Could Monero and Litecoin Eventually See an On-Chain Atomic Swap?

They seem to be the talk of the town today. Riccardo Spagni the head developer at Monero (XMR) and Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin seem to be interested in a potential collaboration.

This was all started yesterday when Spagni, who goes by the handle of Fluffypony, posted a picture to twitter with him next to Charlie Lee. They Tweet jokingly alluded to the possibility of a potential merger between the coins.

Indeed, if there was a collaboration of some sort it with the world's foremost privacy coin as well as the coin that has been labelled as "Bitcoin's Silver"

Charlie's Reaction to Tweet

Charlie Lee was quick to respond to the suggestion of by Riccardo. Pointing out that the tweet was most obviously worded as a joke, he suggested that greater collaboration around direct channels was possible.

This would no doubt be a great collaboration indeed. Cross chain atomic swaps allow for the exchange of two cryptocurrencies that exist on two different blockchains. They are being touted as one of the most interesting developments in crypto space.

These swaps were first tested last year on the Litecoin network after the implementation of Segregated Witness (SegWit) transactions in May. They came later to Bitcoin after the Bitcoin network enabled Segwit in September.

In September last year, the first on-chain atomic swap between between Bitcoin and Litecoin took place. This was viewed as one of the first moves towards the greater adoption of the technology for a number of other coins.

Benefits of Swaps Between XMR and LTC

Charlie went on to explain the potential benefits that would exist for both of the coins if they were able to implement a swap network. It would give more Fiat exchange opportunities for Monero and allow for more Litecoin secrecy.

More specifically, given that Litecoin is listed on a number of Fiat currency exchanges, it would allow people much easier access to buying and selling Monero through Litecoin. It would also allow the Litecoin users easier access to Monero's unique anonymity and fungibility.

For Litecoin, it could revive the fortunes of the coin that has seen price stagnation over the past few weeks. This all comes as a result of the announcement that Charlie Lee was exiting his LTC investment which was incorrectly viewed as him abandoning the project.

Indeed, LTC confidential transactions is something that Charlie has been particularly interested in. He views these as one of the only ways in which Litecoin can become truly fungible and more cash like than ever.

Potential Swap Transaction Soon?

While this is no doubt an exciting proposal, there would have to a great deal of work done on the Monero protocol in order to facilitate such transactions.

As Charlie alluded to in his tweet, this is something that the Monero Devs and broader Monero community would have to agree on. The Monero community can be hard to please and radical changes to the code base could face some resistance.

Nevertheless, this demonstrates the immense potential that exists for cross chain atomic swaps. One can only hope that other co-existent blockchain ecosystems can come together and facilitate more of these transactions.

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