XMR to BTC, Measured: Plateau Rate, $0.43 Fee, Two Routes

The exit leg, measured. Most Monero content covers getting in; this piece covers getting out. At 18:03-18:05 UTC on 2026-11-10 I quoted XMR to BTC across thirteen amounts on the public endpoint, plus the reverse leg and the boundary probes, with a CoinGecko spot of $550.95 per XMR and $73,171 per BTC as reference. The catalogue that minute listed 458 assets on 65 networks, with exactly one Monero entry (xmr-xmr) and one Bitcoin entry (btc-btc), neither requiring an extra id. Every number below comes from that window; quotes move, so the live order page governs.

The ladder tops out fast. The usable window was 0.02068411 to 289.498 XMR - both numbers free in the 400 error body, and already drifted to 0.02064829 / 288.777 by the next probe a minute later. The rungs: 0.02 XMR returned 0.00014298 BTC (rate 0.007149), 0.05 returned 0.00036601 (0.0073202), 0.1 returned 0.00073802 (0.0073802), 0.2 returned 0.00148203 (0.00741015), 0.5 returned 0.00371373 (0.00742746), 1 returned 0.00743344, 5 returned 0.03719116, 50 returned 0.37196555, 200 returned 1.48788019. A line fitted through the 50 and 200 points puts the plateau slope at 0.007439431 BTC per XMR - an implied $544.35 per XMR received, 1.2% below the $550.95 spot. Retention against that slope: 96.1% at 0.02, 98.4% at 0.05, 99.2% at 0.1, 99.6% at 0.2, and 99.98% from 5 XMR up.

A $0.43 deduction and a bumpy second route. Unlike the USDT corridors, whose fitted fixed deductions measured $6-11 in earlier posts, the fitted fixed deduction here is 0.0000059 BTC - about 590 sats, or $0.43 - nearly constant from 0.02 to 200 XMR. The small-amount loss on this corridor is rate, not fee. What does vary is the second route: every quote came back routes=2, and advantageBps - the gap to the runner-up - read 651 at 0.1 XMR (the two routes were 6.5% apart), 337 at 0.2, 158 at 0.5, 102 at 1, then flattened to 47-56 bps from 20 XMR up, and 0 at the two bottom rungs where the winning route simply matched the other. (XMR to USDT exit)

Floats, not locks. Re-quoting about a minute later: 0.05 moved 0.00036601 to 0.00036593 BTC (minus 0.02%), 1 moved 0.00743344 to 0.00743233, 50 moved 0.37196555 to 0.37190977 (minus 0.015%). Not one XMR to BTC quote carried a validUntil: both routes price floating, and the order page locks at creation. The only validUntil in the whole probe sat on the reverse direction's smallest rung - 0.001 BTC to XMR, a single-route locked-premium quote stamped 2026-11-10T18:06:00.673Z against a response sent at about 18:04:15, a window of roughly 105 seconds. Treat XMR to BTC as a corridor you time by re-quoting, not one you race against a countdown.

The way back in prices differently. BTC to XMR plateaus at 131.590624 XMR per BTC, fitted from the 0.5 and 1 BTC points - an implied $72,500 per BTC, 0.92% below the $73,171 spot. The rungs: 0.001 BTC returned 0.12135729 XMR (rate 121.35729 - keeping only 92.2% of the plateau), 0.005 returned 0.657157 (131.4314, already 99.9%), 0.01 returned 1.31511 (131.511), 0.05 returned 6.578735 (131.5747), 0.1 returned 13.158266 (131.58266), 1 returned 131.589827. Note the cliff between 0.001 and 0.005 BTC: the floor rung is the lone single-route locked quote, and by 0.005 you are already on the two-route plateau with a $0.44-class deduction.

Priced against itself. Chaining the two plateaus - 0.007439431 x 131.590624 - gives 0.978965: a round trip through this corridor costs about 2.10% at the plateau, before chain fees. Both ends sit under spot by design - 1.2% on the way out, 0.92% on the way in - and that spread is the corridor's margin. One warning about comparing corridors: on the same morning, the USDT legs carry bigger fitted deductions ($6-11 class measured previously) but their plateau prices move independently; the honest comparison is two live quotes taken the same minute, not a number read from an article written hours earlier. (XMR to USDT exit)

What the chains add. On a live order the XMR side is your deposit: Monero relay enforces a 20,000-piconero-per-byte floor, so a typical one-input, two-output transaction of about 1,534 bytes costs roughly 0.00003 XMR - about two cents - and the pool credits after 10 confirmations, about 20 minutes at the 120-second block target. The BTC side arrives as the pool's payout; you wait for nothing beyond your own wallet seeing it. At 18:05 UTC the Bitcoin mempool held 66,528 transactions (32.7 MvB), recommended fees read 5 / 4 / 1 / 1 sat/vB (fastest / half-hour / hour / minimum) with most of the backlog parked near 0.10-0.12 sat/vB - so when you later spend that payout, a 141-vbyte P2WPKH spend costs 141 sats (about $0.10) at 1 sat/vB and about $0.52 at the fastest tier. (how Monero fees work)

Boundary and snapshot. Everything above is a snapshot of 2026-11-10 18:03-18:05 UTC: window 0.0207 to 289.5 XMR (drifting by cents between probes), plateau 0.0074394 BTC per XMR, two routes on every rung, no locked window on this direction. The durable rules: never send at or below the 0.02 floor - the 0.0001 probe was rejected outright; get past 0.1 XMR before the rate stops mattering (retention climbs 96.1% to 99.2% between 0.02 and 0.1); read advantageBps spikes as nothing more than a signal that the two pools disagree; and re-quote rather than trusting a number read an hour ago. Rates, boundaries and route counts all move - the live order page is the authority.