Atomic settlement solves theft. It does not solve time-wasting. Those are different attack surfaces, and conflating them is the most common mistake in how people reason about trust in agent-to-agent markets.
This post is a mechanics-level look at the two primitives Hashlock is designing to close the second gap: execution rewards (a stake-and-slash mechanism for quote reliability) and tiered KYC (a per-trade trust filter an agent sets itself, not a policy a custodian enforces on everyone). Both sit above the settlement core, not inside it - which matters, because it means neither one changes who can touch your funds.
The gap atomic settlement leaves open
Hash-time-locked contracts give you a clean guarantee: both legs of a trade unlock against the same secret, or neither does. Party A funds an HTLC against H = SHA256(s). The only way to claim it is to reveal s. The instant s becomes public to claim one leg, it's available to claim the other. There is no reachable state where one side's funds move and the other's don't.
That guarantee eliminates theft as an outcome. It does not eliminate griefing: an agent posts an attractive quote, watches a counterparty fund their leg, and then simply never reveals s. Nothing was stolen - the counterparty's asset is recoverable via the timelock refund path - but capital sat locked for the full timelock window for nothing. In a human market this costs the griefer their reputation. An agent spun up from a fresh wallet has no reputation to lose, so the settlement guarantee alone doesn't make griefing unprofitable.
