Swap Bitcoin for Stellar lumens without an account: enter the amount, paste your G… address — and a memo if your service shows one — and send BTC from any wallet.
XLMYou hold bitcoin and need XLM: to fund a Stellar wallet or an anchor account, to pay a counterparty who gives you a G… address and a memo, or to hold lumens for payments that settle in seconds at a tiny fee.
Bitcoin and Stellar are unrelated networks. The BTC goes to a one-time Bitcoin address and is counted after 2 confirmations — plan for 21–44 minutes, almost all of it Bitcoin block time — and a Stellar payment then delivers XLM to the address you gave, with the memo if you entered one.
 BTC on Bitcoin | XLM on Stellar | |
|---|---|---|
| Address format | 1…, 3…, bc1… | G… (56 characters) + memo |
| Fee token | BTC | XLM |
| Confirmations we wait for | 2 | 10 |
| Explorer | blockchain.com | stellar.expert |
Paste the 56-character G… address. If the receiving service shows a memo, enter it in the memo field exactly as shown; a wallet whose keys you hold needs none.
You get a one-time Bitcoin address. Send the exact amount in one transaction with a fee that confirms within the next few blocks.
We wait for 2 confirmations; the XLM amount is fixed at the second one.
The status page links your Bitcoin deposit and the Stellar payment on stellar.expert, where the memo is visible on the transaction.
Exchanges give all customers one G… address and identify you by the memo. Stellar supports several memo types — an ID memo is a 64-bit number, a text memo is up to 28 bytes (developers.stellar.org, checked on 12 October 2026). Copy both the value and the type from the deposit page. A payment with no memo reaches the exchange's account, not yours.
A Stellar account exists only once it holds the minimum balance. A payout to a fresh G… address that would leave it below 1 XLM is rejected by the network. If you are funding a new wallet, keep the estimate above that figure; the reserve stays locked in the account afterwards.
| Way | What you need | Where it is slower or dearer |
|---|---|---|
| An exchange account | An account, a BTC deposit, a trade, an XLM withdrawal with your memo | Two waits and a withdrawal fee; the memo has to be right on the way out |
| A Stellar anchor | An account with the anchor, their onboarding, a deposit in the currency they accept | Anchors deal in fiat or their own tokens; buying XLM with BTC is a separate step |
| This swap | Two addresses — plus a memo if your service needs one | A floating rate fixed at the second Bitcoin confirmation |
Your bitcoin transaction is public and permanent: the outputs spent, the deposit address, the amount and the fee. On stellar.expert the payout is a payment operation from a payout account to your G… address, with the amount in XLM, the memo if one was set, and the ledger it closed in. If the payout created a new account, the explorer shows a create-account operation instead of a payment. Neither chain records the other.
About 21–44 minutes: 2 Bitcoin confirmations plus processing. The Stellar payment itself closes within a ledger or two.
Only if the receiving service shows one. Exchanges and custodial wallets do; a wallet whose secret key you hold does not. Enter the memo and its type exactly as the deposit page shows them.
Every Stellar account must hold two base reserves; a base reserve is 0.5 XLM at the time of checking (12 October 2026), so the floor is 1 XLM, and each trustline or other entry adds another 0.5 XLM. A payment that would not meet the floor cannot create the account.
It is shown under the amount field and follows the Bitcoin fee market. For a brand-new Stellar account, keep the estimate above the minimum balance as well.
Yes, on the Bitcoin network. Set the withdrawal so that the figure on this page is what arrives after the exchange's fee.
Write to support with the swap ID from the status page. The form has no refund address: a swap that cannot be completed is handled by hand, and a return to the address you sent from is arranged under the partner's rules, less the network fee.
About the coins on this route: Bitcoin (BTC) · Stellar (XLM)
Read next Memo, destination tag, payment ID: the coins that need an extra field
Read next Reading a swap status page: every state from waiting to finished
Read next Floating rate: what changes between the estimate and the payout
