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State Channels Wiki

Introduction to the wiki

State channels are an important technique for allowing some blockchain operations to be conducted off of the blockchain, while retaining or even improving the underlying security guarantees that a blockchain offers. In particular, state channels can be used to significantly improve the performance and privacy of interactions between a designated group of people, while significantly reducing transaction costs. They can be applied to payments, smart contracts, and many other scenarios.

This wiki serves as a public repository of knowledge on state channels and related topics. It was created at Ledger Labs, and includes concepts and techniques developed there during 2015-2016. It is still under construction and may contain significant errors and omissions.

A companion project, Toy State Channels, is also under development and aims to offer an example implementation of a fully abstracted state channel on Ethereum. A fully abstracted state channel should be capable of undertaking any possible channelised interactions (in series or in parallel) without the need for further on-chain operations beyond the initial one-time "locking up" of state.

To learn more about state channels, read this introductory blog post, or peruse the articles on the right.