As its main advantage, Liquid provides instant and secure transactions among all users of the sidechain. While Bitcoin transactions can typically take up to an hour to be sufficiently secured by the blockchain, Liquid offers a similar level of security within seconds.

Blockstream, which received a $21 million funding round last year and employs several Bitcoin Core developers, intends to deploy the sidechain among different exchanges and other Bitcoin service providers. Users with accounts at several of these exchanges will then be able to move bitcoin from one account to another within an instant, instead of having to wait for the transaction to confirm on the blockchain.

Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, Blockstream CEO and co-founder Austin Hill explained the added advantages of using Liquid:

"Liquid is mostly targeted at exchanges, and through them at institutional traders. These traders are the market makers that continually move funds back and forth from one exchange to the other, making use of arbitrage opportunities, as such minimizing spreads and increasing liquidity. These more sophisticated traders look at bitcoin's confirmation times as a negative, and really do need the type of speed of markets that Liquid can offer."