Stargate

Stargate is a Transfer Route Interface: Confirm and Verify Delivery

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Stargate is a cross-chain transfer interface where the route choice decides whether a same-asset move travels immediately by Fast taxi or waits in an Economy bus batch. Before confirmation, select the source and destination networks, token, amount, recipient, and quoted route. After signing, the source transaction settles first; a bus transfer receives a ticket and waits for dispatch, while a taxi sends its LayerZero V2 message immediately. Delivery completes when the destination transaction succeeds.

In short: It is a cross-chain token interface that lets users balance speed and cost, with bus transfers settled locally before batching and tracked through ticket status.

Choose Fast or Economy Before Signing

The Stargate route decision is a speed-versus-batching choice between Fast taxi and Economy bus for the selected pathway. Both modes show a quoted fee, destination amount, and estimated completion time before the wallet opens.

Fast Taxi for Immediate Messaging

Fast is a one-to-one taxi route that emits the cross-chain message after the source transaction reaches its required finality. No passenger queue determines departure. The quote therefore emphasizes a shorter estimated time, while the displayed message fee reflects an individual delivery rather than a shared batch. Taxi also supports custom destination gas and composable destination calls at the protocol level; bus mode does not carry compose logic. Select Fast when the recipient needs the asset before another scheduled action, or when an application expects a destination call after delivery. The quoted destination amount remains the value to compare before signing.

Economy Bus for Shared Messaging

Economy is a batched bus route that settles the swap on the source chain, issues a ticket, and holds the outbound message in a pathway queue. Stargate configures each bus for between 2 and 10 passengers on a destination pathway. Dispatch occurs when the batch fills or the service sends it under the configured waiting policy; a rider may also pay for remaining seats through the drive-bus mechanism. Choose Economy when timing has slack and sharing the cross-chain message cost matters more than immediate departure.

Route availability is quote-specific. Some pathways expose only one valid mode for the selected asset and networks.

Route Inputs That Must Match

The transfer request is a chain-and-token instruction whose source, destination, asset, recipient, and amount must agree before Stargate produces a usable quote. Wallet network identity uses EIP-155 chain IDs on EVM routes. Familiar examples are Ethereum 1, Optimism 10, Polygon PoS 137, Arbitrum One 42161, Base 8453, and Avalanche C-Chain 43114. A listed network does not prove that every token pair has a route; the interface must return a quote for the exact pathway. MetaMask and Rabby display the active network before each signature.

An EVM recipient is 20 bytes, displayed as 40 hexadecimal characters plus the two-character 0x prefix. A regular account appears as 42 characters in total. The same key normally produces the same account address across EVM chains, but a Safe contract account can have a different deployment address on each network. Advanced transfer mode lets the sender replace the connected wallet address with that exact destination recipient.

Asset identity includes both a ticker and a chain-specific contract. Stargate V2 same-asset routes connect corresponding assets, such as USDC to USDC, rather than turning the transfer into an open-ended exchange. Native USDC uses 6 decimal places, so one USDC equals 1,000,000 base units. ETH uses 18 decimal places, making one ETH equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei. The interface normalizes these quantities, while a wallet may expose base-unit calldata during confirmation. Matching the quoted token contract and recipient keeps the signed instruction aligned with the intended destination balance.

What Changes After You Confirm the Transfer?

A confirmed Stargate transfer becomes a source-chain state change, followed by either an immediate taxi message or a queued bus ticket.

ERC-20 Approval and Transfer

An ERC-20 route first checks how much allowance the Stargate contract already has. If the allowance is below the amount, the wallet presents an approval and then the transfer, producing 2 source transactions and 2 signatures. A sufficient allowance reduces that sequence to 1 transfer transaction and 1 signature. Approval changes only the spending limit; it does not enqueue a bus or send a taxi. The second transaction is therefore the cross-chain source record that belongs in the tracker.

Source Settlement and Credit Accounting

The Stargate V2 send request carries 7 fields: a 32-bit destination endpoint ID, a 32-byte recipient, two 256-bit amount fields, extra options, a compose message, and a transport command. When the call succeeds, the sender’s source balance decreases by the debited amount, the pathway’s credit accounting updates, and the source receipt records the executed transfer. The protocol applies its quoted fee or reward at this step and rejects the call when pathway credit is insufficient. Local settlement fixes the source-side outcome before an Economy batch departs. At that point, the destination balance has not changed yet.

Taxi Message or Bus Ticket

Transport mode is encoded in the command field. Taxi uses an empty byte string, while a bus ride uses a 1-byte command. A bus receipt contains 2 fields: a 56-bit ticket ID and passenger bytes that support the drive-bus path. The ticket identifies the transfer inside the destination queue. Taxi does not wait for this queue; its source transaction requests the LayerZero V2 message immediately.

Confirmation therefore proves source execution, while delivery requires a second observable state on the destination chain.

Track the Bus Ticket and Destination Delivery

The transfer tracker is a two-chain verification record that separates source confirmation, cross-chain dispatch, and destination execution for Stargate. Source confirmation is not destination delivery. A separate explanation covers Stargate pricing.

