How to Swap ADA to STX: Cardano to Stacks Step by Step

To swap ADA to STX, you send ADA from a Cardano wallet to a swap order and receive STX, the coin of the Stacks network, at an address that starts with SP. The swap widget runs it as one order without an account. At the time of writing the minimum was 135.53 ADA (about $30), the provider waited for 15 Cardano confirmations, and the STX payout fee was 1 STX, around $0.35. Typical processing was 8–10 minutes.

What you are buying: STX and Stacks in two paragraphs

Stacks is a network that settles its history to Bitcoin. Its own coin, STX, pays for transactions on Stacks and is used in Stacking, where holders lock STX and receive rewards paid in BTC. Since the Nakamoto upgrade in late 2024, Stacks produces fast blocks between Bitcoin blocks, and its transactions inherit Bitcoin finality once anchored.

For a swap you need nothing more than a Stacks address. Mainnet addresses start with SP (single signature) or SM (multisignature). Leather and Xverse are the two most common wallets; both also hold Bitcoin, so they show a separate bc1 address on the same screen. Copy the one labelled Stacks or STX.

Prices and amounts

With ADA around $0.22 and STX around $0.35, 1,000 ADA is worth roughly 630 STX before fees. At the 135.53 ADA minimum you would receive about 85 STX less 1% float fee and 1 STX payout fee. The payout fee is about 1.2% of a minimum-size swap and becomes negligible above a few hundred dollars. The converter has ADA live; type the STX price manually if it is not listed.

The swap, in order

1. Open the widget, select ADA → STX, enter the ADA amount and check the minimum and the STX you will receive.
2. Paste your Stacks address (SP…). Do not paste the Bitcoin address from the same wallet.
3. Create the order and send ADA from Yoroi, Eternl, Lace, Typhon or a hardware wallet to the deposit address (addr1…).
4. Wait for 15 Cardano confirmations. Cardano produces a block about every 20 seconds on average, so this is roughly 5 minutes.
5. STX is sent to your Stacks address; the hash on the order page opens in the Stacks explorer.

Cardano-side details that trip people up

• Native tokens travel with ADA. A Cardano transaction output that carries tokens must also carry some ADA. Wallets handle this automatically, but if you try to send your entire ADA balance while holding tokens, the wallet will refuse or keep some ADA back.
• Send ADA only. Do not attach native tokens to the deposit transaction; they are not part of the swap.
• Exchange withdrawals. If you withdraw ADA from an exchange directly to the deposit address, make sure the arriving amount after the exchange's fee is the order amount.
• Staking is not affected. Sending part of your ADA does not end delegation; the remaining balance stays delegated.

The memo question on Stacks

The provider's network list marks STX as a coin that uses a memo. That matters for deposits to shared addresses, such as an exchange's STX deposit address, where the memo identifies your account. When you receive STX from a swap to your own Leather or Xverse wallet, no memo is needed: the address is yours alone.

The standard swap form has no field for a payout memo. If you want the STX to go straight to an exchange that requires one, either receive to your own wallet first, or use Multi-Hop or Split Swap, whose forms do include a memo for the payout. The memo checker lists which coins and networks use such a field.

Moving STX later

Every Stacks transaction pays a fee in STX, usually a small fraction of one STX. Keep a little after the swap if you plan to send or stack later. If you want to go back, swapping STX to USDT or to BTC works the same way in reverse; the provider waits for its own number of Stacks confirmations on deposits, which is longer than the Cardano wait.

If the STX does not show up

Open the payout hash from the order page in a Stacks explorer such as explorer.hiro.so. A status of success means the STX is at your address; if your wallet shows nothing, you are probably looking at its Bitcoin tab or at a different account. A status of pending means the transaction is waiting for a Stacks block, which normally takes seconds since the Nakamoto upgrade, but can take longer when the network is busy. If the order page has no payout hash at all after 20 minutes, check that your ADA transaction is confirmed in a Cardano explorer, then message support with the order link.