How to tell if a swap is stuck in pending versus permanently failed

07 September 2026

A swap is permanently failed when the blockchain shows your outgoing transaction confirmed but the exchange never receives it, or when the exchange explicitly marks it failed. A swap is stuck in pending when the outgoing transaction is unconfirmed, or when the exchange has received your funds but is still processing them.

The distinction matters because the two states have different remedies. Pending means time and patience might solve the problem. Failed means the only path forward is a refund or a support ticket. Confusing them leads to wasted hours and, occasionally, lost money.

What pending actually looks like

Pending is a state of incompleteness. Your swap request was accepted, but the necessary steps haven't finished. The most common cause is an unconfirmed outgoing transaction on the blockchain. If your wallet shows a transaction with zero or few confirmations, the swap is simply waiting for the network to finalise it. This is normal during congestion, and it can last minutes or, in rare cases, hours.

Another form of pending is when the exchange has received your deposit but is still verifying it. This happens with tokens that require extra confirmations, or when the deposit address is waiting for a second network confirmation. The exchange's interface will usually show a status like "processing" or "awaiting confirmations." That is not failure. It is the system working through its own rules.

What permanent failure looks like

Permanent failure has two typical signatures. The first is a confirmed outgoing transaction that the exchange never credits. Your wallet shows the swap transaction as final, with many confirmations, but the swap page still says "pending" or shows an error. If the exchange has not acknowledged receipt after the transaction is deeply confirmed, the swap is likely dead.

The second signature is an explicit failure message from the exchange. Some providers mark swaps as "failed" or "expired" after a timeout. This usually happens when the deposit address was created but never funded, or when the funds arrived after the swap window closed. If you see that message, do not wait. The swap will not self-heal.

The key test: confirmations and time

Ask one question first: is my outgoing transaction confirmed on the blockchain? If no, it is pending. Wait for confirmations before doing anything else. If yes, the next question is whether the exchange has acknowledged receipt. Check the swap page for a status line or a "received" timestamp. If the transaction is confirmed but the exchange shows nothing after a reasonable delay (typically 30 minutes to an hour for most networks), that is a strong sign of permanent failure.

A second test is the deposit address itself. If your swap has a time limit and the deadline has passed, the swap is failed. Pending swaps do not have deadlines. Failed swaps do. If the exchange's interface shows a countdown that hit zero, you are no longer in pending territory.

What to do next

For pending swaps, do nothing except wait. Interfering - like sending a second transaction to the same address - creates new problems. For failed swaps, the answer is a refund request or a support ticket. The process for that is covered in the sibling page about what your wallet signs during a failed swap, which explains exactly which transaction signatures matter when you ask for money back.

One last distinction. A swap that shows "completed" on the blockchain but no coins arrived is not failed in the same sense. That is a different failure mode, covered elsewhere in this set. The test above - confirmations and exchange acknowledgment - separates the merely stuck from the truly dead. Use it before you panic, and use it before you give up.

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