What happens to my swap if the site goes offline before it completes

05 September 2026

If the site goes offline during your swap, your coins are not lost - but the outcome depends entirely on the stage at which the swap stopped. The site cannot take your funds because it never holds them in a custodial account; you are swapping directly from your own wallet.

Here is the breakdown by stage.

Stage 1: You have not yet sent your coins. If the site disappears before you initiate the swap, nothing happens. You still control your funds. No transaction was broadcast. You simply find another service.

Stage 2: You have sent your coins, but the swap has not started. The site acknowledges receipt and begins processing. If it goes offline at this point, your coins remain on the blockchain. They are not lost. The site's own software tracks your deposit address. When the site comes back online - if it ever does - the swap should resume automatically, because the incoming transaction is recorded immutably on the chain. The site's server can reconstruct its state from the blockchain. If the site never returns, you have a problem: the swap cannot complete, and your coins are stuck at the deposit address. The site controlled the private key to that address. You do not.

Stage 3: The swap is in progress, but the exchange rate has not been locked. The site has received your coins and is waiting for a favorable rate or a liquidity provider. If it goes offline, your coins sit at the deposit address. Same as stage 2. If the site returns, it can finish the swap. If not, the coins are inaccessible.

Stage 4: The exchange rate is locked, and the site is sending your output coins. This is the most favorable scenario. The site has broadcast the transaction to send you the swapped coins. That transaction is on the blockchain. Even if the site vanishes immediately, the transaction is already submitted to the network. Miners will confirm it regardless of whether the site exists. Your output coins will arrive. The only risk is if the transaction fails - for example, due to insufficient gas or a network issue - and the site is not alive to retry. In that case, your input coins are still at the deposit address, and the output transaction never completes.

Stage 5: The swap is complete, but the site has not updated your status. The output coins are already in your wallet. The site going offline after that is irrelevant. You have your coins. The site's status page is just a record.

The critical point: The site generates a temporary deposit address for each swap. It holds the private key. If the site is gone permanently, that address is a black hole. You cannot recover coins sent to it. This is why the site's design matters. Some no-account swap sites use a "non-custodial" model where your coins never leave your control until the moment of the swap. Others use a "hold" model where the site controls the deposit address briefly. The difference is covered in the sibling page "What is the difference between a swap that holds my coins and one that never touches them."

What you can do to reduce risk:

• Start with small amounts. Never send more than you can lose.
• Check the site's history. Has it been running for years? Does it have a public record of uptime? No guarantee, but better than a brand-new site.
• Use a swap that locks the exchange rate quickly. The less time your coins sit at the deposit address, the smaller the window for failure.
• Monitor the transaction on a block explorer. If the output transaction appears, you are safe regardless of the site.

If the site goes offline and never returns, and your coins are stuck: You have no recourse. There is no customer support, no refund address, no central authority to appeal to. That is the trade-off for swapping without an account. The site has no obligation to you, and you have no way to force it to complete the swap. The only hope is that the site's operator eventually returns or that the code is open-source and someone else can pick it up.

For a deeper understanding of how these swaps work without an identity check, see the hub page "Swapping crypto without an account." It explains the underlying mechanisms that make this possible - and the limits of that possibility.

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