If your mining pool pays you in BTC and you need an asset that lives natively on another chain, first check the destination wallet and the quoted amount, then send BTC through a cross-chain swap route. You’ll pay Bitcoin network fees and may wait for confirmations; the amount received depends on the route, liquidity and fees shown before you confirm.
What do you need before swapping mining proceeds?
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Choose the asset and destination wallet. Decide which native asset you need, such as ETH on Ethereum, and open a wallet that supports that chain. “Native” means the asset is issued on its own blockchain; ETH on Ethereum is different from a token that represents ETH on another network. Copy the receiving address from the wallet with the correct network selected.
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Check that your payout is spendable BTC. A mining pool may send frequent small payouts, and Bitcoin transactions spend outputs called UTXOs. Several small outputs can cost more to spend than one larger output. Leave enough BTC to cover the outgoing Bitcoin network fee, and check whether your wallet shows the payout as confirmed and spendable.
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Compare the quote with your actual goal. If you need to turn BTC into an asset on another chain, thor swap can compare available swap routes and show an estimated receive amount for that cross-chain trade. A route is the path the swap takes through available liquidity; check the destination chain, minimum received, slippage setting and fee breakdown before choosing it.
How do you estimate the amount and timing?
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Start with the spendable amount, not the pool’s gross payout. For example, say your wallet holds 0.01 BTC from mining. Enter the amount you plan to swap, then compare the estimated output with the BTC left after the Bitcoin transaction fee. If the quote is close to your minimum acceptable amount, wait for a larger payout or use a cheaper time to send.
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Read each cost in the quote. A cross-chain swap can involve a Bitcoin network fee, liquidity and swap costs, and a fee on the destination chain. The exact total varies with network congestion, route and trade size. The THORSwap fee documentation describes the exchange and network fees separately; the quote’s fee breakdown is the practical figure to use before confirming.
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Allow for confirmation time. The Bitcoin Developer Guide explains that a transaction gets one confirmation when it enters a block; Bitcoin blocks arrive about every 10 minutes on average, but actual waiting time varies. The swap may also need further processing after the BTC is confirmed, so don’t treat a broadcast transaction as delivered funds.
How do you complete the cross-chain swap?
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Open the swap interface and connect the wallets you need. Connect a Bitcoin wallet that holds the proceeds and a destination-chain wallet, or enter the receiving address if the interface supports that method. Confirm that the Bitcoin wallet is the one containing your mining payout and that the destination address belongs to the correct chain.
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Select BTC as the asset to send and your native asset as the asset to receive. Enter the amount, paste or verify your destination address, and inspect the quoted route. Check that the receive asset is native to the intended chain, not a similarly named token on another network. A typo or wrong-chain address can make funds difficult or impossible to recover.
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Check the minimum received and send only after reviewing the details. Slippage is the difference between the quoted and executed price as the trade processes. If the market moves beyond the tolerance shown, the swap may fail or return less than the estimate, depending on the route. Review the final amount, fees and any expiry or minimum-output condition before approving the Bitcoin transaction in your wallet.
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Track the transaction through to the destination wallet. Save the Bitcoin transaction ID shown by your wallet, then use the swap’s status view to follow its progress. Once the swap is marked complete, check the destination wallet on the correct network. If Bitcoin is confirmed but the output has not arrived, use the transaction ID and swap status to identify which stage is pending before trying again.
When should you wait or choose another approach?
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Wait when the payout is too small or the fees take too much of it. Small mining payouts can be uneconomical to move because each Bitcoin spend incurs a network fee regardless of whether the payout is large or small. Compare the net amount you would receive now with the likely cost of consolidating or waiting for more BTC; the route with the best headline rate may not leave you with the most usable value.
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Decide differently if you need a predictable amount by a deadline. Quotes can change before execution, and Bitcoin confirmation time has no guaranteed maximum. If you need an exact amount for a payment, wait until you have enough margin for fees and price movement, or use a route whose displayed minimum meets the amount you need. For a routine conversion, the deciding test is whether the quoted native output, after fees, is worth moving today.