Drivechain

Hashrate Escrows

A mechanism defined by BIP300 that allows people to send money to specific sidechain "buckets" on the mainchain, and then block producers to vote over a long period of 3~6 months to authorize withdrawals back from that bucket. There is also an alternative, compatible proposal.

and

Blind Merged Mining

A mechanism that allows a sidechain to anchor itself on the Bitcoin chain (therefore not needing any proof-of-work of its own) while also pushing the sum of all its block fees into a single Bitcoin transaction that can be earned by Bitcoin block producers without them even knowing. It can be implemented using either this simple method that uses BIP118 or the more involved BIP301 method.

How does Drivechain improve...

• Privacy: by making it quick and cheap to use Zcash, Mimblewimble and Monero-like sidechains, Bitcoin users have their privacy instantly improved without the need for costly and cumbersome and barely effective coinjoin methods.
• Scalability: Sidechains can scale Bitcoin horizontally. Even without any new features, just by copying the Bitcoin code multiple times its scale is multiplied, and without burdening the main chain. This is sharding done right.
  It's also possible to take proven scalability technology invented elsewhere and apply it to Bitcoin directly through sidechains. Plus, using a Lightning Network overlay on top of all the chains we can achieve easy interoperability.
• Decentralization: By using sidechains for scalability and features we can keep the Bitcoin chain small and lightweight, and maybe even reduce its block size. And then users of either combination of sidechains can choose the sidechain they want to run, but they will always have to run the Bitcoin mainchain anyway (which will be easy for them).
• Security: By turning all block fees from a sidechain into a single transaction with a ton of fees to the Bitcoin miners, hashrate is increased, mining is more decentralized the Bitcoin chain is more secure. It's the solution to the complicated and unsolved problem of the shrinking block reward.

Possible Sidechains

A list of some good candidates of things that can be enabled as sidechains once BIP300 is activated on Bitcoin.

• Hivemind, decentralized prediction markets that will revolutionize the emergence and diffusion of knowledge in society by making cheap talk expensive.
• Namecoin, or some other form of blockchain for names, so we can do with ICANN what Bitcoin is doing to Central Banks (an idea of what that could look like).
• Sia, despite some weird shitcoining mixed in (that can be discarded), it's a simple design (a blockchain market for contracts and reputation) that solves a real problem (storing files) and apparently has proven to work over the years.
• zSide, Zcash fork that is already running as a sidechain on Drivenet to finally solve Bitcoin privacy problems. Also comes with decentralized and user-friendly melt/cast function.
• RSK, Ethereum-compatible federated sidechain that already exists but wants to turn itself into a drivechain. Can be used as the hotbed of new ideas.
• Monero, some people prefer this one, it has some real-world usage already and is even displacing Bitcoin in many darknet places.
• Thunder, a reasonable proposal for large-block sidechains for scaling.