Summary
TLDR: Commerceblock has released a new atomic swap protocol for use with statechains on their Mercury Layer protocol. The HSM server now supports swapping statechains and enforcing atomic exchanges with Lightning payments. This is the first concrete interaction between statechains and the Lightning Network. The HSM server tracks new fields for swaps, and users communicate directly to establish swaps. The Lightning Latch functionality works similarly, allowing statechains to be swapped for Lightning payments. This scheme offers utility for rebalancing Lightning channels, saving on fees, and potentially enabling more efficient marketplaces for trading ordinals. This is a simple starting point for integrating statechains into the Lightning Network and other similar layers, allowing for seamless payment routing and liquidity management.
Key Points
1. Commerceblock has released a new atomic swap protocol for use with statechains on their Mercury Layer protocol, enabling interactions between statechains and the Lightning Network.
2. The HSM server now supports atomically swapping two statechains and enforcing an atomic exchange of a statechain for a Lightning payment, with specific fields required for tracking and enforcing the swap.
3. The Lightning Latch functionality works similarly to the statechain swap, allowing for swapping a statechain for a Lightning payment and presenting potential use cases such as rebalancing channels, off-chain purchases of ordinals, and message passing layers for coin mixing.