A new testnet tool for the Monero ecosystem will allow investors to “swap” XMR for Bitcoin more easily than before by utilizing the atomic network once it’s rolled out, a developer shared over the weekend.
Swapping BTC to XMR
On a Reddit post published this weekend, developer “h4sh3d” said their research on Monero Atomic Swaps was “now complete” and brought with it the first testnet protocol to atomically swap Bitcoin and Monero.
An atomic swap is a smart contract technology that enables the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another without using centralized intermediaries, such as exchanges. They first came into prominence in September 2017, when an atomic swap between Decred and Litecoin was conducted, according to Binance Academy.
With the new testnet implementation, users interested in swapping Bitcoin to Monero will be able to do it seamlessly and without the need for KYC procedures or accessing an exchange. This allows for true decentralization and privacy.
The developer noted the process in the points below:
1) The monero are locked in an address generated by both participants
2) In the beginning, neither of the participants have full control over the address; they both have half of the private key only
3) With the cross-group discrete logarithm equality zkp, both participants prove to each other that the address on the Bitcoin chain is related to the address on the Monero chain
4) By means of Bitcoin scripts and ECDSA one-time verifiably encrypted signatures, one participant reveals to the other her partial private key by taking the bitcoin, allowing the other to take control over the monero
5) If the swap succeeds, A reveals to B, and if the swap is canceled, B reveals to A. (We have a third scenario explained in the paper to force reaction and avoid deadlock).
Next Steps
The next steps for this protocol are to have a working implementation on the mainnet. However, the developer noted that such a “ready-to-use implementation that is also robust and safe-to-use requires a lot of engineering work,” and even though the cryptography is not too obscure, “most of it still also lacks an implementation.”
They added they will post a CCS proposal to get the team to work on implementing this protocol to eventually create a working client/daemon for swapping Bitcoin and Monero.
Meanwhile, Monero continues to build iron-clad privacy features and currency usage for users. Last month, Andreas Antonopoulos, a prominent crypto proponent, even noted Bitcoin will “never ever” see Monero-like privacy due to the latter’s superior tech.
