Blockstream's Liquid is a distributed network which extends blockchain functionality and allows users rapid transfer and settlement in a separate high-volume and low-fee secure cryptographic system.

Liquid increases the security of funds and helps boost market liquidity for business models using blockchain, the Blockstream website claims. Blockstream regards itself as a bitcoin-centric company that is advancing the technology and fosters the development of the bitcoin ecosystem. A number of bitcoin exchanges and brokerages, including Bitfinex, BTCC, Kraken, Unocoin and Xapo, partner with Blockstream in the sidechain project. Blockstream are working towards collaboration with other major institutional traders and licensed exchanges.

“We further hope that this inspires others to build on these and other future improvements to the Bitcoin codebase and encourages others to take advantage of our work in both the original sidechain white paper and the implementation in Elements Project open source releases. Bitcoin’s future is bright,” the announcement of Liquid reads.

Blockstream drives innovation in the industry of open assets and smart contracts implemented into the blockchain. Sidechains are interoperable with each other and with bitcoin and can be used to develop applications based on the ledger technology. The start-up released the open source Sidechain Elements in June.

The sidechain technology enables bitcoins and other ledger assets to be transferred between multiple blockchains, which is very beneficial from the point of view of capitalisation. UBS, the largest financial corporation of Switzerland, might consider implementing bitcoin sidechains, according to the head of the UBS's technology innovation and research team Alex Batlin.