To swap XRP to ETH without an exchange, send XRP from your own XRP Ledger address to a cross-chain swap route and receive native ETH at your own Ethereum address. You sign one XRP Ledger transaction. A small part of your XRP always stays behind as the account reserve, and the fee for the Ethereum payout is taken from the ETH you receive.
What is different about this pair
How to swap BTC to ETH without a bridge walks through the general flow, and cross-chain swaps explained has the background. With XRP on the sending side, five things change.
- Your account holds a reserve that you cannot swap.
- Destination tags exist. They matter for exchanges, not for your own wallet.
- The deposit settles in seconds.
- Fewer routes carry XRP.
- You arrive on Ethereum, where ETH also pays gas.
The XRP account reserve
Every XRP Ledger account must hold a minimum amount of XRP. At the time of writing, the XRP Ledger documentation gives a base reserve of 1 XRP plus an owner reserve of 0.2 XRP for each object the account owns, for example a trust line for a token or an open offer. The network can change these values.
- The reserve cannot be swapped away. The documentation states that reserved XRP cannot be sent to others, and a swap begins with a payment from your address to the route. What you can swap is your balance minus the reserve minus the network fee.
- A new address starts at 1 XRP. THORWallet shows a new XRP address as inactive until it has received at least 1 XRP. This is a rule of the network, not of the app.
- The reserve is not lost, but it is tied up. It can still pay transaction fees. Deleting the account on the ledger recovers some of it, not all.
THORWallet applies the same rule when you send XRP: you can send only the balance above the reserve.
Destination tags and memos
A destination tag is a number that tells a shared address which customer a payment is for. Exchanges use one address for many customers and tell them apart by the tag. The XRP Ledger even lets such an address reject payments that arrive without one.
Your THORWallet address belongs only to your wallet, so nobody needs a tag to pay you. This matters at two points.
- Moving XRP from an exchange into your wallet. You withdraw to your own address and leave the tag empty. The tag is something an exchange asks for when you deposit there.
- Sending a swap payout to an exchange. The swap screen has no field for a memo or tag. If a deposit address needs one, swap to your own wallet first and then send from there with the tag in the send screen.
You may also see a Memo line when you tap Total fee on the review screen and open Transaction details. It is part of the swap's details. You do not enter it, and it is not a destination tag.
Before you start
- XRP in a self-custody wallet. In THORWallet the network is shown as Ripple.
- Enough XRP for the amount, the reserve and the network fee.
- An Ethereum address you control to receive the ETH. A multi-chain wallet such as THORWallet creates it from the same recovery phrase as your XRP address. The XRP wallet and Ethereum wallet pages have more.
- No ETH in advance. The payout fee comes out of the ETH you receive.
The steps
- Tap Trade, then Swap. Pay with XRP and receive ETH. Check that ETH means ETH on Ethereum, not on Arbitrum or Base.
- Enter an amount below your balance minus the reserve.
- Tap the route bar to open Routes. Compare the ETH you receive and the estimated time.
- Check the destination. By default it is the Ethereum address of your own wallet.
- Tap Next. On Review Swap Details, check the TX Fee, then tap Total fee to see the Outbound Fee and the Min Swap Output.
- Tap Swap. Your wallet sends one XRP Ledger transaction to the route.
- Follow the swap in Activity through 1. Inbound, 2. Swap and 3. Outbound.
The pair has its own page: swap XRP to ETH.
Which routes can carry XRP to ETH
THORWallet lists only the routes that return a quote. Some cannot carry this pair by design. 1inch on one EVM chain, Jupiter on Solana and the Stellar route all swap on a single network, and Skip covers stablecoin routes. XRP to ETH needs a route that crosses chains.
Whether a cross-chain route answers depends on the amount and on whether it supports XRP at that moment. For XRP the list is often short. The Decentralized sort hides NEAR and Chainflip routes. If it shows "No decentralized routes available", the remaining routes appear under Alternative Routes.
How long it takes and why
The deposit side is quick. XRP Ledger validators agree on a new ledger version in about 4 to 6 seconds, so your payment to the route is on the ledger quickly. The rest of the time belongs to the route and to Ethereum.
- Route processing. A streaming route splits a large swap into parts to get a better price, and that takes longer.
- Payout delay. THORChain and Maya can hold a payout for a set time before they send it. The app includes this in the estimate.
- The Ethereum payout. Ethereum divides time into 12-second slots, and the payout is one transaction there.
What it costs
| Cost | Paid to | For this pair |
|---|---|---|
| XRP Ledger transaction cost | Nobody: the XRP is destroyed | Paid in XRP when you send. The minimum is 10 drops, a tiny fraction of one XRP, and it rises when the network is busy. The review shows it as TX Fee. |
| Account reserve | Stays in your account | Not a fee, but locked. 1 XRP plus 0.2 XRP per owned object at the time of writing. |
| Liquidity fee and price impact | The route's liquidity providers or market makers | Inside the quote. Grows with the size of the swap. |
| Outbound fee | The route, to pay for the Ethereum payout | Taken from the ETH you receive. Shown on THORChain, Maya and Harbor routes. |
| THORWallet fee | THORWallet | Free under $100. 1.25% standard from $100 to $50,000, lower with a Community Tier or on larger swaps. The mobile app labels it Affiliate Fee. |
The outbound fee follows the gas level on Ethereum, not the size of your swap. On a small swap that fixed amount takes a large share. If the payout fee would consume what you receive, THORWallet blocks the swap with an "Amount too low" message. Crypto swap fees explained covers each line, and Community Tiers explains the lower rates.
One cost comes later. Every transaction you send on Ethereum needs gas in ETH. A plain ETH transfer uses 21,000 units of gas. A token transfer is a call to a contract and uses more. If you plan to swap the ETH onward into a token on Ethereum, keep some ETH back.
When an exchange is simpler
If your XRP already sits on an exchange that trades XRP against ETH, and you mean to keep the ETH there, a trade on its order book is one step. The exchange handles the reserve and the payout. The trade-off is custody: while the coins are on the exchange, you hold a claim on them, and withdrawing later costs a withdrawal fee. A native swap suits you when the XRP is already in your own wallet and the ETH should end up there too.
Common mistakes
- Entering your whole balance. The reserve and the network fee must stay behind.
- Paying out straight to an exchange. Receive the ETH at your own address first, check it, then send.
- Picking ETH on the wrong network. The address is the same on Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base. The balance is not.
- Swapping every ETH into tokens. Without ETH left over, you cannot pay gas to move the tokens.
- Starting with a tiny amount. The outbound fee on Ethereum is a fixed amount and can eat a very small swap.
- Funding a fresh XRP address with less than 1 XRP. If you go back from ETH to a new XRP address, the first payment must reach the base reserve.
An XRP Ledger payment and an Ethereum payout are both final. Before you sign, check that you receive ETH on Ethereum, that the destination is your own Ethereum address and that the reserve stays in your XRP account.
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.
- How to receive cryptoFind your address or QR code in THORWallet, share it with the sender and check that both sides use the same network.
- How to send cryptoSend coins and tokens from THORWallet: amount, address, memo or destination tag, the review screen, network fees and what to check first.
- 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.
- Swap fees and how to lower themWhich fees a swap has, what the THORWallet fee is for each Community Tier and swap size, and how to pay less.
Sources
- XRP Ledger docs: reserves
- XRP Ledger docs: source and destination tags
- XRP Ledger docs: transaction cost
- XRP Ledger docs: what is the XRP Ledger, consensus timing
- ethereum.org developer docs: proof-of-stake, slots and epochs
- ethereum.org developer docs: gas and fees
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.