A swap is where Wire's architecture stops being theory. Two shadowed balances change owners in one atomic transaction: both legs execute together or nothing happens at all. This guide runs one on the V2 testnet and then reads the receipt like an engineer.
Before you start
Run the swap
- Open the swap section (InstaSwap) at pre.wire.network with MetaMask connected.
- Pick the pair to trade and an amount well inside your faucet balance.
- Review the quoted terms, then confirm. MetaMask signs; Wire executes.
- The result lands in seconds. Note the transaction id the UI reports - that id is your receipt and the next section decodes it.
Read the receipt
Ask the chain what actually happened. On an Antelope-derived chain a transaction wraps a list of actions, each acting on a contract:
curl -X POST https://testnet-api-use1.dev.wire-dev.com/v1/chain/get_transaction_status \
-d '{"id":"YOUR_TRANSACTION_ID"}'Three things worth checking:
- Status: once the block containing your transaction passes the last irreversible block, the swap is final. Not probably final - final.
- Atomicity: the transaction carries both transfer legs. There is no state where you paid and did not receive.
- Cost to you: no gas deducted. The resource cost was covered by the application's contract policy.
Why this matters beyond the click
Deterministic receipts are what make a chain drivable by software. An AI agent can submit this exact swap, poll the transaction status and branch on a definitive answer. That is the foundation the wire-mcp work on this site builds on.
Next: stop using contracts and start shipping one. The contract deployment guide is shorter than you expect.