If you don't fancy reading my post below, you can instead, listen to it here.
Liquid is claimed to be the "world’s first production Bitcoin sidechain". It's an off-chain transaction system. You don't transact BTC on Liquid. Instead, you transact with representative tokens called L-BTC. This is a bit like how USDT (Tether) aren't real US dollars, they're representative tokens.
The following is a paragraph from from the announcement post. I have highlighted the errors in bold:
In addition to the enhancements to Bitcoin’s functionality\1]), the launch of the Liquid Network marks the beginning of a new era of digital asset issuance and transacting by enabling the tokenization of fiat, gold, securities, and even other new crypto assets – all with Bitcoin at the center\2]).
Error 1: "enhancements to Bitcoin’s functionality"
Contrary to the claim: "Bitcoin" hasn't been enhanced by Liquid. If you enhance an off-chain system (e.g. a centralized exchange, a tipping app, a payment channel network or a side chain), you are not "enhancing Bitcoin", you are enhancing the off-chain system that is using Bitcoin.
If I modify my car engine to enhance the performance, you wouldn't say that I have "enhanced the road".
If I improve an algorithm in a game I had written to allow the game to render more smoothly, you wouldn't say that I have "enhanced the game console".
If Rocketr enhance the their reddit tippr bot, you wouldn't say that they have "enhanced Bitcoin Cash".
This may not be an accidental error on Blockstream's part. It may be another data point in a pattern of deception emanating from Bitcoin Core developers and supporters. They often conflate systems built on-top of BTC with BTC itself. I'm sure many of you have heard BTC users claiming "Lightning is Bitcoin" or "Lightning transactions are Bitcoin transactions". This appears to be more of the same; IE Liquid is an enhancement to Bitcoin. These people appear to want people to believe that Bitcoin is a centrally managed, partially-AXA funded, side-chain project (among other things).
So here are some actual examples of real enhancements to Bitcoin:
- In May of 2018, 6 op codes were renabled and a new one (OP_SPLIT) was added to Bitcoin (BCH). source, source.
- Also in May of 2018, Bitcoin's (BCH) on-chain transaction processing capacity was increased by increasing the miner-consensus, block size limit from 8 MB to 32 MB. This allows more people to use the system.
- Again in May of 2018, the OP_RETURN relay size was increased to 223 total bytes. This has made it possible to use Bitcoin (BCH) for more purposes than were previously possible. You can now store more arbitary data in a single transaction. Memo.cash is one such service taking advantage of the increased OP_RETURN space. BitDB2 also provides a convenient mechanism to allow for the creation of novel apps that utilize this extra space.
- In November of 2018, Bitcoin (BCH) is likely being enhanced with 2 new op codes: OP_CHECKDATASIG and OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY. These op codes combined with the previously mentioned string processing OP codes allow Bitcoin (BCH) to gain some of the power of Ethereum. They enable Bitcoin scripts to get information from outside the blockchain. For example: you will be able to easily make a betting application using Bitcoin script where the outcome of the bet is reported by a source or set of sources external to the blockchain and the Bitcoin script decides who wins the bet based on that data. You can learn a little more about this by reading this article by Andrew Stone (A Bitcoin Unlimited developer).
Error 2: "all with Bitcoin at the center"
"Bitcoin" is not in the center... "Bitcoin" is off to the side (literally).
There is no economic revolution happening on the BTC chain. The genius and evolutionary Bitcoin technology has been systematically constrained, limited and shoved off to the side. The vision that Blockstream, Bitcoin Core, Greg Maxwell, Adam Back, Samson Mow and others have for your monetary future is one where the Bitcoin technology is reduced to being a settlement system for corporations and the super-rich: IE people that can afford to pay the high fees on their artificially constrained system.
BTC users may be unable to afford to transact on the artificially constrained BTC system due to the intermittent high fees. These users may be unable to use the trust-less Lightning Network due to the fact it's only suitable for "small or micro value payments" (source) and it is impractical and has a poor user experience. Blockstream helped to create these problems and they conveniently offer up the solution: Liquid. Blockstream see Liquid as a suitable system for use by end-users using wallets like the Blockstream GreenAddress wallet.
Is BTC too slow and expensive for you? No worries! Try Liquid! The whole system is securely maintained by government licensed, centralized currency exchanges that pay a recurring monthly fee to Blockstream. Liquid is the financial system of the future that Satoshi could only dream of! /s
My Suggested Correction To The Article
I have reworded the offending paragraph to correct the errors and more honestly represent Blockstream:
As part of a well-organised, ongoing effort to move Bitcoin’s functionality into inferior, permissioned or trusted off-chain systems, the launch of the Liquid Network brings humanity one step closer to complete monetary enslavement. Bitcoin; a peer-to-peer, electronic cash system; was a tool created-to, and promoted-as a system to give humanity sound money, prosperity and economic freedom like never seen before. Liquid is just one part of a multi-pronged approach to take that system and re-purpose it to serve the will of the existing financial oligarchs.
Blockstream: feel free to update your announcement post and use my corrections, verbatim.
No charge.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/9nlu5y/strange_errors_in_the_blockstream_liquid/
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