Statechains like Mercury:
- Swapping in your private key rather than creating an on-chain transaction.
- Centralized (one company, Commerceblock) runs the server (single point of failure), but it doesn’t “know” anything (blind signatures).
- Unilateral exit to base chain with timelock (you can get your Bitcoin back even if the server goes away).
Sidechain like Liquid
- On-chain transaction sends BTC to multisig wallet. Token (L-BTC) created backed 1-to-1 with bitcoins.
- 11-of-15 multisig of federation required to peg-out (get your BTC back).
- If something goes wrong with the federation for 7 days, Blockstream has an overriding key to retrieve the BTC.
Statechain (Mercury)54.2%
Sidechain (Liquid)45.8%
24 votes \ poll ended