Liquid's L-BTC resumes trading with 85% reserve coverage after restart
In brief
- L-BTC outstanding reached 4,229 tokens against 3,601 BTC in reserve on Sept. 10, 22:55 UTC
- Reserve coverage gap of 627 BTC persists as federation peg-outs remain suspended
- SideSwap markets reopened on Liquid while Bitcoin peg route stayed closed
- Block production resumed in controlled mode with functionary and bridge-node updates deployed
Network Restart and Trading Resumption
SideSwap reopened its markets on Liquid while the network's route back to Bitcoin remained closed. The exchange stated that Liquid was producing blocks and all SideSwap markets were open as of September 10, though new peg-ins and peg-outs through SideSwap stayed closed. Block production had resumed in a controlled mode without transactions at 10:00 UTC that day, with required functionary and bridge-node updates already deployed.
By 22:55 UTC on September 10, the Liquid explorer's block-tip endpoint had reached height 4,051,868, establishing continuing block production at the snapshot time. The restart followed a September 6 incident. A transaction shows 3,400 BTC returning on September 7 after that event.
Reserve Coverage Gap and Suspended Peg-Outs
The reserve shortfall is substantial. The gap between outstanding L-BTC and available Bitcoin backing amounts to roughly 627 BTC at the September 10 snapshot. Federation peg-outs remained suspended during the reserve restoration process, meaning users cannot redeem L-BTC for Bitcoin through the normal mechanism.
An earlier September 10 reading cited by SideSwap showed 4,205 L-BTC outstanding and 3,597 BTC in reserve, with coverage staying near 85%. The consistency across two snapshots suggests the reserve situation remained stable, though incomplete.
Market Conditions Remain Opaque
Liquid's homepage later said issued-asset transfers had resumed while L-BTC transfers and peg-outs remained paused. At publication time, there was no reproducible post-restart L-BTC/BTC price, bid-ask spread, depth, slippage measure or cross-venue comparison available in the public record. This opacity complicates assessment of market confidence in the token's backing.
