We are looking for someone who would be able to lead the development of a Bitcoin sidechain project using Elements. This project, currently called “Sequentia”, is so far nothing more than a concept, which we’ve described in a whitepaper as well as a theoretical paper; both can be found here.

In a nutshell, the core idea behind Sequentia is a Bitcoin sidechain that is optimized for seamless cross-chain atomic and Lightning swaps with Bitcoin. The intended result is a UX that’s centered around a standard Bitcoin/LN wallet which can be expanded to include tokens issued on the sidechain, and facilitate peer-to-peer swaps between these and BTC by using DEX protocols and platforms; therefore never requiring a ‘representation’ (pegged derivative) of Bitcoin on the sidechain.

To achieve this, there are (broadly speaking) two important changes that need to be made to Elements compared to its implementation in Liquid:

• Anchoring. A consensus rule requiring every sidechain block to have a reference to a Bitcoin block at an equal or higher height than the Bitcoin block referenced by the previous sidechain block. This means that a reorg on Bitcoin would also cause a reorg on the sidechain, as sidechain blocks would be discarded whenever they contain a reference to an orphaned Bitcoin block.
• No Coin. There should be no specific transaction fee currency on the sidechain. Thus, users would be able to propose sidechain transactions to Block Signers with the fee expressed as any amount of any token issued on the sidechain. In the most common expected use cases, transaction fees on the sidechain would ideally paid as a fraction of the same asset(s) being transferred on the sidechain. For example, one could have a Sequentia wallet containing only USDT, and use it to perform a p2p swap to acquire BTC. Only in the case of more volatile or less liquid assets (for which Block Signers might have no/insufficient demand), would a user possibly need a second sidechain asset in their wallet in order to pay fees.

In addition to the aforementioned optimization for cross-chain swaps, one of our longer-term goals is to switch out of the Strong Federation consensus model entirely and replace it with a type of modified proof-of-stake mechanism. This mechanism would also leverage Bitcoin’s own consensus in order to maximize persistence/transaction finality (other than in the case of Bitcoin reorgs), although it would use a “governance token”, which would nevertheless not be a “coin”.

While there are important reasons why we feel that this is necessary in order to create the most robust sidechain possible (more on this here), we also recognise that it isn’t required for our MVP/Proof-of-Concept, as we believe Sequentia would still be of immense value even using a Strong Federation for block creation.

We do not currently have any funding. But we will guarantee very generous equity compensation to anyone able to contribute their time to the project, up to consideration for a position equal to the two current co-founders.

If you are interested, please email me at andreas@sequentia.io