Boltz
7.6/10 total
A non-custodial bridge between Bitcoin layers rather than a general exchange. Swaps run as HTLC submarine swaps between Lightning, on-chain Bitcoin, Liquid, Rootstock and Ark, extended in 2026 to USDT and USDC, so funds are locked in a hash-timelocked contract that either completes or refunds instead of sitting in an operator's wallet. Fees are published live through a public API at 0.1% on most pairs, and there is no account or sign-up at any stage.
Scores
Weights are published in the method and applied identically to every entry.
For
- 0.1% service fee on most pairs, verifiable from the public API rather than a marketing page, which undercuts nearly every custodial instant swapper once spread is counted
- HTLC-based, so a failed swap refunds to you; Boltz cannot abscond with a locked swap
- No account, no email, no sign-up for any swap type, including the 2026 USDT and USDC swaps
- Operating since 2018 with no loss-of-user-funds incident found, which is a long record for this category
- AGPL-3.0 backend, last push 2026-07-28, plus published SDKs, a CLI and a BTCPay plugin
Against
- Not a crypto-to-crypto exchange: it moves value between Bitcoin layers and two stablecoins, so it cannot swap you into altcoins or Monero
- Boltz is a single server that sees your IP and both sides of the swap unless you route yourself over Tor; this is not peer-to-peer matching
- Web app requires JavaScript and there is no verified no-JS path
- Per-swap minimums and maximums apply, currently 25,000 to 25,000,000 satoshis on the BTC pair, so it is unsuitable for very small or very large amounts
- Refunds on a stalled swap can require you or your client to broadcast a claim, which is a real failure mode for users who close the tab
Agent access 10/10
A fully public documented REST API at api.boltz.exchange returns pairs, fees and limits and creates swaps with no account, key or referral registration, and official SDKs and a CLI wrap it. An agent with a funded wallet can discover, quote and complete a swap unattended.
Reported separately and not counted in the total. It measures what an autonomous agent can do unattended, not whether the service is safe to use.
Fees
0.1% + network fees on most pairs
Read live from the Boltz API on 2026-07-31: 0.1% service fee on BTC, Liquid L-BTC, Rootstock RBTC and Ark submarine swaps, 0.5% on the taproot TBTC pair, plus a small fixed miner-fee component quoted per swap. That is genuinely cheap for a non-custodial route, and the fee is quoted up front rather than hidden in a spread.
Specification
- Type
- Instant swap
- KYC policy
- No KYC
- Custody model
- atomic
- Account required
- no
- Assets
- 6
- Chains
- 5
- Operating since
- 2018
- Jurisdiction
- undisclosed
- Onion service
- no
- Works without JS
- no
- Open source
- yes
- Facts checked
- 2026-07-31
Links
Plain links, no referral parameters. Verify the domain yourself; phishing clones of every service in this table exist.