To swap BTC to SOL without a bridge, send BTC from your own Bitcoin address to a native swap route and receive SOL at your own Solana address. What arrives is the coin Solana itself runs on. No copy of your Bitcoin is created on Solana along the way, and you sign a single Bitcoin transaction.
What is different about this pair
For how native swaps work in general, read cross-chain swaps explained. The sister guide on BTC to ETH shows the same flow with Ethereum at the receiving end. With Solana at the receiving end, four things change.
Solana is not an EVM chain
A Solana address is a 32-byte public key, displayed as one Base58 string of letters and digits. It has nothing to do with your Ethereum address. In THORWallet the EVM networks share one address, and Solana has its own.
Two things are called SOL, and several are called Bitcoin
SOL is the native coin. Wrapped SOL is the same value placed in a token account, so that it can be handled like any other Solana token. "Bitcoin" on Solana is always a token: some bridge or custodian issued it against BTC that it holds elsewhere, and it is worth one BTC only as long as that issuer can honour it.
A native BTC to SOL swap involves neither. You give up BTC on Bitcoin and you get SOL on Solana. The bridge alternative is two steps, first a bridged Bitcoin token on Solana and then a trade into SOL, with the issuer's risk in between.
Solana asks for a storage balance
Every Solana account must hold a minimum balance in proportion to the data it stores. Solana's documentation calls it a refundable storage deposit, although tools still use the old word "rent". For a plain wallet address the published formula gives a little under 0.001 SOL. Each token you hold later needs its own token account with its own deposit.
Not every route in the list crosses chains
In THORWallet, Jupiter swaps tokens on Solana itself. BTC to SOL has to cross from Bitcoin, and which routes answer depends on the pair and the amount.
Before you start
- BTC in a self-custody wallet, with a margin for the Bitcoin network fee.
- A Solana address you control. A multi-chain wallet such as THORWallet creates it from the same recovery phrase as your Bitcoin address. The Solana wallet page has more.
- No SOL in advance. The payout fee comes out of the SOL you receive.
- An hour in which nothing depends on the SOL being there.
The steps
- On the swap screen, pay with BTC and receive SOL. Check that the receiving asset is SOL on the Solana network, not a token with a similar name on another chain.
- Enter the BTC amount and let the wallet fetch quotes.
- Compare the routes by SOL received and by time. A route can offer a faster deposit for an extra fee. In THORWallet a Boost badge marks such a Chainflip route.
- Confirm that the destination is your own Solana address.
- Review the Bitcoin network fee and the minimum SOL you accept.
- Sign. Your wallet broadcasts one Bitcoin transaction.
- Track the swap. The first step stays pending until Bitcoin has confirmed.
- When the SOL arrives, keep part of it in the wallet for fees.
The pair has its own page: swap BTC to SOL.
How long it takes and why
Nearly all of the wait happens before the route does anything. Bitcoin produces a block about every ten minutes on average, and bitcoin.org states plainly that there is no guaranteed maximum. A route releases SOL only once it regards your BTC as settled.
How many blocks that takes is the route's decision. Chainflip's documentation names 3 Bitcoin blocks, about 30 minutes, for a regular deposit. THORChain's says the number of confirmations grows with the size of the transaction. A low Bitcoin fee adds to this, because your transaction can sit through several blocks before it is included at all.
After that comes the swap itself. For a large amount it may be a streaming route that works through the BTC in parts. Some routes also delay the payout, and THORChain documents a maximum of about one hour.
The last leg is the short one. The Solana payout is a single transaction on a chain that confirms far faster than Bitcoin.
Both coins move in price while you wait. The minimum received in the quote is your floor. If the route cannot meet it, it sends your BTC back to the address it came from, minus fees.
What it costs
| Cost | Paid to | For this pair |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin network fee | Bitcoin miners | Paid in BTC when you send. Set too low, it delays the first confirmation. |
| Boost fee, only on a boosted deposit | The route | Buys a shorter deposit wait. Chainflip does not return it if the swap is refunded. |
| Liquidity fee and price impact | The route's liquidity providers or market makers | Inside the quote. |
| Outbound fee | The route, to cover the Solana payout | Taken from the SOL you receive. The route sets it. Solana's own base fee is 5,000 lamports per signature, and one SOL is a billion lamports. |
| Wallet service fee | The wallet | In THORWallet: none under $100. Above that it depends on your Community Tier and the size of the swap, 1.25% in the standard tier. |
The quote already nets these out. Compare routes by the SOL you receive, and see crypto swap fees explained for each line.
One cost comes after the swap. Every Solana transaction needs a fee in SOL: the base fee, plus an optional prioritization fee when the network is busy. The first time you receive a new token, a token account is opened for it with its own refundable deposit. This is why a little SOL should always stay in the wallet.
Common mistakes
- Entering the destination by hand. A wallet rejects an address from another chain. It cannot know that a valid Solana address belongs to someone else, and a payout cannot be recalled.
- Taking the bridged detour. Bridging BTC to Solana and trading there leaves you holding a bridged token in between and costs two sets of fees.
- Swapping all the SOL onward. If you trade every SOL into another Solana token, nothing is left for fees or for the storage balance of your accounts.
- Paying out straight to an exchange. Receive at your own address, check the amount, then send. If the route refunds the swap, the BTC returns to your Bitcoin address, not to the exchange.
- Saving on the Bitcoin fee. A few cents less can mean an extra hour in the queue. A pending swap cannot be sped up or cancelled.
- Starting with a tiny test. Fees on both chains are fixed amounts, and each route has a minimum. Below it, THORWallet shows Minimum swap and the amount needed.
A BTC to SOL swap cannot be cancelled once the Bitcoin transaction is sent. Before you sign, check that the receiving asset reads SOL on Solana and that the destination is your own Solana address.
How to do it in THORWallet
Step-by-step articles from the help center, checked against the current app.
- How to make a swapStep-by-step instructions for swapping one coin for another in the THORWallet app and in the web app.
- Swap routes comparedWhich swap routes THORWallet compares, how each one is labelled in the app, what it is used for and how to sort and pick a route.
- How to track a swapWhere to find a swap after you confirm it, what each status means and how to open the transaction in a block explorer.
- Swap to another addressHow to send the result of a swap to an address that is not in your wallet, which routes allow it and why memos and tags are not supported.
- Supported networks and tokensThe networks THORWallet supports, the native coin of each one, which networks share an address and how tokens appear in your wallet.
Sources
- bitcoin.org: FAQ on confirmations, block time and fees
- Solana docs: account structure, addresses and the storage balance
- Solana docs: transaction fees
- Solana docs: tokens and token accounts
- Solana docs: wrapped SOL
- Chainflip docs: swapping basics, deposit safety margins, boost and refunds
- THORChain developer docs: confirmation counting and outbound delays
Reviewed on 12 Nov 2026. Statements about THORWallet were checked against the help center, and the sources above were opened on that day. This guide explains how things work. It is not financial advice.