The Elements Project

a community of innovators

Eric Martindale • La Maison du Bitcoin • July 7th, 2016

Bitcoin

the most well-tested, battle-hardened blockchain

The Bitcoin network

has been functional for

of the time since January 3rd, 2009.

(Bitcoin's genesis block: Jan 3 2009 02:54:25 GMT)

includes 6⅓ hours of downtime on 2013-03-12.

Building a blockchain?

Use Bitcoin's codebase.

(seriously. don't re-invent the wheel!)

Elements

are composable components
that extend the Bitcoin codebase.

They transform Bitcoin's features
into domain-specific solutions.

Sidechains

are bundles of Elements
deployed as a blockchain
on the Bitcoin network.

Sidechain Ecosystems

Blockchain
(Bitcoin)

Sidechain_a

Sidechain_a₁

Sidechain_b

Sidechain_a₂

Reasons to use Sidechains

Network Upgrades, without service disruption
Experiments, with reversible outcomes
Beta releases, for optional improvements
...what else can you imagine?

The 2-way Peg

Sidechain Assets

Issued Assets

are arbitrarily created in a transaction

Bonded Assets

are created & destroyed by a 2-way peg

Both have very different security models!

What can we build?

The Periodic Table of Elements

`elementsproject.org/elements`

Confidential Transactions	Segregated Witness	Relative Lock Time	Schnorr Signatures
New Opcodes	Signature Covers Value	Deterministic Pegs	Signed Blocks
Asset Issuance			Bitmask Sighash Modes

Rootstock

Elements Alpha

is a

Public Sidechain

pegged to Bitcoin's `testnet` blockchain

Launched on June 1st, 2015

🎆🎂🎆

Segregated Witness

2015, Q2: first prototype built in Elements
2015, June: deployed to the Alpha sidechain
2015, December: proposed to the Bitcoin community at the Scaling Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong (BIP 141)
2016, June 6th: accepted into Bitcoin Core (PR #8149)

`OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY`

2015, Q2: first prototype built in Elements
2015, June: deployed to the Alpha sidechain
2015, Aug.: proposed to Bitcoin community (BIP(s) 68, 112, 113)
2016, Feb. 12th: accepted into Bitcoin Core (PR #7524)
Block 419328: activated on mainnet! 💥

Ongoing Work

Confidential Transactions

Conceals transaction amounts, but not sender or receiver
Can be combined with other Elements for better privacy (CoinJoin-like.)
Based on Confidential Values, from Adam Back, Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille

Contributing

to the Elements Project

`chat.elementsproject.org`

`elementsproject.org/contributing`

`github.com/ElementsProject/elements`

www.elementsproject.org