Swap and Conversion Terms: A Glossary

Swap. An exchange of one crypto asset for another at a single quoted price for the whole amount, with no order book visible to the user.

Quote validity. The period during which an offered price is honoured. Commonly five to forty seconds. A longer window on a volatile asset implies a wider margin.

Implied rate. The quoted output divided by the input, expressed against the market mid price. The only figure directly comparable between providers.

Mid price. The midpoint between the best available bid and offer. The reference for measuring any spread or margin.

Routing. A provider sourcing a trade across multiple venues to obtain a better price than any single venue offers.

Aggregator. A service that routes across venues rather than quoting from its own inventory.

Internalisation. A provider matching your trade against an opposing client rather than going to market. Produces the tightest pricing because there is no market impact.

Inventory. Assets a provider holds. A provider long an asset quotes differently from one that must source it, which is the largest invisible cause of quote variation.

Slippage. The difference between an expected price and the executed price, arising when an order consumes multiple price levels. Applies to order books rather than to quoted swaps.

Bridge. A mechanism for moving value between blockchains, typically by locking on one chain and issuing a representation on another.

Wrapped asset. A representation of an asset issued on another chain, backed by the original held by the bridge. A claim on the bridge rather than the asset itself.

Cross-chain swap. A swap where input and output are on different networks, with the provider handling the bridging.

Re-quote. A provider offering a new price when a deposit arrives after the original quote expired. The alternative policies are executing at the prevailing rate or refunding.

Tolerance. The permitted difference between a quoted deposit amount and the amount actually received, within which a provider proceeds rather than re-quoting.

Memo or destination tag. A second field required by some networks to attribute a deposit. Omitting it means funds arrive unattributed and recovery becomes a support process.

Where these terms appear

Quote validity, implied rate and tolerance are all visible in a live quote, which is the quickest way to see how a provider uses them. A crypto swap service that prices the network fee separately will quote without an account, which makes the comparison arithmetic concrete.

Routing, internalisation and inventory are not visible and are worth asking about directly, because they explain why two providers quote differently for the same trade at the same moment.

Bridging and wrapped assets belong to the cross-network case specifically. Where a payment can be received on the network you already settle from, the whole category becomes irrelevant, which is the strongest argument for naming one network on invoices. A payment provider with network-specific requests removes the customer’s ability to choose a network you cannot receive.