Plasma, a design philosophy first proposed by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon , offers secure, scalable transactions without sacrificing speed. There is also an associated counterparty risk if the trader wishes to exchange her coins with another trader. You just read: Altcoin. Today, the bulk of cryptocurrency transactions take place through centralized exchanges. We barely scratched the surface, and I can see big potential in atomic swaps for things like large Over-The-Counter trades where speed isn’t necessarily a priority. By open-sourcing the Atomic Swap Wallet, Altcoin.