What happens to my transaction data after a custodial swap is completed

05 September 2026

The site holds a record of your transaction for a period of time, then deletes it or strips it of identifiers. After that, the data cannot be linked to you by anyone who later gains access to the site's database.

A custodial swap means you send coins to an address the exchange controls. The exchange holds them, performs the conversion internally, and sends the output to your destination. During that process, the exchange necessarily knows your deposit address, your destination address, the amounts involved, and the time of the swap. It also knows your IP address and browser fingerprint at the moment you initiated the trade. This is more information than a non-custodial swap collects, because the exchange briefly becomes the custodian of your funds.

The question is what the exchange does with that information once the swap finishes.

Most no-registration swap sites follow a retention policy. They keep swap records for a fixed period - commonly 30 days to six months - to handle refunds, disputes, or follow-up questions. After that window closes, they purge the database. Some sites go further and anonymize the records: they replace your IP address and browser fingerprint with a null value, leaving only the deposit and destination addresses and the amounts. In that state, the record cannot be tied to a specific person unless law enforcement already has those addresses linked to you through other means.

A few sites delete everything except a hash of the transaction ID. The hash cannot be reversed, so even the site operator cannot later look up what you swapped. You can still prove you used the site by providing the original transaction ID, which the site can hash and compare against its stored hash. This is a privacy-conscious approach, but it also means the site cannot help you if you lose the transaction ID.

No site keeps your data indefinitely unless it has a separate business reason - such as running analytics on aggregate swap volumes, which does not require storing individual records. If a site explicitly promises to delete data, check whether it says "delete" or "anonymize." Deletion means the records are gone. Anonymization means the records persist but your personal identifiers are removed.

There is a catch. The exchange's server logs may still contain your IP address and the time of your visit. Those logs are typically rotated and overwritten after a few weeks, but they are not part of the swap database. If the site is compromised or subpoenaed, server logs can reveal that someone from your IP used the site at a particular moment, even if the swap record itself is gone.

Your browser also cached data that the site sent you - the page you loaded, the confirmation screen. That is not the site's problem, but it is your data. Clearing your browser cache after a swap removes that copy.

The hub page for this set is "Swapping crypto without an account." That page explains why you might choose a no-registration swap in the first place and how the overall process differs from exchange-based trading. If you are trying to decide whether custodial or non-custodial is better for your situation, that page lays out the trade-offs.

After the swap finishes, the most important thing to do is note your destination transaction ID and the swap ID the site gave you. Those are your proof. Without them, you cannot claim a refund or prove the swap happened, regardless of what the site's data retention policy says.

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