Atomic swaps and CoinSwaps: safe and private asset exchange

Exchanging goods can be tricky. Even once a counterparty has been found, executing the actual transaction can carry risks – the most problematic being that one side can renege on their side of the trade and run away with the other party’s assets.

The risks incurred are fundamentally due to lack of transaction atomicity: in a typical exchange, parts of a trade can succeed while others fail. This lack of atomicity is problematic, and makes it difficult for entities to trade with untrusted counterparties. Ultimately, this leads to a reliance on institutionalized trust and the proliferation of rent-seeking.