http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/22/bitbeat-bitcoin-coding-allstars-launch-sidechains-project-to-boost-innovation/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.
