Was recently going through a article about atomic swaps which was rather a new and interesting concept for me. I do understand at a macro level of how such a technology could impact the transfer of one cryptocurrency to another without the aid of an exchange but I fail in my understanding how this would render crypto currency exchanges as being obsolete? How will this affect trading activities if this technology takes over and adopted in coming years?
The main problem of atomic swap via standard blockchain transactions (as in TierNolan's model) is that they're slow, so many trading techniques cannot be used. So commercial trading activity will stay low on atomic swap platforms. The hope is to use Lightning for a smoother trading experience and lower fees, but as Carlton Banks wrote below, it's possible that this approach has some flaws that make it inviable. Will need to investigate more about that, however.
Also it's worth to note that atomic swap exchanges cannot integrate fiat currency, as there is no secure way to ensure a fiat transfer has happened. The only possibility is to use "crypto fiat", like Tether or Dai, but the problem then consists in transforming fiat into crypto-fiat without a centralized middleman, which may need KYC.
But for most crypt-to-crypto transactions that do not need to be carried out instantly (i.e. as a replacement for LocalBitcoins and similar platforms), in my opinion, atomic swaps are very interesting and could achieve a big market share in that field. I have proposed
in another thread to combine the atomic swap approach with others like Bisq and stablecoins to make it more attractive.
- Atomic swaps seems to charge much higher fees compared to ordinary crypto exchanges
- Some of this atomic swap projects thou still in baby stages are already enforcing KYC for users like Kyber Network which to me make no point of even getting excited about them.
Both "problems" seem to be related to the centralized nature of some "atomic swap" exchange platforms. If atomic swaps are performed in a totally decentralized way via a software (like on BarterDEX), you only pay the standard network fees. Also, KYC is not necessary as no central party is needed that would need to fulfill regulations.
Supposedly, atomic swaps won't work over Lightning
tl;dr: the mechanism works, but traders won't use it if they can't close a swap deal at a price they actually want
Interesting ... I think the mailing list thread you mean is
this one ("An Argument For Single-Asset Lightning Network"). Will read it.