Terminology

Blockchains are ledgers that track ownership of assets

Books that record who was how much money

Different blockchains

• bitcoin: very secure, high value
• ethereum: faster blocks, easier smart contracts
• monero: privacy focused, no smart contracts (yet)
• ...

• Different address formats
• Different currencies

• Different (postal) address formats
• Different currencies
• Different languages

How can we exchange ownership of assets on different blockchains?

Meet Alice & Bob

• Fictional characters used in Computer Science
• Represent two parties

Alice and Bob want to trade

• Alice has Bitcoin
• Bob has Ether

We assume Alice and Bob are honest

1. Alice gives her Bitcoin to Bob
2. Bob gives his Ether to Alice

Why is this naive?

Cryptocurrencies are about NOT having to trust anyone.

Neither a bank, nor the person you are sending the money to.

Research.

One problem,
many solutions

1. Create new blockchain / tokenization

• Blockchains are isolated systems
• Create a new system that spawns across all others
• Have to trust new blockchain
• Only as strong as your weakest link
• This is what most people do

2. Do Atomic Swaps

• Do special transactions
• Both parties escrow their assets
• Difficult to make happen instantly

• Be in control of the asset until you get the other one
• Cash <=> bike
• Secure

• crypto: digital cash
• No trusted 3rd party
• Don't trust, verify! => open-source

Please clarify?

• Trade: Alice and Bob want to execute a cryptographic protocol
• Present them with choices
• COMIT is a platform => built for other developers

We are pretty proud of that!

The field is changing fast.

Cryptographic protocols will stay.

• Open-source repository: github.com/comit-network
   
• Initial prototype: comit-rs (Implementation in Rust)
   
• Initial draft of protocol specifications (RFCs)