Blockstream’s acquisition of GreenAddress, a Bitcoin wallet software provider based in Europe, has nothing to do with the Lightning Network, says Lawrence Nahum, CEO and founder of GreenAddress.
Blockstream started developing the Lightning Network which is aimed at providing a scalable, instant Bitcoin/Blockchain transactions at a low cost. It is one of scalability ideas which has been proposed by the Bitcoin development community.
Nahum reveals to Cointelegraph that the acquisition is geared towards improving the wallet.
He says:
“Both teams from GreenAddress and Blockstream have strong and reciprocal appreciation and working as one will improve both the wallet as well as the libraries available for Bitcoin and sidechains. At GreenAddress we always worked hard to find the perfect balance between security, privacy and ease of use. This balance is a moving target and also user/amount dependant so you can never say it's 'done' or 'perfect' - software needs to be maintained and updated.”
What it means for the users
Blockstream described this addition of an open source, well-tested, production quality wallet as a natural choice in its sidechain technology roadmap as it increases the reach of their platform and allows them to meet the requirements of their enterprise applications.
In an email to its users, GreenAddress highlights some upcoming improvements as including a multi-platform wallet library to enable more rapid development of all platforms, enhanced privacy and security, and sidechain support throughout the platform.
It says extending GreenAddress to work with sidechains will mean that its users will have the ability to manage not only Bitcoin but other assets and features that are coming online over the next months and years as Blockstream and other developers establish new sidechain-based networks.
Nahum explains:
“GreenAddress is a non-custodial wallet and the software is well suited for supporting assets from sidechains; and our teams have experience working really well together. We tend to move fast to designs/technologies that strongly impact security/privacy/ease of use and many people like this and how we reliably implement the most innovative features and continue to deliver improvements as they become available (for instance new hardware wallets as well as new Bitcoin protocol/wallet features as they become live).”
GreenAddress is available for Android, iOS, and Chrome. All apps are and will remain open source.