We measured 113 completed customer swaps from order to payout. The median was 6.9 minutes, most chains sat between about 5 and 7, and Bitcoin and Monero took far longer. Here is why.
A crypto swap on Cambio took a median of 6.9 minutes from order to payout across 113 completed customer swaps between 1 September and 29 October 2026: about 5 to 7 minutes from most chains, 22.9 from Bitcoin and 37.5 from Monero. Figures are from Cambio’s own order record, last updated 5 November 2026.
Ask how long a crypto swap takes and the usual answer is a range: a few minutes, maybe an hour. We wanted a number, so we went through our own record: every swap real customers completed with Cambio between 1 September and 29 October 2026, timed from the moment the order was placed to the moment the payout was confirmed.
What we measured
- 113 completed swaps, paid to 86 different addresses. Our own test swaps, and visitors our system marks as automated, are left out.
- The clock starts when the order is created and stops when the payout is confirmed. That includes the time you take to send the deposit, so it runs longer than the swap itself.
- On some swaps our record updates every few minutes, so those times can read a little long.
- Only completed swaps are counted. An order that was never paid has no finish time.
- This is one service’s record over two months, and a small sample on some chains. It shows what happened, not what will happen on your next swap.
The headline numbers
The median swap took 6.9 minutes from order to payout. The quickest took 1.3 minutes and the slowest about 14 hours.
- 35% finished within 5 minutes (40 of 113).
- 62% finished within 10 minutes (70 of 113).
- 80% finished within 30 minutes (90 of 113).
- 96% finished within an hour (109 of 113).
The chain you send from sets the pace
We split the swaps by the chain the deposit came from, leaving out any chain with fewer than 5 swaps. Six of the eight landed between about 5 and 7 minutes. Bitcoin and Monero did not.
The difference is the deposit. A swap starts once the deposit has the confirmations its route needs, and that wait depends on the chain. Bitcoin adds a block about every 10 minutes on average, so even a few confirmations take a while. Monero adds one about every 2 minutes, but its deposits wait for many more of them. On the few Monero swaps where we recorded each stage, the deposit took about 30 minutes to clear.
The long waits were not the blockchain
Nine in ten swaps finished within 44 minutes. Four took more than an hour, and what held them up was not a slow network. Each one stopped for a check or a recovery on our side, and a person had to finish it. All four were paid. The slowest, about 14 hours, was USDT on Tron, the quickest chain in the chart.
A median hides the worst case, and the worst case here was ours to fix, not the chain’s.
Median minutes by deposit chain
The same figures as the chart, in text. Source: Cambio’s own record of completed customer swaps, 1 September to 29 October 2026 (chains with fewer than 5 swaps left out).
- Tron: 4.8 minutes
- Arbitrum: 5.1 minutes
- BNB Chain: 5.1 minutes
- Ethereum: 5.9 minutes
- Solana: 6.3 minutes
- Litecoin: 6.9 minutes
- Bitcoin: 22.9 minutes
- Monero: 37.5 minutes
What to take from it
- From most chains, a swap took minutes: the medians here sit between about 5 and 7.
- From Bitcoin or Monero, expect tens of minutes. The medians here were 22.9 and 37.5.
- Your own part counts. If an exchange holds your withdrawal for its own checks, the clock is already running.
- You can close the page while you wait. The swap goes on, and the tracking link shows which stage it has reached.
