The rate nobody asked for
3 November 2026
An exchange rate can be floating — whatever the market says when your deposit confirms — or held, fixed at the moment you accept it. Holding one costs the provider money, so it is a real product with a real price.
One provider’s integrator wrote to mention that they support held rates and that it did not look enabled. He was right. The parameter reached the adapter on every call and every one of them ignored it, so that provider simply disappeared from the board whenever somebody chose a held rate.
Measured before being declared
Enabling it on the strength of documentation would have been the mistake this site has already made in the other direction. Three providers once answered a Lightning request with their ordinary on-chain price, unchanged to the satoshi, because an unrecognised parameter is ignored rather than refused.
So the same test was used: ask twice, once each way, and compare.
0.05 BTC → USDT float 4019.059491 fixed 4004.741303 0.356% 1000 USDT → BTC float 0.01224146 fixed 0.01216309 0.640%An ignored parameter returns the identical figure. These do not, and the held rate is slightly worse in both directions, which is exactly what somebody carrying the risk of the next few minutes would charge for it.
And one going the other way
Checking that turned up the opposite fault in a different provider. It declared the capability, asked for held-rate prices, showed them — and then created every order floating, unconditionally.
Somebody choosing a held rate there read held-rate numbers and received a different product. The comment explaining why holding a rate is awkward for a hand-paid deposit was sound, and the decision it described had already been made correctly one layer up. The adapter was overruling it and showing prices nobody could receive.
It no longer offers a held rate, and will again when the order matches the quote. The rule underneath both halves is the same: a quote and the order it becomes must be the same product.
Every figure above can be checked against the providers yourself — no account, no sign-up, and nothing is held for you at any point.