ALERT***BREAKING NEWS***What exactly is Atomic Swaps?

Very briefly, Atomic Swaps is a technology that allows a peer-to-peer exchange of two different coins. This is often called a “cross-chain” transaction and is made possible through the use of Hash-Time Lock Contracts(HTLC) on a multisig wallet.

To accomplish this, you’ll need two 2-2 multisig addresses: one for LTC and one for, let’s say, VTC. First, both parties send their respective coins to the corresponding multisig addresses and immediately lock it up with HTLC for “x” amount of time. In this scenario, let’s say it’s one hour. The HTLC also stipulates that the coins will go back to their owners if one hour passes. This will act as insurance for the owners.

Now one party opens a payment channel of 1 LTC while the other an offer of 55 VTC. If both parties are satisfied, they sign the respective channels to close them. You have now completed your Atomic Swap.

The significance of this technology seems very exciting as it furthers one of the core principles of Blockchain technology: decentralization. Once implemented, Atomic Swaps may allow peers to trade two different coins without a third-party like an exchange.

To be clear, the exchanges Charlie did with DCR, VTC, and BTC did not utilize SegWit. However, this technology will be necessary as a fully functioning and scalable Atomic Swap system will require the Lightning Network.

Ultimately, there are two significant take aways from the swaps between LTC-DCR, LTC-VTC, and LTC-BTC:

They were done with real cryptocurrencies and not testnet coins
It represents a significant first step as a proof of concept for future Atomic Swaps within the SegWit Ecosystem.