Instant DEX swaps are one atomic transaction: either everything happens or nothing does. A manual swap desk works differently — and understanding its stages tells you exactly where your money is at every moment.
The stage machine
- Form. You pick a pair and amount. The rate shown is indicative, computed from live prices, with a stated slippage margin (ours: 0.5%) that guarantees you at least the displayed minimum.
- Awaiting payment. The desk issues a deposit address and an exact amount, with a time window (30 minutes). Nothing is reserved or moved yet — you can still cancel freely.
- Processing. This stage begins only when your deposit is actually seen on-chain — watched via public RPC/explorer APIs for supported networks. From this point the order is binding: the desk has your funds and owes you the payout.
- Confirming. The desk has sent the payout; the UI counts network confirmations (0/N → N/N) with a progress bar. "Sent" and "settled" are different things — small re-orgs and congestion live in this gap.
- Completed. Only after all required confirmations does the order complete. No "success" is announced early, by design.
The two timeouts that matter
If the 30-minute window expires with no deposit, the order is cancelled — start a new one, rates may have moved. But if the deposit arrived before expiry, the timer becomes irrelevant: the swap must and will complete, because the desk holds your funds.
Why use a desk at all?
Range. A DEX swap needs on-chain liquidity for your pair on your chain; a desk settles manually, so it can handle assets and networks no pool exists for — which is why our desk supports dozens of networks beyond the wallet's own chains. The trade-off is time (minutes instead of seconds) and trust during the processing window, which the strict stage machine and confirmation counting are designed to make explicit.
Practical rules
- Send the exact amount to the exact address shown — partial or over-payments need manual reconciliation.
- Keep the window open while awaiting; closing mid-swap is warned about, not forbidden.
- Your payout address defaults to your own wallet — change it only if you know why.
