Atomic Swaps Between BTC And Monero Now Live On Mainnet
More than a few weeks after the Australian research team at COMIT network announced that atomic swaps between Monero and Bitcoin have been launched on mainnet, the first two Monero atomic swaps took place.
Twitter user @SethForPrivacy was the first to complete the process alongside an anonymous Bitcoin user. According to his excited tweet, the landmark transaction took 34 minutes over Tor, with the peer-to-peer transaction not requiring a custodian.
Seth was not alone in his excitement, as Monero followed swiftly to acknowledge the milestone transaction with a tweet of their own.
Atomic Swaps Explained
An atomic swap is, simply speaking, a protocol which allows a trustless exchange between two digital currencies without the use of a middle man. What this means is that if a person wanted to swap one currency for another, they would not need an exchange platform to do this.
Atomic swaps enable people to make direct trades with one another wallet-to-wallet.
Peer-to-peer crypto transfers have been discussed a lot for quite a long time. In July 2012, the first model of a trustless exchange protocol was created by a developer called Sergio Lerner.
While Lerner’s idea was fascinating, it wasn't entirely ready. The breakthrough atomic swap research came around in May 2013, with development taking place over four years before the first public launch in September 2017.
Atomic swaps make use of a smart contract that takes place between parties within a set time frame, along with other sophisticated algorithms that ensure the system is often incentivized enough to make the swap successful.
For an atomic swap to be complete, both of the participating individuals are expected to acknowledge that the exchanged currencies have been received within a specified timeframe. If one of the people involved in the transaction does not confirm the transfer before the time limit is exceeded, the process is nullified and the transfers do not occur.
Atomic swaps are considered a vital contribution to decentralization, since they eliminate the need for trusted third-parties or intermediaries, when exchanging from one asset type to the other.
What Atomic Swaps Mean For the Crypto Industry
In recent years, the concept of atomic swaps has continued to evolve, while the key principles and initial objectives governing them have remained unchanged. In a time where centralized exchanges are faced with trading fee challenges, potential hacks, and Know-Your-Customer verifications, atomic swaps offer more than good reprieve. They might be an everlasting solution.
The world continues to evolve into a data-sensitive one, and this is why anonymous, non-custodial exchanges like ChangeNOW continue to garner users, traction, and massive trading volumes.
You can buy or trade any of your preferred tokens for Monero (XMR) on ChangeNOW without any registration.