Frequently asked questions
How an exchange works, what the waiting is for, and what to do when something does not go to plan.
Getting started
No. Choose a pair, enter the address you want the coins sent to, send the deposit. That is the whole process.
An email address is optional. Give one and you get a confirmation, status updates and an account with your history — the password arrives in that first email.
Five minutes from the moment you confirm the order. The rate you saw is held for that window.
Five minutes is short on purpose: the rate is fixed for you, so every minute of that window is market movement we carry. If it moves against us we still honour your figure.
A late payment is not lost. See below.
It depends on where you are sending to, and the widget shows the figure for your pair as you choose it.
Roughly $110 to $185. The difference is the network fee at the other end: sending USDT on TRON costs us $2, sending it on Polygon costs a fraction of a cent, and below a certain size the fee eats the whole exchange.
No upper limit. Orders above $500 are released by a person rather than automatically — normally within the hour.
Paying and confirmations
A Bitcoin transaction is not final the moment it is broadcast. It sits in the network until a miner includes it in a block, and even then the chain can briefly fork and reorganise, undoing recent blocks.
Each block built on top makes reversal exponentially harder. Waiting for confirmations is waiting for the point where undoing your payment would cost more than it could possibly be worth.
If we paid out on an unconfirmed deposit, a reversed transaction would leave us having sent real coins against a payment that no longer exists — and that cost ends up in everyone's rate.
It varies by network, because block times and security models differ:
- Polygon — 60 blocks, but blocks arrive every two seconds
- Solana — 32
- Dogecoin — 20
- TRON — 19
- BNB Chain — 15
- Ethereum, Avalanche — 12
- Monero — 10
The order page counts them down live.
Most of the wait is the network confirming your deposit, not us. Once it confirms, the payout is sent within seconds.
In practice: a minute or two on TON, Solana and Polygon; five to ten on TRON and BNB Chain; up to half an hour on Bitcoin when the network is busy.
No. There is no confirm button to forget. We watch the deposit address and the order moves by itself the moment your transaction appears, then again as it confirms.
Leave the page open or close it — neither changes anything. Come back with your order id whenever you like.
Some networks — TON among the ones we support, and XRP and Cosmos elsewhere — use one deposit address for many users. The tag, sometimes called a memo, tells the receiving side which account a payment belongs to.
When a pair needs one, the order page shows it beside the address and marks it required. Send without it and the funds land in a shared account with nothing to identify them. Recovery then depends entirely on the receiving service and is often impossible.
If you are sending to us and no tag is shown, none is needed. If you are receiving on an exchange that asks for one, put it in the memo field when you create the order.
Tracking and problems
Three ways. The link you were given when you created it; the Track page with your order id; or your account, if you gave an email address.
Your browser also remembers the last orders you opened, so the Track page lists them without you typing anything.
It is processed. An expired order means the five-minute rate lock lapsed, not that the order is void.
The exchange goes through at the rate current when your money actually arrived — which may be better or worse than the one you saw. Nothing is lost and you do not need to contact us.
This is the usual outcome when the deposit comes from an exchange, since their withdrawals often take longer than five minutes to process.
The order page will offer you a choice: exchange what actually arrived, recalculated at the live rate, or take a refund.
The rate is fixed when you choose, not when the money landed — so there is no rush and no penalty for thinking about it.
If what arrived is below the minimum for that pair, exchanging is not possible and refund is the only option.
Same panel, same choice: exchange the larger amount, take the excess back, or take all of it back.
Small discrepancies either way — under 1% or under a dollar — are absorbed and the exchange simply proceeds. Wallets round, and it is not worth anyone's time to stop an order over a fraction of a cent.
Funds go back to the address they came from, which we read from the blockchain. We cannot send a refund to a different address on request — that would make us a transfer service rather than an exchange, and it is exactly the pattern abuse takes.
A refund carries a charge: twice the network fee plus $10, capped at half of what arrived. The network fee is doubled because it is paid coming in and again going out, with no exchange in between.
If you need the money returned somewhere other than where it came from, write to support. It is possible at our discretion and requires proving you control the destination.
Write to support immediately with the transaction hash. Sometimes recovery is possible, often it is not — it depends on the networks involved and whether the receiving address exists on the chain you used.
The order page shows the network beside the address for exactly this reason. USDT on TRON and USDT on Ethereum are different coins as far as the blockchain is concerned.
The order page shows a contact form. Leave your Telegram or email and support is notified immediately, with your order attached.
You can also write directly to [email protected] or @vacuum_exchange. Quote the order id — it is the fastest way to be helped.
Rates and fees
Two reasons. Our margin is 3%, which is how the service exists. And the network fee for sending your coins is deducted — that is paid to miners or validators, not to us.
The figure shown as what you receive is final. There is nothing added later.
No. The amount on the order is what arrives in your wallet.
Your own wallet or exchange may charge you to send the deposit — that is between you and them and we never see it.
Referrals and accounts
0.5% of every exchange completed by someone who arrived through your link. Not of our profit — of the amount they exchange. A $2,000 exchange earns you $10.
Create an account, copy your link from the Referrals tab, share it. Someone who arrives through it is yours for 400 days, and permanently if they register.
Withdraw from $50 to any coin we support. We pay the network fee. Requests are reviewed by a person, usually within the hour.
The full terms are on the affiliate page.
Yes. Exchange through your own link and the 0.5% comes back to you. We have no reliable way to detect it and no interest in trying.
Use the reset link on the sign-in page. A message arrives within a minute; the link is valid for an hour and signs out every other session when used.
If it does not arrive, check spam, then write to support.
Security and privacy
No. No identity verification, no selfies, no proof of address. We ask for a destination address and, if you want confirmations, an email.
No. Each exchange is settled from the deposit that funds it and then closed. There is no balance in your name and nothing for us to hold.
Yes, against the network's own checksum before the order is created. A single mistyped character is rejected rather than accepted, and an address for the wrong network is rejected too.
What we cannot check is whether a valid address is your address. Paste rather than type, and check the first and last characters.