BCH to LTC: Convert Bitcoin Cash to Litecoin Without an Account

Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin both come from Bitcoin's design. They use the same kind of coin outputs, similar scripts and wallets that look alike. That family likeness tempts people to send BCH straight to a Litecoin address, or to point a hardware wallet's BCH account at its LTC account. It does not work. The two coins live on separate chains, and a BCH transaction can only land on the Bitcoin Cash chain.

A swap is the step in between. Your BCH goes to a deposit address on the Bitcoin Cash network, and fresh LTC is paid from the Litecoin network to the address you gave. Nothing is wrapped and no bridge is involved, so the LTC you get is ordinary Litecoin that any Litecoin wallet can spend.

For the numbers, the exchange box above acts as the converter: it works out the LTC after fees before you send a single coin.

Bitcoin Cash shows addresses in two styles. The current CashAddr style starts with bitcoincash:q, often shortened to just q. The older legacy style starts with 1 and looks exactly like an old Bitcoin address. Both point to the same coins, and the sender field accepts either.

That legacy look causes trouble. A 1 address in a mixed wallet could be a Bitcoin or a Bitcoin Cash address, and the two are not interchangeable. Copy the sender address from the Bitcoin Cash account in Electron Cash or Cashonize, not from a Bitcoin wallet, so any refund reaches BCH you control.

Cashonize can also show a token-aware address starting with bitcoincash:z. Do not use it here; give the regular q form. Send Bitcoin Cash only. Bitcoin SV and eCash split off from BCH later, run their own chains, and coins from them sent to this deposit would not count. Your wallet pays the BCH network fee, which is normally small.

In this direction the slower chain comes first. Bitcoin Cash keeps Bitcoin's 10-minute block target, so the deposit usually needs 10 to 20 minutes before it counts. Most swaps finish within minutes once the deposit confirms, and Litecoin then makes blocks about four times as often, so the payout side moves quickly. Going the other way, from LTC to BCH, the short wait is on the deposit and the long one on the payout.

Litecoin has three address styles you will meet. ltc1 is the modern native SegWit format and the default in most wallets. M is a script address, and L is the older legacy style. All three can receive this payout. Nexus Wallet, Exodus and a Ledger with the Litecoin app all give one of them.

One kind of Litecoin address is not accepted. MWEB, Litecoin's optional private extension block, uses addresses that start with ltcmweb1. The payout goes to a regular address; if you want the coins inside MWEB, move them there yourself from Litecoin Core or Cake Wallet once they arrive.

On a hardware wallet, open the Litecoin account, not the Bitcoin Cash one, and read the receive address off the device. A Trezor or Ledger keeps a separate account for each coin. Pasting the BCH account's address into the LTC field is the hardware version of the mistake in the first section.

Both coins aim at cheap, everyday payments, so the reason is rarely about speed or fees in general. It is usually about where the coins can be spent. Some wallets, payment processors and apps take Litecoin but not Bitcoin Cash, and someone holding BCH may find that the shop or service they want lists LTC only.

Others want Litecoin's shorter block time for later transfers, or the option of MWEB for private balances, which Bitcoin Cash has no direct match for. Some simply rebalance between two coins they already know.

Whatever the reason, the swap needs no account, email or ID. GhostSwap is a no-KYC crypto exchange: a Litecoin payout address, a Bitcoin Cash sender address and the BCH deposit are the whole process. The échange de Litecoin page lists every LTC pair, and le guide étape par étape walks through the box itself.

The rate comes from aggregated liquidity from leading crypto markets and floats until your BCH deposit confirms. The box shows the LTC you will get after fees, plus the minimum and maximum for this pair, so check it right before sending.

If a swap cannot be completed, the coins are refunded to the sender address you entered. For this pair that is a Bitcoin Cash address, which is one more reason to give an address from your own Electron Cash or Cashonize wallet and to send from that same wallet. A withdrawal straight from an exchange account comes from a shared address that may never credit a refund to you.

Your status page follows the swap by its ID. Open the deposit and payout hashes on Blockchair. If the BCH shows enough confirmations and the status has not changed for a long while, email support@ghostswap.io with the swap ID and the BCH transaction hash.