What is the state of development on atomic swaps?

[markcolls]

For a few years now I have been hearing about the power of atomic swaps. How they will cut out the need for centralized exchanges and improve privacy during inter-crypto trades. However, I haven't seen any implementations. If they exist, they aren't very popular or they purport to be atomic swaps, when they actually are something different.

When are we going to see robust use of atomic swaps and how far along is the development today?

[20kevin20]

There are some currently existing working software, although most of them are not newbie-friendly. The only one I worked with is Komodo's, which is also easy to use, although they introduced KYC a while ago (and I think it was not truly 100% decentralized before either).

AFAIK, they had to implement KYC to be able to continue their works but the code is fully auditable, so their product can be forked to allow atomic swaps without KYC as well. Here's their GitHub repo for their Desktop DEX if you're interested.

Other Atomic Swap working products that I haven't used but know about are Blocknet's, Decred's, and BEAM's.

[barto123]

I like submarine swaps - Bitcoin only

If you have a small amount of Bitcoin laying around (too small to open lightning channel), just swap onchain to Lightning.

Useful tool IMO.

https://submarineswaps.org/

[markcolls]

There are some currently existing working software, although most of them are not newbie-friendly. The only one I worked with is Komodo's, which is also easy to use, although they introduced KYC a while ago (and I think it was not truly 100% decentralized before either).

AFAIK, they had to implement KYC to be able to continue their works but the code is fully auditable, so their product can be forked to allow atomic swaps without KYC as well. Here's their GitHub repo for their Desktop DEX if you're interested.

Other Atomic Swap working products that I haven't used but know about are Blocknet's, Decred's, and BEAM's.

That defeats the whole point of having atomic swaps. We need the JoinMarket equivalent of Atomic Swaps. In other words, we need a open source version which is free of any centralized platform and worked on by independent developers.

[figmentofmyass]

There are some currently existing working software, although most of them are not newbie-friendly. The only one I worked with is Komodo's, which is also easy to use, although they introduced KYC a while ago (and I think it was not truly 100% decentralized before either).

AFAIK, they had to implement KYC to be able to continue their works but the code is fully auditable, so their product can be forked to allow atomic swaps without KYC as well. Here's their GitHub repo for their Desktop DEX if you're interested.

that's the catch-22. all current implementations require a centralized infrastructure, even if they are made to be non-custodial.

in practice, that means any platform that's large enough to get the attention of regulators will be forced to implement AML/KYC. sure, anyone can fork the repo and swap without KYC, but that obviously removes all the original platform's liquidity.

[20kevin20]

That defeats the whole point of having atomic swaps. We need the JoinMarket equivalent of Atomic Swaps. In other words, we need a open source version which is free of any centralized platform and worked on by independent developers.

There are a lot of issues preventing the existence of one that would have success. For one, JoinMarket requires only BTC which is easier to work with than cross-chain. You have to find people who want to change BTC for another coin at the same rate at the same time - and it's usually greedy people with exaggerated rates who are joining those markets.

Then, the setup itself is a quite big headache for the average user. We need something that is user-friendly and Komodo's is the closest one, although the KYC thing was a very big disappointment for me.

I'm quite surprised there is no fully working product for Monero and Bitcoin, honestly. It seems to me like that would be a huge hit.

that's the catch-22. all current implementations require a centralized infrastructure, even if they are made to be non-custodial.

in practice, that means any platform that's large enough to get the attention of regulators will be forced to implement AML/KYC. sure, anyone can fork the repo and swap without KYC, but that obviously removes all the original platform's liquidity.

I don't think all of the current implementations require centralized infrastructures. If I'm not wrong, Blocknet currently does not have any centralized infrastructure but I've never used it to know whether there's liquidity over there or not (although I do not think so). AFAIK, it's p2p. BEAM's atomic swap doesn't seem to have a centralized infrastructure either, but I may be very well wrong of course.

[figmentofmyass]

that's the catch-22. all current implementations require a centralized infrastructure, even if they are made to be non-custodial.

in practice, that means any platform that's large enough to get the attention of regulators will be forced to implement AML/KYC. sure, anyone can fork the repo and swap without KYC, but that obviously removes all the original platform's liquidity.

I don't think all of the current implementations require centralized infrastructures. If I'm not wrong, Blocknet currently does not have any centralized infrastructure but I've never used it to know whether there's liquidity over there or not (although I do not think so).

block dx just came out, so i haven't really looked into them. off the bat, their xrouter backend does depend on an SPV implementation, so it's not entirely trustless.

any idea how to monitor blocknet's network? how many nodes are there, and who's running them?

[baro77]

Monero guys are working on BTC-XMR swap:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/i1fknt/ccs_results_monero_atomic_swaps_research/
https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/h4sh3d-atomic-swap-implementation.html

I think there's huge potential there

[hugeblack]

If the atomic exchange is executed in a decentralized manner, believe me that many central platforms will lose their liquidity significantly, especially if the protocol of stable and linked currencies is implemented.

