How long do transactions on the Liquid Network take to clear? Transactions on the Liquid sidechain are said to enable much faster transfers than the main Bitcoin blockchain.  How fast are the the transfers?   Does it still use a blockchain?
Does it still use a blockchain?


Yes, it is using a blockchain, however it is "federated" with a known set of participants which enforce consensus rules. It does not utilize proof-of-work mining.  The Liquid sidechain allows 2-way pegging of assets eg: L-BTC &lt;-> BTC.


  How fast are the the transfers?


The Liquid white paper mentions 1 minute block times with the possibility to reduce this:

"Today, the implementation allows for one minute blocks. It will be possible to reduce the time to the amount required for the pre-commit and agreement threshold time of the network traversal"

However (as of October 29th, 2018) the Blockstream website has a bullet point indicating the actual settlement time is 2-minutes currently:

"React to trading opportunities faster thanks to two minute settlement times when sending between exchanges."

This should allow much faster transfers between exchanges which could potentially let users trade L-BTC upon receipt as though it were BTC.