Share this article
Bitcoin Meets Zcash: Developers Test Tool for Trustless Trades
A new tool showcases how the future of cryptocurrency trading might look with the introduction of cross-blockchain atomic swaps.
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 6:52 a.m. Published Aug 29, 2017, 1:30 p.m.
An in-progress blockchain project could one day help users trade bitcoin for zcash without a trusted third party.
Created by zcash developers Jay Graber and Ariel Gabizon, ZBXCAT is a new command-line tool that developers can use to exchange the two cryptocurrencies.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
With today's bitcoin exchanges having a history of being vulnerable to hacks (leading to millions of dollars in customer losses), ZBXCAT uses a concept called "atomic swaps" to avoid the need to hold users' funds.
Say Alice has bitcoin and Bob has zcash, and they want to trade the two. Rather than temporarily entrusting their cryptocurrency to a centralized exchange, atomic swaps would let them trade directly across blockchains. To ensure there is no cheating, both users would need to send the cryptocurrencies to each other by a certain time or the trade will fail.
Gabizon told CoinDesk:
"Basically, it seems a useful thing to me: To be able to exchange bitcoin and zcash directly with someone I don't know without having to trust them. Especially, given recent technical problems some exchanges are having."
In its current state, ZBXCAT users need to download bitcoin and zcash full nodes (with their full transaction histories), and use the command line to instruct the network to make a trade.
However, with the tool still not finalized, ZBXCAT's developers advise using "test" coins rather than the real thing for the time being.
The project is the latest in a line of similar ideas for experimental exchange-free trading.
Charlie Lee, the founder of litecoin, has previously said he is committed to atomic swaps, once the Lightning Network is activated on the cryptocurrency's network. The MimbleWimble project also plans to usher in cross-chain atomic swaps, as well as other features.
"I can't predict how it will be used exactly, I hope it will be integrated in other services in interesting and unexpected ways," Gabizon concluded.
Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Zerocoin Electric Coin Company, developer of zcash.
Welding image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
ICP Rises, Keeping Price Above Key Support Levels
Internet Computer rose, keeping the price above the $3.40 support zone, with early session volume spikes failing to produce a sustained breakout.
What to know:
- ICP rose 0.6% to $3.44 as early session volume surged 31% above average before fading.
- Resistance near $3.52–$3.55 rejected multiple breakout attempts, keeping the token range-bound.
- Support between $3.36–$3.40 held firm, maintaining ICP’s short-term higher-low structure.
Top Stories
