What happens if I send a deposit after the swap quote timer expires

07 September 2026

The swap will fail. Your deposit will be returned, minus network fees, after the system detects the expired quote. No exchange will honor a price that was locked before the timer ran out.

Here is why that happens, and what you can expect next.

A swap quote is a time-limited offer. The quoted rate, the fixed output amount, and the receiving address are all tied to a specific moment in the market. When the timer expires, that price is dead. The system no longer expects a deposit for that quote. If you send coins anyway, the deposit arrives at an address that is no longer watching for incoming funds in the same way.

The system treats your deposit as an unexpected inbound transaction. It does not ignore it. Most swap platforms scan all incoming blockchain transactions to any address they have ever generated. When the system sees coins arrive at an expired quote address, it checks whether the quote is still valid. It is not. The system then initiates a refund.

That refund is not automatic in the sense of happening instantly. It depends on the blockchain and the network conditions. On a fast chain, you might see the return within minutes. On a congested chain, it can take hours or even longer. The refund will be for the amount you sent, minus whatever network fees the system paid to push the return transaction. Those fees are not recoverable.

There is a common misunderstanding here. Some people think that because the address is still active, the system will simply process the swap at the old rate. That is not how it works. The address is a one-time container for a specific quote. Once the quote expires, the address becomes a refund-only channel. The system will never execute a trade at an expired price.

If you sent the deposit very close to the timer expiring, there is a gray area. If the deposit confirms on the blockchain while the quote is still technically alive, the swap may proceed. The timer is measured in seconds or minutes, not in block confirmations. If your transaction lands in a block after the timer has passed, the quote is expired. The system checks the block timestamp, not your local clock.

What can you recover? The full deposit amount, minus the network fee for the refund transaction. That is it. You do not recover the time you waited, and you do not recover the rate you missed. The failed swap is complete. The system does not owe you a make-good trade at the old price.

If you need the swap to happen, you must start over. Generate a new quote. The new quote will reflect current market rates. Those rates may be better or worse than the expired one. That is the nature of a time-limited offer.

This situation is one of the cleaner failure modes. You do not lose your coins. You do not need to contact support. The system handles the refund on its own. The only cost is the network fee on the refund transaction, and the delay.

For a fuller picture of what you can and cannot recover when a swap fails, see the hub page: "What you can recover from a failed swap." It covers the other common failure scenarios and explains which ones leave you with nothing.

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