with unlimited transactions. Although it takes more disk space, that has
led to increased search speed for the explorer. Secondly, disabling Java Script
has also been made possible to allow for more browsing privacy as Java Script
can be used to remove anonymity of users especially those using Tor, to improve
user experience significantly. Thirdly, an API endpoint and a web form have
been added to enable transaction broadcasting, a feature that developers or
users who may want to easily broadcast transactions to the Bitcoin Network may
find useful.
Simplicity is a low-level programming language for building smart contracts. It enables developers to build sophisticated and reliable smart contracts which are not possible on blockchains such as Ethereum’s EVM.
Blockstream is introducing its block explorer which has
gone live on the internet. The new block explorer is first for users of the
Liquid Sidechain but Bitcoin has been integrated so Bitcoin transactions on the
blockchain can be checked using the Blockstream block explorer.
Blockstream announced the release of the Liquid full node binaries and source code available here.
Now any user can join the P2P Liquid Network by operating a full node, in order to trustlessly self-validate the chain just like they can with the Bitcoin network.
Included in this release are the Liquid full node liquidd and liquid-cli command-line utilities, complete with wallet support which enables users to self-manage L-BTC and other Liquid Assets.
Liquid is a sidechain running on top of Bitcoin, enabling individuals and business to transact Bitcoin faster and with more features than the original Blockchain, it was created by Blockstream and was recently launched with the cooperation of 23 of the industry’s biggest exchanges including Bitfinex, Bitmex and others.
Blockstream reports on an alleged hardware vulnerability found on Supermicro motherboards and its impact on their Liquid servers.
When Bitcoin was created privacy was not in mind, Bitcoin is a public blockchain and it was created that way. Addresses, balances and transactions are public for anyone to search and track, while that provides transparency, it also lacks privacy.
As a result this lack of privacy can be used by blockchain analysis tools. They work on the principle that in most transactions with more than one input, all of these input addresses belong to the same entity, which can be traced back to its source IP.
This allows companies and governments to track an entity from one address and accurately guess its transactions and holdings in other addresses.
A group at Blockstream recently worked on a new type of transaction aiming at invalidating this principle, Pay to End Point aims at allowing both the sender and the receiver to sign inputs in the transaction, ensuring enough of these transactions exist on the blockchain will invalidate this principle and boost privacy for all Bitcoin users.
Liquid Network is a multi-asset settlement network that links together cryptocurrency exchanges and brokers around the world, one of the core uses of Liquid is fast, secure and confidential transfer of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is first pegged to the liquid network by sending it to a Bitcoin wallet generated in their Liquid Wallet, this enables them to transact using L-BTC without using on chain Bitcoin transactions.
To accelerate Liquid’s adoption, Blockstream, the company behind Liquid, released the Liquid Block explorer.
Just like Bitcoin’s own explorer the Liquid explorer shows information related to the peg-in transaction, confirmations, fees and the associated Bitcoin address. Along with other technical details like the unlocking script.
Blockstream started a week of Lightning Apps to introduce people to new Lightning apps built on top of Lightning Charge, a micropayment processing system that makes it simple to build apps on top of Lightning.
Welcome to the week of LApps! Blockstream is introducing seven new Lightning apps (LApps), one per day, over the course of the next week. The first LApp is FileBazaar, an app that enables Lightning micropayments for creators who are producing digital files like photos, videos, or documents.
Here is a list of LAPPs showcased so far: