In our updated roadmap we’ve reported about successful Atomic Swap tests between MNX and BTC blockchains. Also, we promised to fill you in some more details about team’s plans and vision of MinexExchange development. In this publication we’ll try to respond on all of this.

What is Atomic Swap?

If you’re keeping track of this theme, you can safely scroll to the next article’s part. If you are not, let’s finally deal with this hype-swaps everybody has been talking about since 2017. It’s not difficult to do. Atomic Swaps, or atomic cross-chain trading, is the exchange of one cryptocurrency to another without the need to trust a third-party. In simple terms, this technology enables to connect different blockchains and completely modifies the way in which users transact with each other. For example, if you own 0.5 BTC and want to buy 250 MNX, with Atomic Swap technology you don’t have to use an exchange to trade your assets. Instead, you just have to find the other person with Minexcoin and change your holdings without fees, withdrawals and other restrictions.

To make trade operations safe and trustless Atomic Swaps utilises what is known as hash time-locked contracts. It’s a class of payments when recipient has only a certain amount of time to accept the payment. Otherwise, the money is returned to the sender. The person who will be making the payment sets up a specific hash, which represents the amount of money that will be paid. To receive the payment, the recipient will have to generate a cryptographic proof of payment or forfeit the ability to claim the payment, returning it to the payer.