BCH → DOT

BCH -> DOT: what's actually happening under the hood

Bitcoin Cash settles on its own SHA-256 chain with ~10 minute blocks and fees typically under a cent. Polkadot uses a 6-second block time on its relay chain with DOT denominated in 10 decimals (Planck). There is no shared bridge between these networks, so every swap is custodial-or-atomic at the venue level: BCH lands at the provider's deposit address, and native DOT is dispatched to your Polkadot account (the SS58 address starting with '1').

Liquidity-wise, BCH still has deep order books on most aggregated venues, and DOT is universally listed, so spreads on this pair tend to be tight relative to long-tail alts. Confirmation time is dominated by BCH: one BCH confirmation (~10 min) is the usual minimum before DOT is released, though some routes accept 0-conf for small amounts.

Choosing a route for this specific pair

• Confirm the destination is native DOT on Polkadot, not a wrapped variant (xcDOT, BEP-20 DOT, or DOT on an exchange's internal ledger).
• Check that your DOT address meets the existential deposit (currently 1 DOT) - sending less to a fresh account will fail and may not be refundable.
• Compare floating vs fixed rates: fixed locks the quote but adds a spread; floating exposes you to BCH price drift during the ~10 min confirmation wait.
• Read the refund policy - some providers require a BCH refund address up front, which matters if the rate moves outside tolerance on a floating quote.
• Mind min/max: BCH minimums are usually set in USD terms (~20-50), and DOT payouts respect the existential deposit floor.

Practical tips: size the trade so the BCH miner fee is negligible (BCH fees are tiny but consolidating dust still wastes value), avoid swapping during high BCH mempool spikes after halvings or coordinated activity, and double-check the SS58 prefix - Kusama addresses look similar but start with a different byte and will route to the wrong chain.