Atomic Cross-chain Swaps: Development, Trajectory and Potential of Non-monetary Digital Token Swap Facilities

TL;DR

This paper explores the development, advantages, and challenges of atomic cross-chain swaps, a protocol enabling direct wallet-to-wallet exchanges among different cryptocurrencies to improve interoperability and scalability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of atomic swaps' technology, market development, and potential, highlighting their role in advancing non-monetary digital token exchange.

Findings

Atomic swaps facilitate direct cryptocurrency exchanges without intermediaries.

Market adoption of atomic swaps is growing but faces technical and regulatory challenges.

Atomic swaps have the potential to enhance interoperability and scalability in blockchain ecosystems.

Abstract

Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2008, many other cryptocurrencies have been introduced and gained popularity. Lack of interoperability and scalability amongst these cryptocurrencies was and still is, acting as a significant impediment to the general adoption of cryptocurrencies and coloured tokens. Atomic Swaps, a smart exchange protocol for cryptocurrencies, is designed to facilitate a wallet-to-wallet transfer enabling direct trades amongst different cryptocurrencies. Since swaps between cryptocurrencies are still relatively unknown, this article will investigate the operation and market development thus far and query the advantages they offer and the future challenges they face. The paper contains detailed literature and technology reviews, followed by the main analysis and findings.