Announcing Blockstream Swaps

On August 3, 2026 Boltz announced that its swap providers would keep disabled till additional discover. Boltz described the trigger as a sample slightly than any single incident: “over the previous months we’ve seen a gradual rise in automated, AI-assisted probing of our infrastructure, and we’ve handled a number of exploits. Each was contained, however the sample is obvious: attackers now iterate sooner than a staff our dimension can discover and patch.”

First and foremost, we want the Boltz staff the perfect as they work via this. They have been wonderful companions to Blockstream and the broader Bitcoin ecosystem, significantly on the intersection of layer-2 networks like Lightning and Liquid, and we sincerely hope they continue to be an necessary a part of it. They additionally confirmed that no person funds have been ever in danger, as a result of their structure is self-custodial by design.

In assist of the broader Bitcoin and Liquid ecosystem, Blockstream is launching Blockstream Swaps. This initiative was already below growth to make sure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it enhances the suppliers already doing this work slightly than changing any one among them.

What a Swap Actually Does

An atomic swap is a trustless P2P trade the place two events commerce belongings. The swap ensures that each side both full in full or the transaction fails and funds return to their authentic house owners. Atomic swaps are available in a number of kinds. Boltz used a selected kind, named for the hashed time-locked contract (HTLC) that holds each side of the commerce collectively.

Say you maintain bitcoin on the mainchain and wish to pay a Lightning bill. A swap pairs the 2 funds and binds them with a shared secret.

The mechanism is a hashlock. One aspect generates a random secret and publishes solely its hash, and each funds lock to the identical situation: whoever produces the key claims the funds. Revealing it to assert one cost makes it accessible to assert the opposite. Either each events settle or neither does, which is the place “atomic” comes from. The timelock is the opposite half. Every aspect carries a refund path that prompts if the swap does not full in time, so a stalled swap returns the cash as a substitute of shedding it. Boltz later wrapped this development in Taproot and aggregated the keys with MuSig2, so a cooperative swap settles as an extraordinary key path spend and the script path stays because the fallback.

Each course of the swap has its personal distinct identify, too. A submarine swap transfers mainchain bitcoin (BTC) or Liquid bitcoin (LBTC) into Lightning, and a reverse submarine swap strikes Lightning again out to the mainchain or Liquid. A sequence swap entails the trustless trade of BTC and LBTC.

Not each atomic swap wants a hash lock. LiquiDEX, a swap protocol developed by Blockstream, swaps two Liquid belongings in a single transaction. The maker indicators one enter with SIGHASH_SINGLE and SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY, which lets the taker add their very own inputs and outputs with out invalidating that signature. The commerce both occurs or it does not, with no secret to disclose and no timeout to attend out. Today, it’s used below the hood on platforms akin to FacetSwap and is likely one of the constructing blocks for trustless OTC desks and order books.

Why Lightning Swaps Matter for Bitcoin

Running Lightning natively means operating a node, opening channels, locking up capital, sourcing inbound liquidity, staying on-line to observe for stale channel states, and paying to shut and reopen when the topology shifts. This is what routing node operators must be centered on. It’s not what your on a regular basis espresso purchaser needs to give attention to.

Swaps take away the complexity for the top person. You can maintain a easy BTC or LBTC steadiness and let a swap convert in the intervening time of cost. All you see is a straightforward ship and obtain.

This means:

• A Lightning bill will get paid from a steadiness the person already holds, with no channel to fund first and no inbound liquidity to purchase.
• Lightning turns into reachable from chilly storage. For instance, within the Blockstream app, an incoming Lightning cost settles as LBTC in a Jade-secured pockets, with Jade offline the entire time it arrives.
• You can transfer funds throughout layers whereas by no means shedding full management over your funds.
• Merchants can settle for funds over Lightning and maintain them on whichever community they like.

Blockstream Swaps

Blockstream is constructing an in-house swaps function.

This function is effectively into growth as a part of a broader effort to construct a extra resilient set of instruments for the Lightning and Liquid networks. It’s at present in beta testing with choose contributors.

We will not be looking for to exchange any suppliers. We see Blockstream Swaps as a much-needed addition to enhance redundancy and resilience to the ecosystem. Recent occasions have solely strengthened that want, and we’re accelerating the work to convey it to market.

Request Beta Access

If your group is keen on testing and serving to us convey Swaps to market, request beta access.