Can Drivechain make bitcoin sidechains a reality?Imagine there is a Bitcoin-like system out there that you’d like to use, but would rather not go through the risk and effort of buying the native tokens for. Sidechains offer a solution where the value of bitcoins can be transferred onto other blockchains, so that bitcoin users can take advantage of the properties of these separate systems.
Smart contracts, voting, super-fast confirmation times, and even a way for competing bitcoin versions to live side by side. Whatever the function you require from a blockchain solution, sidechains promise to make access seamless, trustless and decentralised.
Sadly, sidechains are nowhere near finished yet, despite some non-trivial VC investments. Nonetheless, the overall concept promises access to limitless problem solving solutions, and a small collection of different teams are working on ways to implement the architecture that makes that happen.
In the original 2013 sidechain whitepaper, from Adam Back and the Blockstream development team, many ideas were explored in depth, but there was also so much missing.
At the core of any sidechain implementation is the idea that two digital currencies can be exchanged programmatically, without the need for a third party, or authorization. This ‘two-way peg' functionality was never fully explored in the 2013 paper, and many community voices openly worried that it could never work at all.
Conversations about fixing bitcoin's transaction limit, a problem that a sidechain with a working two way peg would solve, moved on to other alternatives, including the lightning network and bitcoin XT.
Paul Sztorc is one of the few developers actively exploring the concept. His latest project, dubbed "Drivechain - The Simple Two Way Peg" offers a new approach on plugging the hole in sidechains, with even more added features.
http://bravenewcoin.com/news/can-drivechain-make-bitcoin-sidechains-a-reality/
