Send to a new Stellar address
Send to a Stellar address that does not exist yet and holds no XLM. You do not need to buy XLM first.
A Stellar address that does not exist on the network yet can still receive your transfer, and you do not need to buy XLM first. Stellar needs a small XLM reserve before an account can exist and hold an asset. The sponsor that the app works with covers that reserve up front, and a small part of the money that arrives pays it back.
This works for USDC, and on Stellar's main network for USDT0: send USDC to receive USDC, or send USDT0 to receive USDT0. The reserve is paid back in the asset that arrives.
What you do
Paste the new address as the Recipient, exactly as you would any other address. The route gains one line, Account reserve: 1.50 XLM for a new account that holds one asset. The review shows the same amount as Kept in your account, because the XLM stays in the new account as its reserve, and adds Repays the reserve, from what arrives: the most the repayment can take of the money that arrives.
You need the Stellar wallet that holds the new address, because the account approves two steps of its own. For a muxed address, that is the wallet of the account the muxed address is built on. Connect your wallets covers connecting it.
The prompts
For a Circle route, the card asks for these, in this order:
- Approve the repayment first, in your Stellar wallet, before anything is sent. This approves the transaction that pays back the reserve out of the money that arrives. The card shows the most it can spend before you sign.
- Allow Circle to move your USDC and Send from your chain, in the wallet that holds your USDC, as for any transfer.
- Set the account up, in your Stellar wallet, once Circle has attested the transfer. This creates the account and lets it hold USDC. It costs you nothing.
On other rails, LayerZero's USDT0 route among them, the account is set up before the send instead, so both Stellar prompts come first, and the setup lets the account hold the asset the rail delivers.
Until the account is set up, closing the page pauses the transfer, and the card says so. You can finish it later from Activity.
If you turn down a Stellar prompt, the card names it and says where your money is: before the send, Nothing has been sent; after Circle has attested the transfer, the funds are safe on Circle's side and still deliverable.
Receive the asset you send
A new address receives the asset you send: USDC for a USDC transfer, USDT0 for a USDT0 transfer. A new account is set up holding exactly its reserve, with no XLM to spare, and the account pays the network fee of a conversion itself. So when you choose XLM for a new address, the route declines: "Converting into XLM is a transaction the receiving account signs and pays a network fee for, up to 0.1 XLM, and a new account is set up with no XLM to spare. Receive USDC, or add a little XLM to the account first." For a USDT0 transfer the sentence names USDT0.
Small transfers
Setting up an account is only offered when enough arrives to pay the reserve back with room to spare. Below that, the route declines with the smallest amount that works, for example "Send at least 6 XLM of value, or send to an address that already has one."
When Stellar's market is thin
The reserve is paid back by trading the arriving asset for XLM on Stellar's exchange. The route is offered only while that trade costs less than the most the repayment can take, with 1% to spare. When it costs more, or the exchange has no direct trade between the asset and XLM, the route declines and asks you to try again later, for example "Stellar's market has no direct trade from USDT0 to XLM right now, which repaying the new account's reserve needs."
When the sponsor does not cover reserves
A Mavna deployment can run with its sponsor covering no reserves. The quote then declines an address that does not exist yet and says how much XLM to send it first. An existing account that cannot hold the asset yet allows it itself, and the review shows the cost as Reserve, from your own XLM.