On September 20th, the first atomic swaps were executed between 2 altcoins, Decred (DCR) and Litecoin (LTC). This is a hugely important function as it allows 2 parties (who do not know each other) exchange their coins in different blockchains without an intermediary (cryptocurrency exchange).
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"The problem of atomic cross-chain trading is one where (at least) two parties, Alice and Bob, own coins in separate cryptocurrencies, and want to exchange them without having to trust a third party (centralized exchange).
A non-atomic trivial solution would have Alice send her Bitcoins to Bob, and then have Bob send another cryptocurrency to Alice - but Bob has the option of going back on his end of the bargain and simply not following through with the protocol, ending up with both Bitcoins and the altcoin." [1]
The atomic swaps uses Hashed Time-Locked technology (HTLC) to implement a sort of conditional payment protocol in Bitcoin & Altcoin ecosystem. It allows the receiver to generate a cryptographic proof of payment before the deadline of the swaps, and sending a secret number to the sender so that the sender uses to unlock for his receiving coins.
This conditional protocol can be/is being used by online market places which are built on top of blockchain, connecting buyer and seller and making sure the buyer receives his/her product before releasing the fund to the seller. For further information on online marketplace based on blockchian check 1) https://www.openbazaar.org & 2) syscoin.org
Well that is something new.
Those were my thoughts as well. I don't follow cryptocurrency coins too close but this was the first time I've heard of this.
Thanks for reading!