Blockstream is new company making financial news with their 21 million dollar investment seed round. The Wall Street Journal reports:The company, known as Blockstream, aims to enhance bitcoin’s “blockchain” — the distributed, public ledger that is the defining technological feature — and turn it into a universal platform for multiple new applications that go far beyond the digital-currency payments for which bitcoin is best known. The co-founders hope to turbo-charge the development of so-called Bitcoin 2.0 applications, which will allow people to engage in “trustless” transactions without having to pay fees to middlemen such as trustees, registrars and escrow managers.
This brand new company is inspiring and I encourage you to keep an eye on the ground breaking work they're doing! I especially love this statement about open ledgers and accountability from their web site:
We want to power interoperable markets that are fair and accountable. Openness, accountability and public ledgers should be the norm and should not require users to sacrifice privacy. We seek to empower users with trustable and secure financial mechanisms via public auditability of their transaction history without disclosing more than is necessary for the integrity of the blockchain.
This is such an exciting development using technology that I love in new and unique ways. I can't wait to see what they do!