Balance and unlocked balance
Monero wallets show two numbers. The balance is everything the wallet knows about, including what arrived in the last few minutes. The unlocked balance is what you can spend right now. The difference is funds still inside the 10-block lock.
Monero makes a block about every 2 minutes, so 10 blocks take about 20 minutes, a little more or less depending on how the blocks fall.
Why Monero does this
The lock is a rule of the network itself: a transaction can't spend an output that is younger than 10 blocks. It guards against reorganizations, when the last few blocks are replaced by a competing chain. Without the lock, a payment that spent fresh funds could become invalid if the block that created those funds disappeared.
Every Monero wallet follows the rule, so there's no setting that removes it. Changing it would take a network upgrade.
Why your change locks too
This surprises many people: after you send Monero, part of your remaining balance can lock as well. A wallet doesn't spend part of an output; it spends whole outputs and sends the rest back to you as change. That change is a new output, so it waits 10 blocks like any funds you receive.
Say you hold 2 XMR in one output and send 0.5 XMR. The wallet spends the whole output, sends 0.5 to the recipient and about 1.5 back to you. For the next 20 minutes or so, your unlocked balance can be zero even though your balance shows 1.5.
That's also why a second payment right after the first may have to wait. Wallets with coin control, such as Feather, list your outputs one by one, and funds received as several separate outputs give you more you can spend at once.
What it means for a swap
Swapping into Monero
When a swap sends you XMR, it shows up in your wallet within a couple of minutes but stays locked for about 20. If you plan to move it on right away, count that time in.
Swapping out of Monero
When you send XMR to an exchange, the exchange waits for its own confirmations, usually about 10. So a swap out of Monero typically takes 20 to 30 minutes before the exchange can send your new coins. That's normal, and the order page shows the confirmations as they come in. For example: Monero to Bitcoin or Monero to USDT TRC20.
The private route
In the private route, XMR is the bridge between two swaps, so the second step waits for these confirmations too. Expect it to take longer than a direct swap.
Locked for much longer?
A balance that stays locked far longer than 20 minutes usually means the wallet isn't fully synced. Check that its block height matches the network's (most wallets show a sync status), or switch to another node. A wallet that's behind can also show incoming funds late.
If a transaction looks stuck, look up its transaction ID on a Monero block explorer. It shows whether the transaction is in a block and how many confirmations it has, without revealing amounts or addresses.
In short
- Ten blocks, about 20 minutes, for every new output: received funds and change alike.
- Exchanges add their own confirmations when you send XMR to them.
- Much longer than that usually means a sync or node problem, not a lost transaction.
