Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1- Open the build instructions here.

2- Follow them to build and launch BasicSwap.

3- Give the client and wallets time to sync. You can track progress on the Wallets page.

4- Once the blockchains have synced, you're ready to swap.

For a detailed walkthrough of how BasicSwap works, see this page.

1- Open BasicSwap and go to the Wallets page.

2- Find the coin you want to deposit and click its Manage button.

3- Copy the deposit address BasicSwap shows you.

4- Send your funds to that address.

1- Open BasicSwap and go to the Wallets page.

2- Click the Manage button next to the coin you want to withdraw.

3- Enter the destination address and the amount, and check both carefully.

4- Click Withdraw to send the transaction.

The full steps for placing and taking offers are in the documentation. See the guides for placing an offer and taking an offer.

1- Open the Swaps in Progress tab in BasicSwap.

2- Click the BID ID of the swap you want to track.

3- Check the Swap Progress section to see which stage of the atomic swap it's at.

Yes. BasicSwap is live on mainnet and runs reliably for everyday swaps. It is also under active development: some features are still being refined or added, and the long-term goal reaches well beyond what ships today. Opening it up to more users now is how that gets built, through real feedback and real-world testing.

BasicSwap is best understood as a decentralized version of the SWIFT messaging network. All it does is pass messages between two peers over the decentralized SMSG network so they can run a coin swap together, with no central party involved.

BasicSwap does not do the swap itself. The swap runs as an on-chain atomic swap on the blockchains of the coins being traded. BasicSwap's job is to let the two sides talk: to exchange the data an atomic swap needs, and to broadcast offers publicly without an intermediary.

It rests on three components: the atomic swap protocol layer, the SecureMessaging network (SMSG), and the official coin cores of the coins you swap. A user-friendly GUI wraps all of it.

Atomic swaps: the mechanism that lets two parties swap directly, with no intermediary. Coins are held in time-locked addresses under a condition-based process until every condition is met. If any step fails, the swap is voided and the coins return to their owners after a set time. Read more about atomic swaps here, and about Monero atomic swaps here.

SecureMessaging: a peer-to-peer, decentralized messaging network (a mixnet) that lets two peers who want to swap reach each other and share the data, such as transaction hashes and proofs, that satisfies the atomic swap's conditions. It gives blockchain interoperability with no central control, and it also powers other DEX functions like BasicSwap's decentralized order book. Read more about SMSG here.

Coin cores: BasicSwap has no wallet of its own. It uses the official coin cores of the coins you swap. When you set it up, you install the cores (Bitcoin Core, Litecoin Core, and so on) that hold your coins and run the atomic swaps. You can also point BasicSwap at existing nodes, local or remote.

Yes. BasicSwap's order book is fully decentralized, with no central point of failure and no centralized parts. It runs on the SecureMessaging (SMSG) network, so it is fully distributed. For how SMSG makes that work, read more here.

SMSG is a global peer-to-peer network of nodes. When you run BasicSwap, you become one of those nodes. The network's strength comes directly from the people running BasicSwap.

BasicSwap's core functions do not rely on any third-party service; the protocol is fully decentralized, with no central point of failure. Some convenience features in the interface, like historical price charts, may pull data from external APIs.

Not yet. BasicSwap is compiled from source for now, but the steps are straightforward and documented here. There is also a community Linux install script.

No. BasicSwap is fully open-source and decentralized, so it does not depend on any team or central organization. If all community development stopped today, BasicSwap would keep working exactly as it does now.

Every user runs a peer-to-peer node, so the DEX keeps running as long as people use it. That is the whole basis of its stability.

It is a fair question, and there is no catch. BasicSwap uses h4sh3d's Monero atomic swap protocol; everything else runs on the SecureMessaging (SMSG) network and scriptless scripts. There are no wrapped Monero tokens, no intermediary chains, and no workarounds.

All of it is open-source. To audit or just read the code, visit the GitHub. You can check every line yourself and confirm BasicSwap does exactly what it says.