Sparkswap, the first exchange to be based on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network scaling solution, launched its beta mainnet Monday following around a year of development and $3.5 million in investment. The exchange, which utilizes cross-chain atomic swaps for near-instant transactions, will also allow users to trade without having to deposit their tokens on the exchange, marking a turning point in exchange security and convenience. The exchange currently only offers one pairing, BTC/LTC, but more should be in place for the official launch later in the year.
Sparkswap is in Beta on MainNet: We’ve launched for live trading and we’re announcing our Seed round! Read more here: https://t.co/7NMKxuuaKU
— Sparkswap (@sparkswap) April 8, 2019
Fast, Decentralized Trading
sparkswap was announced in July 2018, where founder Trey Griffith explained the premise, saying:
With Sparkswap, you no longer have to choose between fast settlement, liquid trading pairs, and maintaining control of your assets. Your assets are no longer exposed to theft or loss by exchanges, either from bad actors or local governments.
The exchange’s design means that users can finally trade on a 100% decentralized exchange that is as fast as most centralized exchanges (about one second transaction time) and allows customer retention of funds at all times. Speed, efficiency, and security are areas that have plagued decentralized exchanges since their inception, which is why Sparkswap’s approach is a welcome one and could pave the way for a whole new generation of such exchanges.
Great for Those Who Know Their CLI
Sparkswap isn’t perfect though, of course. It may only be in beta mode, but it’s clear that the exchange comes with one huge caveat – it uses command line interface (CLI) to execute trades. This may not be a problem for the demographic of people who are comfortable with coding, even at a basic level, but this immediately locks out any crypto traders who will not want to learn a computer language in order to benefit from the bonuses that Sparkswap brings to the table – which is most of them.
A more friendly interface may come along in time, along with more pairings, but for now it only really appeals to a particular subset of traders, despite how interesting the technology is and how much potential it possesses. We will certainly watch its progress with interest however, as it could turn out to be the poster child of a Lightning Network exchange boom.
