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Lisk Releases First Modular Cryptocurrency with Sidechains

Lisk (www.lisk.io), the first modular cryptocurrency utilizing sidechains, has released its eagerly awaited first public release, Lisk v0.3.0, which is the first cryptocurrency to put into practice the much-discussed concept of using sidechains to infinitely extend the scalability of a digital asset ecosystem without impacting the speed or performance of the core blockchain. Sidechains are an independent cryptographic ledger that attaches to the main blockchain, but does not impact the speed or security of the main chain.

The Lisk vision is to have a highly scalable public blockchain where decentralized, blockchain based applications can be programmed without learning the often complex languages of individual blockchains. In this case, Lisk chose JavaScript, the world’s most popular programming language (more popular than C/C++ or Java), as it has a huge, global base of developers that can adapt existing applications or create new ones by utilizing Lisk’s easy-to-use SDK and extensive documentation for rapid development of blockchain applications and sidechains.

“Lisk is utterly unique,” said Max Kordek, co-founder and CEO of Lisk. “There is no public cryptocurrency platform which allows developers to easily deploy their own blockchain and build a JavaScript blockchain app on it. This will give millions of developers the ability to create their own sidechains, particularly around consumer applications, including games, social networks and the Internet of Things, but the same core functionality can also be used to develop and scale business applications.”

Lisk funded its vision by holding a four-week crowdsale which ended on March 21, 2016, raising more than 14,000 bitcoins and 80 million crypti (80 percent of the existing market). The price of those assets on the final day of the sale was $5.75 million, but an increase in bitcoin valuation since then has made its crowdsale proceeds currently worth $6.5 million – a remarkable achievement for a two-man team based in separate cities (Aachen, Germany, and Birmingham, UK).

Kordek and his CTO/co-founder Oliver Beddows are no stranger to cryptocurrency development. Kordek became very involved in cryptocurrency as a college student in 2013, initially in the Litecoin community, then as CEO of the Nxt Organization (Nxt has been a top 20 coin since its inception), and finally as an active member of the Crypti cryptocurrency team. Lisk was created from a fork of Crypti code and has enjoyed huge support from the Crypti community, as evidenced by the sale of 80 percent of all Crypti tokens to support the Lisk crowdsale.

Beddows has been a full-stack software developer for more than 15 years and developed tools on Crypti prior to teaming up with Kordek to create Lisk. Beddows is responsible for all core development of the Lisk platform and managing community contributions to the code.

About Lisk
Lisk is the first modular cryptocurrency, as well as the first public cryptocurrency to use sidechains and first to provide an easy-to-use SKD for developers of the world’s most popular programming language, JavaScript. Following one of the most successful public crowdsales in history (more than 14,000 BTC), Lisk released its first public blockchain, v0.3.0 in late May 2016.