I see that the code is open source, which gives a good first impression, but let's dig into the details:
- Do I need to synchronize all blockchains for all cryptocurrencies? Or just for Monero? Bitcoin or what? If it is for all blockchains, then the scalability is bad.
For the first beta which started yesterday, you need to have copies of the block chains stored locally, however this is implemented with pruned block chains so it is a lot lighter than running a full node. You can also point the DEX client at an existing block chain if you are already running a local client for the coin in question. You also only need to download the block chain for the coins you are interested in.
In later releases you will be able to specify a trusted server so you don’t need to hold the data locally and can keep things much lighter.
Looking at this running on my local drive, the sizes of each blockchains are:
- 7.3GB BTC
- 6.5GB Dash
- 4.8GB Frio
- 5.8GB LTC
- 52GB Monero
- 1.8GB Particl
- 19GB PIVX
I think Pivx and Monero are lot bigger because pruning is different because they are using obfuscation protocols such as cryptonote, so it seems about 1/3 of each TX has to be kept.
- Where is the liquidity provided? How is the price of trading pairs determined?
Liquidity is simply provided by any user placing an offer on the DEX order book using Particl’s encrypted messaging system called SMSG. Any cryptocurrency that supports time_lock can be used to place an initial offer; a buyer can then bid to match that offer. Any crypto pair can be traded as long as one of them supports lock_time in its UTXO script. This is how Monero can be supported; anyone can make an initial offer to swap Monero for another coin, but no offers can be made listing Monero as the initial currency because it does not support lock_time. I hope that makes sense.
There are no market makers or anything formal like that operating on the exchange at the moment, so all the trading is purely the community at this stage.
- Can you talk in more detail about how to do cross-blockchain trading without wrapped tokens?
The cross blockchain trading in an implementation of this atomic swap protocol, which I believe has been about for years, but was is formalised in this white paper:
https://github.com/h4sh3d/xmr-btc-atomic-swap/blob/master/whitepaper/xmr-btc.pdfAccording to the
source code notes, the steps of an atomic swap are as follows:
1. Seller posts offer.
o smsg from seller to network coin-from coin-to amount-from rate min-amount time-valid
2. Buyer posts bid:
o smsg from buyer to seller offerid amount proof-of-funds address_to_buyer time-valid
3. Seller accepts bid:
o verifies proof-of-funds
o generates secret
o submits initiate tx to coin-from network
o smsg from seller to buyer txid initiatescript (includes pkhash_to_seller as the pkhash_refund)
4. Buyer participates:
o inspects initiate tx in coin-from network
o submits participate tx in coin-to network
5. Seller redeems:
o constructs participate script
o inspects participate tx in coin-to network
o redeems from participate tx revealing secret
6. Buyer redeems:
o scans coin-to network for seller-redeem tx
o redeems from initiate tx with revealed secret
- Since there are no additional fees, how was the project financed?
So I guess the answer to this kind of has two threads. Firstly the Particl project was founded and funded by the community back in about 2014, so the development has been funded from there. The DEX runs of the Particl blockcahin and its encrypted SMSG protocol based on BitMessage. It’s been built as an example dApp to show off what a blockcahin and encrypted messaging protocol can achieve in combination. The message the SMSG network needs to support are very light so basically their cost on the network is almost negligible. So second the DEX is arguably a loss leader to try and bring users to Particl. For example if users swap their crypto for Particl coins they can then buy things like cash and gold bullion in the trustless marketplace which is a bit like eBay on a blockcahin and be accessed via
the wallet or
web portal.The marketplace was the first dApp built on Particl’s decentralised messaging system about four years ago.