BitBeat: Bitcoin Coding Allstars Launch Sidechains Project to Boost Innovation

Some of the biggest names in bitcoin’s coding community have unveiled a new cryptocurrency software project that’s likely to cause a stir.
The so-called sidechains project was officially launched Wednesday with a whitepaper that proposes the creation of new sideline versions of bitcoin’s ‘blockchain’ transaction ledger. People can import bitcoins into these sidechains from the core bitcoinblockchain and transfer them back without a trusted third-party’s intermediation. The idea is that they create an independent environment for innovators to freely work with and enhance copies of the core software without inadvertently harming bitcoin’s basic software program, its so-called protocol.
The proposal, which could pose a major challenge to various ‘altcoin’ competitors to bitcoin, aims to ramp up the development of ‘Bitcoin 2.0′ technologies to decentralize commercial and financial activity.
The proposal also carries weight because of the names behind it. The paper’s lead author is Adam Back. In 1990s, he developed a program known as ‘hashcash’ whose core features were incorporate into the basic design of bitcoin’s core ‘mining’ system for processing transactions. Among the whitepaper’s eight other authors are two of the five-person core development team charged with managing bitcoin’s underlying software – Gregory Maxwell and Pieter Wuille. Gavin Andresen, leader of that core team, is listed in the acknowledgements as having offered reviewer comments.

This post was published at Wall Street Journal on Oct 22, 2014.