Monero (XMR) – Bitcoin (BTC) Atomic Swaps Could Be A Game Changer For Privacy Coins

Monero (XMR) is hailed as the king of privacy coins and a notable contemporary of Bitcoin (BTC). The cryptocurrency has not been in the news the same way as other cryptocurrencies of its stature, including Bitcoin (BTC). However, it continues to garner support from chauvinists of privacy and decentralization. Monero (XMR) has long been a favorite among investors who wanted to buy, sell or store without Uncle Sam peeping around. For this reason, Monero (XMR) found its first use case as a cryptocurrency to be used on the dark web mainly for purchase of medicines and drugs. Its untraceable nature encourages many to use the cryptocurrency for such transactions as transactions made on other coins like Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) can be eventually traced back to you, but Monero (XMR) is untraceable. While this may seem as an advantage to some, it is a disadvantage to government institutions and agencies that want to control and prosecute any citizens that engage in activities illegal in that particular country. This also means that any exchanges that list Monero (XMR) can expect heat from regulatory bodies. For this reason, Monero (XMR) has now been delisted from most exchanges. While some may argue that a privacy coin like Monero (XMR) has its own important use cases like paying for a visit to a doctor, or buying stuff that one would not want a credit card company keeping record of. This is why so many people accepted Monero (XMR) with open arms, making it the 12th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. However, one issue with privacy coins is that the privacy provided is absolute. There are no restrictions or controls. So, if anyone buys Monero (XMR) or any other privacy coin at the pretext of paying for visits to their doctor and later ends up using that coin to buy drugs or illegal weapons, there is nobody stopping them. Governments and regulators do not take kindly to such business and for this reason Monero (XMR) has continued to trade under the radar despite being the 12th largest coin. A limited number of exchanges offer it and the number of exchanges that offer it is slowly decreasing. However, recently decentralized exchanges have increasingly been welcomed by cryptocurrency investors. Platforms like Bancor and Kyber Network are increasingly used by investors who do not want to go through a centralized exchange that could get hacked or lock their accounts for no good reason. One of such popular platforms is Atomic Wallet which has recently made a game changing announcement stating that it will add atomic swaps for Monero to Bitcoin. This means that anybody holding Monero (XMR) can use Atomic Wallet or similar decentralized exchanges to swap their Monero for Bitcoin (BTC) without having to bother with a centralized exchange. This means they also need not to worry about government regulations or frozen accounts as they will hold the keys to their Monero or Bitcoin themselves. Such developments in the future could completely change the game for privacy coins like Monero (XMR) as unpredictable and unreasonable government regulations in some countries are increasingly pushing crypto investors towards privacy coins.