Passive Range Orders vs Active Makers During Pending Swaps Explained

A cross-chain swap usually waits for deposit confirmation first; after that, its price depends on the liquidity available when execution begins. On Chainflip, passive range orders and active market makers can both supply that liquidity, but they respond differently to an incoming trade.

A deposit must be confirmed before the swap can compete for liquidity

A pending swap may still be waiting for its deposit to become final on the source blockchain. Validators then record the deposit on Chainflip’s State Chain, its internal ledger, and the swap is scheduled for execution. A delay here does not by itself mean the liquidity pool has failed.

Once the deposit is witnessed, the JIT AMM (Just-In-Time Automated Market Maker) executes swaps at the end of a State Chain block. Incoming swaps for the same pool and direction are bundled, then the swap draws from available orders in price order. The user’s result depends on the liquidity present at that moment.

Think of the pool as a market stall. Passive sellers leave goods out at set prices; active sellers see a customer coming and quickly offer a better price. A large trade can buy from several sellers as it moves through the available prices.

Range orders and active makers compete in different ways

A range order is liquidity set to trade across a chosen span of prices. It stays in the pool until its provider changes or removes it. As the market price moves through that range, the order’s mix of the two assets changes, and it can earn part of the swap fees.

An active market maker watches for incoming swaps and updates liquidity to compete for them. In Chainflip’s JIT AMM, providers can also post limit orders: offers at a particular price that trade only when they improve the swap price. The protocol uses whichever available liquidity offers the better price as the trade crosses each price level, called a tick.

For example, imagine a pending buy that needs 10 BTC. A passive range order might offer 2 BTC at prices around $60,000, while an active maker posts 5 BTC at $59,950 after spotting the incoming trade. If that is the better available price, the swap takes that offer first, then continues through other liquidity for the remaining amount. These figures are illustrative, not a quote or a fee schedule.

This competition can help the user get a better rate, but it cannot promise one. If makers lack spare BTC, or the trade is large compared with available liquidity, the swap may move through worse prices. A range order can cushion that shortage, but only if it covers the prices the swap reaches.

Check the deposit and trade status before acting

If your swap is pending or failed, first work out whether the source deposit was confirmed and witnessed, or whether execution started and could not complete as expected. The next step depends on that distinction. Use the transaction and swap status information available to you, and avoid sending the same amount again until you know whether the first deposit was received.

1. Check that the source-chain transaction succeeded and went to the intended deposit address.
2. Allow for the source chain’s confirmation time before treating a deposit as missing.
3. Check whether the deposit was witnessed and whether the swap has begun executing.
4. If execution failed or stopped, follow the status information for that swap before trying again.
5. Before a retry, verify the destination address and the amount you intend to swap.

Swap costs can include the liquidity fee charged for trading and network costs for moving assets across chains. A worse exchange rate can also result when the trade uses liquidity at less favorable prices. The exact total depends on the route, the amount, and the liquidity available during execution, so an example fee should not be treated as a current quote.

The same competition shapes native-asset swaps in Chainflip’s JIT AMM, where assets such as BTC, ETH, SOL, or USDC can move between blockchains without wrapped tokens; the Chainflip site is a way to make such swaps. If your deposit is confirmed, wait for its recorded status before acting; if it failed, verify the status and destination before retrying.