Building on Bitcoin? Blockstream is connecting investors with Liquid Network fanatics

Earlier this week, Blockstream announced its "Liquid Ventures Initiative," targeting developers working on the firm's Lightning Network and Liquid public sidechains and connecting deserving projects with investor pools.

The announcement comes days after Blockstream held its first "Liquid Demo Day" event, which featured Bitcoin startups from Israel, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States.

May's Liquid Demo Day was a virtual event, considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and featured firms building Liquid-based solutions ranging from settlements and blockchain games to asset issuances.

For the uninitiated, the Liquid Network is a sidechain-based settlement protocol for traders and digital asset exchanges.

Blockstream touts the network enables faster, and more secure Bitcoin transactions alongside the issuance of other digital assets.

As per the website, transactions on Liquid are settled "Within two minutes," opening the floodgates for latency related trading strategy such as statistical and cross-exchange arbitrage.

Even as Liquid cuts down on the infamously long and uncertain confirmation times for Bitcoin, some traders note Ethereum remains the preferred network for most.

Asset issuances, so far a domain dominated by Ethereum, is now possible with the Liquid Network.

All issued assets can be traded freely and easily within the network or swapped for other assets using the open-source Liquid Swaps Tool.

The Liquid Demo Day seems to have won over more investors.