Elements vs Liquid

Elements is an open-source blockchain platform developed and maintained by Blockstream. Elements was launched shortly after the publication of the first sidechain whitepaper in 2014. It is a codebase fork of Bitcoin Core and extends Bitcoin with new functionality while remaining closely aligned with upstream Bitcoin Core development.

Liquid is one production instance of Elements. More specifically, Liquid is a production Bitcoin sidechain running Elements Core with Liquid's specific chain parameters, consensus configuration and active federation parameters.

Elements Core

Elements Core is the node implementation used to run Elements-based blockchains.

Like Bitcoin Core, it offers:

• a peer-to-peer node.
• block and transaction validation.
• a UTXO-based ledger.
• a wallet and JSON-RPC interface.
• command-line and graphical clients.

The main binaries (executables) retain the Elements name:

Run the Liquid Network with Elements Core

Liquid is one network configuration supported by Elements Core.

For example, running:

elementsd -chain=liquidv1

starts an Elements node configured to synchronize with the Liquid Network.

Liquid defines the production network around that software, including (but not limited to):

• the liquidv1 chain and network parameters.
• Bitcoin mainnet as the parent chain for the two-way peg.
• LBTC as the Bitcoin-pegged asset used on Liquid.
• the active federation and block-signing configuration.
• Liquid-specific consensus and policy parameters.
• the production peer-to-peer network and chain history.

These properties describe Liquid, not Elements.

One platform, many blockchains

Elements Core can run custom standalone blockchains and sidechains with independently configured network and consensus parameters, as well as built-in and preconfigured testing environments, such as Elements regtest and Liquid testnet.

Examples of configurable parameters

A custom Elements blockchain can define its own consensus and network configuration rather than inheriting Liquid's production settings. For example:

A custom chain could be started with settings such as:

elementsd -chain=mychain \
  -signblockscript=<block-signing-script> \
  -peginconfirmationdepth=20

Elements and Bitcoin

Elements is intentionally aligned with its upstream codebase.

This allows Elements to inherit Bitcoin Core's bug fixes, security improvements, optimizations, and other extensively reviewed code. As a result, Elements has historically maintained roughly 80% codebase overlap with Bitcoin Core, although the exact percentage varies by release.

This close relationship is very obvious to node operators and developers. Elements Core retains many Bitcoin Core conventions, command-line options, data structures, and JSON-RPC methods.

E.g., both implementations use the -chain= option to select the blockchain configuration to run.

flowchart LR

    BM["Bitcoin mainnet<br/><code>main</code>"]
    BT["Bitcoin testnet<br/><code>testnet4</code>"]
    BS["Bitcoin Signet<br/><code>signet</code>"]
    BR["Bitcoin Regtest<br/><code>regtest</code>"]

    BFORK["-chain="]
    BFORK@{ shape: text }

    BM --- BFORK
    BT --- BFORK
    BS --- BFORK
    BR --- BFORK

    subgraph BITCOIN["Bitcoin"]
        BC["Bitcoin Core"]
    end

    BFORK --- BITCOIN

    subgraph ELEMENTS["Elements"]
        EC["Elements Core"]
    end

    BITCOIN <--> ELEMENTS

    EFORK["-chain="]
    EFORK@{ shape: text }

    ELEMENTS --- EFORK

    EFORK --- LM["Liquid mainnet<br/><code>liquidv1</code>"]
    EFORK --- LT["Liquid testnet<br/><code>liquidtestnet</code>"]
    EFORK --- ER["Elements regtest<br/><code>elementsregtest</code>"]
    EFORK --- CC["Custom Elements blockchain<br/><code>&lt;custom-name&gt;</code>"]

    style BITCOIN fill:#FFF4E6,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:2px,color:#3A2A17
    style BC fill:#FFFFFF,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:1px,color:#3A2A17

    style BFORK fill:#F7931A,stroke:#F7931A,color:#FFFFFF

    style BM fill:#FFF4E6,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#3A2A17
    style BT fill:#FFF4E6,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#3A2A17
    style BS fill:#FFF4E6,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#3A2A17
    style BR fill:#FFF4E6,stroke:#F7931A,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#3A2A17

    style ELEMENTS fill:#F1F3FC,stroke:#6C8ADD,stroke-width:2px,color:#2F3C6D
    style EC fill:#FFFFFF,stroke:#42539D,stroke-width:1px,color:#2F3C6D

    style EFORK fill:#6C8ADD,stroke:#6C8ADD,color:#FFFFFF

    style LM fill:#F4FAFA,stroke:#14909C,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#0D1437
    style LT fill:#F4FAFA,stroke:#14909C,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#0D1437
    style ER fill:#F1F3FC,stroke:#6C8ADD,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#2F3C6D
    style CC fill:#EEF6FD,stroke:#4B8FC8,stroke-width:1.5px,color:#173B5E

Many familiar Bitcoin Core RPCs are also available in Elements Core. Four commonly used are:

For the complete list of JSON-RPC methods available in Elements Core, see the Elements RPC reference on the Elements Project site. The reference is organized by RPC category and the corresponding Elements release.

Related Documentation

• Bitcoin vs Liquid
• Running Your Elements Node
• Elements GitHub Repository
• Elements Project Documentation
• Elements Academy Video Tutorial