XMR to ETH → ETH to XMR
Ethereum → Monero
ETH to XMR, sent from your own wallet
Same two transfers, reversed. You push ETH out and pay gas for it, and Monero arrives at an address only your wallet can read. What changes is which side you have to be careful on.
1 ETH = 4.7765 XMR1 ETH ≈ $2,793.99
Swap ETH for XMRMarket data only. The binding number is the one the service shows you once the pair is set.
Gas is now your problem
When you're receiving ETH, gas is something the service pays and you only see as a slightly smaller payout. When you're sending it, you pay it yourself, on top of the amount going out.
Gas is priced in gwei and splits into two parts. The base fee is set by the network and burned. The priority fee is the tip that gets a validator to include you. Wallets usually hide both behind a slider, and the fast setting mostly buys you a bigger tip.
So don't send your entire ETH balance. Leave enough behind to cover the fee, because a wallet with nothing spare can't broadcast anything — including the transaction you need it to broadcast.
Speed isn't really the variable here. Slots come every 12 seconds regardless, and finality is two epochs, roughly 12.8 minutes. A higher tip moves you up the queue for the next block, not into a faster chain.
Check these before you send
- It's ETH, not a token that looks like itERC-20 tokens live at the same style of 0x address that ETH does, so your wallet won't stop you from sending the wrong asset. A deposit address expecting ETH will ignore a token that arrives there.
- It's Ethereum mainnet, not another EVM chainThe deposit address exists on every EVM network. Your coins only exist on the one you chose in the dropdown. Getting them off the wrong chain means a separate transaction, with that chain's fees.
- The Monero address came from a copy, not your keyboardPaste it, then compare the last few characters against the wallet screen. There's no undo on either chain and no support desk anywhere that can reverse a confirmed transfer.
- There's gas left overFee comes out separately from the amount. Send the round number you meant to send, not the whole balance, and check the total the wallet shows before confirming.
What arrives, and when you can spend it
Your Ethereum deposit confirms quickly. The service then builds a Monero transaction and sends it, and blocks on that chain target two minutes, so the payout usually shows up in your wallet without much of a wait.
Then comes the part that surprises people the first time. Every output a Monero wallet receives is locked for ten blocks — about twenty minutes — before it can be spent. Your balance goes up right away, but the wallet marks the new funds as unavailable until the lock clears. Nothing is wrong, nobody is holding your coins, and there is no setting that skips it.
If you're swapping in order to pay someone straight afterwards, plan around that twenty minutes instead of being surprised by it.
One more difference worth sitting with. The ETH you sent stays visible forever: the amount, the sending address, the deposit address, all of it public. The Monero that arrives doesn't work that way. Amounts and recipients aren't published in the chain data, so what you do with it afterwards isn't something a block explorer can follow.
Four things worth knowing
I sent an ERC-20 token instead of ETH. Now what?
The token sat down at an address that wasn't expecting it. Whether it can be recovered depends entirely on who controls that address and whether they can move arbitrary tokens out of it. Ask the service immediately, with the transaction hash, and accept that the answer may be no.
Why is my new Monero balance showing as unavailable?
The ten-block lock. Monero holds every received output for ten blocks, roughly twenty minutes at a two-minute block target, before it can be spent. It applies to every Monero transaction ever made. Wait it out and the funds become spendable again on their own.
Can I send the ETH straight from an exchange account?
You can, and it usually works, but it takes the point out of it. The withdrawal is tied to your identity at that platform and its timing is theirs, not the network's. Sending from a wallet you hold the keys to gives you control over when it goes and what fee it pays.
How much ETH should I keep back for gas?
Enough that a busy block doesn't leave you stranded. There's no fixed figure, because the base fee moves with demand and your wallet's estimate is only good for the next few minutes. Look at what it quotes you, keep a margin above it, and don't drain the account to zero.
Or go the other way
Sending Monero and receiving Ethereum works differently — the wait moves to the deposit side, and the address you have to get right is the 0x one.
Read the XMR to ETH page