March 27, 2020 – Blockchain technology startup Blockstream has announced the addition of ten new members to the Liquid Network’s federation. With these new additions, Liquid now includes a total membership of 45 exchanges and financial institutions.
We’re excited to announce ten new members to the #LiquidNetwork federation. The latest members mark the first new group onboarded by the Liquid Membership Board established in Oct. 2019 & brings the total membership to 45 exchanges & institutions. ?? https://t.co/CtXII5MPEB pic.twitter.com/42cci8kPB9
— Blockstream (@Blockstream) March 27, 2020
New members of the Liquid Network’s federation include:
- Aquanow
- DVChain
- MerklePro
- Hodl Hodl
- Ledger
- ListedReserve
- Point95 Global
- STOKR
- Wiz
- Wyre
By joining as members, the companies listed above gain access to some key features and responsibilities. Members contribute to the Liquid Network’s management, handling the addition of new members and providing input on the development of new features to keep pace with market demands.
Members also benefit from the ability to peg-out bitcoin to their own cold wallet and provide exchange service to their users. A peg-out is the process by which Liquid Bitcoins are transferred back to the Bitcoin mainchain from the Liquid sidechain. Any Liquid user can initiate a peg-in.
Some of the new members have already completed Liquid integrations:
- Hodl Hodl: added L-BTC as a payment option on their non-custodial Bitcoin marketplace.
- STOKR: integrated with the Liquid Securities platform for the smooth issuance of Liquid-based security tokens, such as the upcoming EXO token.
- Wyre: launched an Apple Pay quick-buy widget for L-BTC, now available on Liquid.net.
- Wiz: added L-BTC P2P trading to Bisq and released a proof-of-concept Liquid mempool monitor.
Other new members have integrations launching soon:
- Ledger: bringing Liquid asset support to the Ledger hardware wallets and Ledger Vault.
- ListedReserve: launching a Liquid-based Australian dollar stablecoin.
- DVChain, MerklePro, and Point95: integrating with a Liquid-based settlement platform that is under development in Japan.
L-BTC Overtakes Public Lightning Liquidity
The increased business interest has followed rapidly increasing liquidity on the Liquid Network, with over 952 BTC and $16 million in Tether (USDt) held on the network at the time of writing. This now surpasses the current liquidity held by all Lightning Network public channels (924 BTC), although this is to be expected given that Liquid is intended for high-value trading transactions, while Lightning is intended for lower-value consumer transactions.
The Liquid Network went live in October 2018. As the world’s first production Bitcoin sidechain, the Liquid Network provides fast, secure, and confidential transactions to address the needs of exchanges, brokers, market makers, and financial institutions around the world.
23 of the cryptocurrency industry’s biggest players participated in the launch, including Altonomy, Atlantic Financial, Bitbank, Bitfinex, Bitmax, BitMEX, Bitso, BTCBOX, BTSE, Bull Exchange, DGroup, Coinone, Crypto Garage, GOPAX, Korbit, L2B Global, OKCoin, The Rock Trading, SIX Digital Exchange, Unocoin, Xapo, XBTO, and Zaif.