Chainflip is a decentralized protocol for swapping native crypto assets across blockchains. A business can send an asset on one supported chain and receive a different asset on another, without first trading into a wrapped version.
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Vaults hold assets on their native chains while a dedicated State Chain records and executes swaps.
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The usable route depends on the exact asset and chain, available liquidity, fees and swap limits.
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A transfer needs a destination address, a source-chain refund address and an acceptable minimum output.
How Chainflip works from deposit to payout
A swap starts when the sender transfers funds to a fresh deposit address or calls a Vault directly with the swap instructions. Validators watch the source chain, confirm the deposit and record it on the State Chain. Its JIT AMM, or just-in-time automated market maker, then matches the trade against liquidity providers’ range and limit orders before validators send the output from a Vault on the destination chain.
For example, before a transfer, a treasury may hold BTC on Bitcoin while a supplier expects ETH on Ethereum. After the swap, the supplier receives native ETH at its Ethereum address; the treasury has sent BTC and paid the swap’s trading and transfer costs. The route can pass through a USDC pool on the State Chain, but the supplier does not have to receive USDC.
For recurring payouts, a sender can otherwise use an outdated receiving address or the wrong version of a stablecoin. Use chainflip.org to align the approved asset pair, recipient address and refund address before anyone funds a deposit channel. That record gives the team a way to reconcile Chainflip swaps against the instructions it approved.
Supported assets and the full cost of a swap
Supported assets are identified by both token and chain: USDT on Tron is a different transfer route from USDT on Ethereum. As of October 2026, the mainnet asset set includes:
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Bitcoin: BTC.
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Ethereum: ETH, USDC, USDT, WBTC, cbBTC and FLIP.
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Arbitrum: ETH, USDC and USDT.
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Solana: SOL, USDC and USDT.
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Polkadot: DOT; Polkadot Asset Hub: DOT, USDC and USDT.
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Tron: TRX and USDT; BNB Smart Chain: BNB and USDT.
The quoted output matters more than any single fee line. Typical protocol charges are a 0.10% network fee, with a $0.50 minimum, and a 0.10%–0.15% liquidity fee per pool; the sender also pays source-chain transaction costs, while destination-chain broadcast costs come out of the output. A broker may add a fee, and an optional faster Bitcoin deposit can add a boost fee.
For a $10,000 BTC-to-ETH swap through two pools, the network and pool fees alone would be roughly $30–$40 before price impact, broker fees and chain costs. Check the live quote and the minimum and maximum amounts for the source asset before sending: funds above a route’s maximum may be unrecoverable. Deposit channels close after 24 hours and their addresses may later be reused, so generate a fresh channel for each transfer.
How Chainflip secures funds in its vaults
Vault spending requires a threshold signature from the validator authority set, rather than approval from one operator. The design uses up to 150 validators and requires 100 to cooperate to sign a Vault transaction; validators stake FLIP and can face penalties for misconduct. Assets stay in Vaults on their respective chains while balances and trades are recorded on the State Chain.
That design still depends on the validator set and protocol software. A missing signing quorum can delay a payout, and a software fault or coordinated validator attack could put funds at risk. For a business, the practical exposure is the value held during a swap or left in a liquidity account, so set transfer sizes and approval limits accordingly.
What the FLIP token is used for
FLIP is the protocol’s staking and State Chain transaction token. Validators bond it to participate in securing the network; brokers and active liquidity providers use small amounts to pay for State Chain actions such as requesting channels or updating orders. Swap users generally pay fees through the assets being traded, so a team making an ordinary transfer does not need to acquire FLIP first.
The protocol uses its network fee to buy and burn FLIP. That mechanism explains the token’s role in swap economics, but it does not set the output of an individual transfer: available liquidity, the execution price and the full fee quote do.
How to provide liquidity
Providing liquidity to Chainflip means funding a State Chain liquidity account with supported assets and placing orders in the JIT AMM. An active provider funds the account with enough FLIP for transactions, opens a fresh asset deposit channel, sends inventory and then places range orders or maker-only limit orders. Range orders need monitoring as prices move; filled limit orders return the acquired asset to the provider’s free balance.
Liquidity providers earn pool fees when their orders fill, while taking inventory and price risk as well as Vault exposure. For a treasury whose job is payouts rather than market making, the decision rule is to use a route only when its exact assets, net quoted output, limits and settlement time meet the transfer policy.