Sidechains are not a proposal for scalability - don't you mean Lightning?
I've seen many definitions of sidechains, so maybe we use different terminology. What I mean is I'm against using the blockchain for clearing transactions only, it doesn't matter whether this would be the Lightning Network or the sidechains.
About Blockstream:
1. They are currently participating on a voluntary basis to the development of the Lightning network. The lightning network being an open source development they have no proprietary advantage over its monetization. In fact, you should know the theory behind this protocol was NOT invented by Blockstream whose incorporation and 21 million $ funding round predates the announcement of the Lightning network by a full year. It was only recently following the hiring of developer Rusty Russel that Blockstream began their involvement with lightning development seeing as Rusty had shown previous interest in payment networks (he was working on a micro-transaction network before being hired). Out of a team of probably a dozen developers Rusty is the only one involved with Lightning work at Blockstream. You can find here the lightning development mailing list where you should realise a couple of different developers outside of Blockstream are collaborating to the development progress of this network :
http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/lightning-dev/. All this to say that Blockstream's economic model is evidently not based on the Lightning network and this development will not centralize the utility model of Bitcoin to their advantage.
First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't think there is something really that bad about the Lightning Network itself. It may be a good idea for microtransactions or something like that. But it definitely should not finally replace traditional blockchain transactions. Blockstream developers have some very interesting ideas too, but that's off-topic here.
Can you answer one simple question for me? Because I've been reading materials on the topic for over 2 weeks now, but I haven't found the answer.
If, as you say, Blockstream's economic model won't be based on the fees coming from the LN, then it will based on what?
How do investors plan to profit from "voluntary development"? I believe you have no answer. Even if the things are not as bad as I described, there is absolutely clear conflict of interests.
The next question is why if the LN and BIP101 8 Mb (or even Gb) blocks can coexist, and, as you say, Blockstream won't profit from the LN, there is so much censorship about it? Who is behind the censorship in the "open-source peer-to-peer without-needing-an-intermediary" community? Everyone agrees that block size should be increased. Well, even if someone is afraid that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hearn may become "evil", why not to implement BIP101 into the Core? As for me, the answer is clear. BIP101 implementation with its 1 Gb blocks obviously will be not as profitable for Blockstream as if it were 1 Mb blocks. That's why we have this BIP100 nonsense.
Thank you Har01d.
I think you said something very intelligent here. Don't be so shy: your English is good.
You made your point very clear to me. And I?m really sorry about your post being deleted... but that's how it goes.
Post more often...
I rarely post anything on the forums because I don’t speak English as fluently as I want
Your English is great.
Thank you