Exchange Ranking
Top Exchanges
24h Volume Ranking
Popularity Ranking
Exchange BTC Balance
Proof of Reserves
Decentralized Exchanges
Funding Rate
Funding Heatmap
Liquidation Data
Max Pain
Long/Short Ratio
Whale L/S Ratio
Binance/Okex/Huobi L/S
Bitfinex Margin L/S
ETF Tracker
Solana ETF
XRP ETF
Hong Kong ETF
Bitcoin Treasuries
Crypto Reversal
Ethereum Reserves
HyperLiquid Wallet Analysis
Hyperliquid Whale Watch
Large Transactions
On-chain Movement
Bitcoin ROI
Stablecoin Market Cap
Options Analysis
News
Articles
Economic Calendar
Features
Wallet
Contract Calculator
Security
Collections
Watchlist
Following
BTC Blockstream announces that its exchange service has entered Beta testing
Blockstream announced that its untrusted service used to transfer Bitcoin between the main chain, Lightning Network and Liquid sidechains has entered Beta testing. The service, called Blockstream Swaps, aims to fill the gap left by Boltz in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The news came about a week after Boltz shut down its own exchange service due to successive AI attacks.
The August 17 announcement guides interested users to apply for access rights. Blockstream has not yet announced a specific date for its full launch.
Blockstream does not replace Boltz
Atomic exchange is a transaction in which two parties exchange assets directly without any intermediary holding either party's assets. The transaction would either be fully liquidated or failed, with each party retaining its original assets.
The atomic-swapping version of Blockstream uses the same basic principles as Boltz and relies on hashed time-locked contracts. However, the company, led by Adam Back, specifically clarified that it was "not seeking to replace any provider." Instead, Blockstream Swaps is positioned as "a much-needed addition designed to enhance the redundancy and resilience of the ecosystem." The company added that they were already developing the Swaps feature before Boltz suspended its services indefinitely. However, the company admitted that news of Boltz's shutdown did trigger a certain sense of urgency internally.
Blockstream Swaps adds a new backbone Bitcoin based on the atomic exchange between the Lightning Network and Liquid launched in December 2025, thus opening up a closed loop between the three layers of Bitcoin. Blockstream itself has built and maintained Liquid, a federal sidechain, whose LBTC is an asset anchored to Bitcoin.
Why did Boltz shut down?
According to reports, Boltz blamed the indefinite suspension of its exchange services in early August on a wave of AI-assisted attacks that probed its systems increasingly frequently. As Blockstream also recalled in the announcement, Boltz once wrote: "The iteration rate of attackers has exceeded the rate at which a team of our size can discover and patch vulnerabilities." In the course of multiple rounds of attacks, Boltz never lost any customer funds because it had not held customer assets in the first place. The impact of the shutdown also affected wallets built based on Boltz, including Bull Bitcoin and Aqua Wallet.
A series of lightning network outages, but not network failures
Boltz is not alone. ZEUS rolled off its infrastructure on August 5 after a controlled security incident, becoming the third well-known Lightning network operator to suspend services in approximately 72 hours. This time point caused panic among users, but the data pointed to the operator's own problems, not the agreement itself. Analyst firm Amboss reported that during the week when Boltz, Aqua and ZEUS were disrupted, the public capacity of the Lightning network actually increased by 28 BTC and the number of public channels increased by 256.
Behind this is an arms race across the industry. According to related reports, a16z Crypto found that the success rate of a ready-made AI agent exploiting known vulnerabilities jumped from 10% to 70% after gaining knowledge of structured attacks. Since then, more than 40 Bitcoin companies have requested cutting-edge AI laboratories to provide them with vetted defender access to use the same model as the attacker.