Before Bus Dispatch

An Economy transfer first shows its source transaction and ticket state in the Stargate interface. LayerZero Scan does not receive a cross-chain message record until that bus dispatches, because batching has not emitted the outbound message. Its 56-bit ticket ID preserves queue identity while other riders join the same pathway. A bus has departed when the queue’s next ticket ID is greater than the transfer’s ticket ID. Until that comparison changes, the transfer remains locally settled and queued. The wallet does not need to stay connected, and reopening the tracker does not create another transaction.

After Dispatch or Taxi Send

A departed bus and a sent taxi both enter LayerZero V2’s delivery flow. A V2 bus execution history can expose 3 event labels: SENT, BUS_RODE, and DELIVERED. LayerZero Scan also distinguishes Inflight, Confirming, and Delivered message states. Delivered means the message has reached and executed on the destination chain. Each EVM transaction hash is 32 bytes, rendered as 64 hexadecimal characters plus 0x, or 66 characters total. Keep the source hash and destination hash together so the two chain records remain connected. Delivery is complete when the destination record succeeds and the recipient balance reflects the executed amount.

How Do You Recover From the Wrong Source Network?

A wrong-network setup is a wallet-chain mismatch, and recovery means rejecting the pending signature, switching to the selected source chain, and requesting a fresh quote. If Stargate shows Ethereum while MetaMask or Rabby shows Base, reject the wallet prompt, choose Ethereum, reconnect, and reselect the amount. A rejected signature produces 0 on-chain transactions and spends 0 gas because nothing broadcasts. Resume only after the wallet chain ID, source card, token balance, and refreshed route all agree.

A Final Pre-Confirmation Decision Check

The Stargate confirmation screen is a final decision record for route mode, recipient, destination amount, timing, and source-chain cost. Read the route card and wallet request as one instruction.

  • The wallet is connected to the network named in the source card and holds its native gas token.
  • The quote carries the intended asset across both networks, such as USDC to USDC.
  • The destination field contains the exact MetaMask, Rabby, or Safe address that should receive the balance.
  • Fast is selected for immediate messaging or destination composition; Economy is selected when the displayed batch wait fits.
  • The wallet request matches the quoted amount and contract, and the source hash will be saved after broadcast.

Simple transfer mode fits a move to the same connected account on another chain. Advanced mode fits a different recipient, including a separate Safe deployment. Route mode then answers the remaining decision: Fast pays for one-to-one messaging, while Economy shares a batched message and records a ticket. Once signed, follow the source record through dispatch and destination execution. That sequence ties the interface choice to the final balance without confusing a confirmed source transaction with completed cross-chain delivery.

Things people ask about Stargate

Can a Safe account receive a Stargate transfer?

Yes, a Safe account can receive a Stargate transfer when the destination field contains that Safe deployment’s address on the destination chain. Safe contract accounts do not always share the same address across networks, so copy the address from the intended deployment rather than assuming the source-chain value. Use Advanced transfer mode to set a custom recipient. The sending wallet signs on the source chain, while the destination Safe receives the asset after the LayerZero V2 message executes.

Does an Economy bus require the wallet to remain connected?

No, an Economy bus does not require the wallet to remain connected after the source transaction confirms. The confirmed transaction has already settled locally and created a bus ticket in the destination pathway queue. Closing the browser or disconnecting the wallet does not remove that ticket. Reconnect later and use the source transaction record or Stargate tracker to resume observation; LayerZero Scan gains a cross-chain message record after the bus dispatches.

When is destination gas useful on a Stargate route?

Destination gas is useful when the recipient will make another transaction immediately after the transferred asset arrives. A USDC delivery to Arbitrum One, for example, does not itself supply ETH for a later swap or approval. Stargate exposes a destination-gas option: Economy bus mode permits the preset amount, while Fast taxi mode supports a custom amount. Include it when the destination account lacks enough native gas for the next intended action.

Why does an ERC-20 approval appear before the transfer signature?

An ERC-20 approval appears because the Stargate contract needs an allowance before it can debit tokens from the source wallet. When the existing allowance is below the transfer amount, the wallet signs an approval transaction first and the transfer transaction second. A sufficient allowance removes the extra step. The approval changes allowance, not destination delivery status, so track the later transfer hash as the source record for the cross-chain movement.

How long does a Stargate route quote remain usable?

A Stargate route quote remains usable only until its displayed expiry or the interface replaces it with a refreshed quote. There is no durable time window that applies to every pathway because message fees, source gas, available credits, and route capacity change independently. Request another quote after switching networks, editing the amount or recipient, or leaving the confirmation screen idle. Sign only when the wallet request’s chain, token amount, contract, and value still match the visible route.

What happens if a rider wants an Economy bus to leave early?

An Economy rider can initiate early departure by paying for the remaining bus tickets through the drive-bus mechanism. That choice replaces shared waiting with the cost of the unfilled seats, so the interface must present a new amount before confirmation. The ordinary alternatives are to keep the ticket queued until the bus fills or wait for scheduled dispatch under the pathway’s waiting policy. The already settled source transfer remains tied to its ticket while the rider waits.