XLM to BTC: Swap Stellar Lumens for Bitcoin, No KYC

Stellar payments can carry a Memo. For this pair, look at the deposit screen after you create the swap. If it shows a Memo, copy it exactly into the Memo field of your Stellar payment. If it shows none, leave that field empty.

Lobstr and Freighter both have a Memo field on the send screen, usually under the amount. Fill in the destination address, the amount and, when shown, the Memo before you confirm.

Bitcoin, on the receiving end, has no such field. Bitcoin addresses do not use one, so the BTC only needs the address you paste.

Read the deposit screen once more before you press send, and compare the destination address character by character at both ends. A wrong character sends the XLM somewhere else.

A Stellar account has to hold a minimum balance of XLM to stay open. Lobstr and Freighter show this as a reserve, and you cannot send that part. Trust lines for other assets on the account add to it.

This is why an attempt to send your full balance fails. Enter an amount a little below what the wallet lists as available, and keep the reserve where it is.

Your XLM payment confirms on Stellar in a few seconds, and the network fee for it is a small amount of XLM paid by your wallet. Search your G address on StellarExpert to see the payment.

An account with only the reserve left still exists and can receive XLM again later.

Any standard Bitcoin address works: bc1, 3 or 1. Copy it from a wallet you control, such as Sparrow, Electrum or a hardware wallet. If the BTC is for long-term storage, take the address from the hardware wallet's own app and check it on the device.

Do not paste a Stellar G address, an Ethereum 0x address or a Lightning invoice here. The payout is an on-chain Bitcoin transaction and needs an on-chain address.

A fresh, empty Bitcoin wallet is fine. Once the BTC is sent, mempool.space shows it as unconfirmed and then confirmed as the next blocks arrive.

Paste it fresh from the wallet each time. Bitcoin addresses are long, so compare the first and last four characters after pasting rather than reading the whole string.

XLM in and BTC out move at very different speeds. Stellar finalises the XLM deposit within seconds. Bitcoin then needs one to three blocks to confirm the payout, and a block comes about every ten minutes on average.

In practice most swaps finish within minutes once the deposit confirms, and the remaining wait is the Bitcoin network doing its usual work. The rate floats until the XLM is confirmed, then it is fixed.

Some wallets show incoming BTC only after the first confirmation. If your wallet is blank at first, look up your address on mempool.space before assuming anything is wrong.

Bitcoin fees on the payout are already counted in the quote, so nothing extra is taken from the BTC you see in the box.

Stellar is built for quick, low-cost transfers, while Bitcoin is the coin that the widest range of wallets and services accept. That difference is the usual reason for this swap: holders move part of an XLM balance into bitcoin to keep it in cold storage. The rate comes from aggregated liquidity from leading crypto markets, and the box shows the BTC amount after fees.

Check the address row twice: a G address belongs only in the refund field, and a bc1, 3 or 1 address only in the payout field.

If a swap cannot be completed, the coins are refunded to the sender address you entered. Here that is the Stellar G address in your refund field, so use the account you send from.

The status page tracks the swap with your swap ID. If it stops moving, write to support@ghostswap.io with that ID and your StellarExpert link.

If the XLM left your wallet but the status page has not moved, check the payment on StellarExpert first. Include the payment hash from StellarExpert in your message, along with the Memo you used if there was one. Keep the swap ID until the bitcoin has at least one confirmation. Replies go faster when the message names the pair, XLM to BTC, and the time you sent the payment.