Most of the platforms that claim to be an atomic exchange are centralized platforms with updated databases and some identity verification rules and thus do not differ from central platforms.

[DooMAD]

Making it truly decentralised does still feel like a bit of a holy grail.  I used to think someone would solve it pretty quickly, but I'm slowly learning to temper those expectations.  It's not easy to combine the part where you want to have a peer-to-peer market where you can be paired with someone to actually make the swap with, plus the part where you want have it resistant to regulatory shutdown.  

So far, most people have tried to tackle the problem by developing a service, but the solution ideally needs to take the form of a protocol.  Not a simple conundrum to solve.

[stompix]

If the atomic exchange is executed in a decentralized manner, believe me that many central platforms will lose their liquidity significantly, especially if the protocol of stable and linked currencies is implemented.

Atomic swaps are for people that want to exchange coins because they need XMR or BTC or LTC, those people would simply go to an exchange, deposit their coins and get the ones needed back, their actual impact on exchanges is negligible, the ones that make the liquidity and the order book are traders who tumble hundreds of thousands a day to earn that little x% of it.

Look at localbitcoins, since 2017 they haven't managed to go past the 10 million$ a day barrier, even though the platform is still active, that's because people there buy once and they are gone.  The only thing that might happen is that traditional centralized exchanges might cease highlighting the exchange part and put more emphasis on trading.

[Walterhank]

I saw somewhere that it has been implemented. I think there is a barrier to utilizing it because they still aren't widely popular and the other is that the crypto industry is still in nascent stages.

[pooya87]

Making it truly decentralised does still feel like a bit of a holy grail.  I used to think someone would solve it pretty quickly, but I'm slowly learning to temper those expectations.  It's not easy to combine the part where you want to have a peer-to-peer market where you can be paired with someone to actually make the swap with, plus the part where you want have it resistant to regulatory shutdown. 

So far, most people have tried to tackle the problem by developing a service, but the solution ideally needs to take the form of a protocol.  Not a simple conundrum to solve.

I disagree. It is not about the difficulty of developing such a platform, it is about the fact that a truly decentralized exchange where everything takes place peer to peer will have absolutely no profit for the developer (in other words they can never make money from what they create).
As a result the developers choose other ways that can put some money in their pockets, such as adding certain centralization factor to the whole design, creating ICO scams to make a ton of money but also make the so called "DEX" relying on another platform,...

[franky1]

lets just wait for peoples lightning nodes to crash when day traders are 'botting' thousands of routes a second to find the right deals. so they can penny trade the micro percentage spreads of prices..
leaving everyones millisat reserves held up.

but shhh i didnt tell you that. especially when doomad will pretend it wont be an issue. ill let you all find out the hard way that lightning will end up using more bandwidth than bitcoins blockchain does.

just think.. BOTS. and then you might start thinking of the future risks

[dothebeats]

Some ideas and good implementations are around though aren’t catching much traction because they aren’t that fluid enough just yet to be used by lots of people, or not intuitive enough to at least boast some competition against centralized exchanges. You also have this problem of profits on the dev side, and such platforms would have to rely on donations in order to continue development. It’s not a question of how easy or how hard it is to create the platform. It’s more of a question of who provides incentives to those who work on such platform if it is to be fully P2P.

[stompix]

So far, most people have tried to tackle the problem by developing a service, but the solution ideally needs to take the form of a protocol.  Not a simple conundrum to solve.

I disagree. It is not about the difficulty of developing such a platform, it is about the fact that a truly decentralized exchange where everything takes place peer to peer will have absolutely no profit for the developer (in other words they can never make money from what they create).

I think I land somewhere in the middle with my idea of how this will develop, if ever...
Rather than having a team of developers working actively for this with no gains, which could still be done but seems lack of funding in a world where millions are thrown at everything is a problem it would be the teams of services that need this for their own existence, and those could come from a lot of sources, from payments processors or services that want to offer the possibility of depositing tons of coins but not the hassle of dealing with all of them on exchanges to the developers of the coins themselves.

lets just wait for peoples lightning nodes to crash

Franky1, how long do you plan on waiting for all your predictions about LN to finally come true?
You know, everyone here has limited time, think about what you want to spend it on.

[rodskee]

For a few years now I have been hearing about the power of atomic swaps. How they will cut out the need for centralized exchanges and improve privacy during inter-crypto trades. However, I haven't seen any implementations. If they exist, they aren't very popular or they purport to be atomic swaps, when they actually are something different.

When are we going to see robust use of atomic swaps and how far along is the development today?

Is this the one who has airdrop?that i don't knw how they sent me a Email when i never even Join any airdrop.Though i deleted already have just familiar the Name of the project and recognized as the title of this one.

I saw somewhere that it has been implemented. I think there is a barrier to utilizing it because they still aren't widely popular and the other is that the crypto industry is still in nascent stages.

While popularity is a Plus Factor yet what they need to focus first is the development and the Inside issues,Just like what said above that The developer won't profit from what they had create things that very important to solve because the Inside issue must be resolve first before the Community .