4-Swap: Achieving Grief-Free and Bribery-Safe Atomic Swaps Using Four Transactions

TL;DR

4-Swap is a novel cross-chain atomic swap protocol that completes asset exchanges in four transactions, eliminating griefing and bribery risks while ensuring fast, secure, and compatible operations with existing blockchain systems.

Contribution

It introduces the first four-transaction grief-free and bribery-safe atomic swap protocol, improving speed and security over previous multi-transaction solutions.

Findings

Achieves atomic swaps in four transactions without griefing or bribery.

Compatible with Bitcoin without requiring new opcodes.

Game-theoretic analysis confirms protocol robustness and rational compliance.

Abstract

Cross-chain asset exchange is crucial for blockchain interoperability. Existing solutions rely on trusted third parties and risk asset loss, or use decentralized alternatives like atomic swaps, which suffer from grief attacks. Griefing occurs when a party prematurely exits, locking the counterparty's assets until a timelock expires. Hedged Atomic Swaps mitigate griefing by introducing a penalty premium; however, they increase the number of transactions from four (as in Tier Nolan's swap) to six, which in turn introduces new griefing risks. Grief-Free (GF) Swap reduces this to five transactions by consolidating assets and premiums on a single chain. However, no existing protocol achieves grief-free asset exchange in just four transactions. This paper presents 4-Swap, the first cross-chain atomic swap protocol that is both grief-free and bribery-safe, while completing asset exchange in just four transactions. By combining the griefing premium and principal into a single transaction per chain, 4-Swap reduces on-chain transactions, leading to faster execution compared to previous grief-free solutions. It is fully compatible with Bitcoin and operates without the need for any new opcodes. A game-theoretic analysis shows that rational participants have no incentive to deviate from the protocol, ensuring robust compliance and security.