Send the funds to an exchange
Close an account straight into an exchange deposit address, with the memo the exchange needs to credit you.
You can send a closed account's balance directly to an exchange deposit address. The app handles the part that normally makes this fail.
Why this needs special handling
Closing an account on Stellar uses ACCOUNT_MERGE. Most exchanges credit payments, not
merges, and a payment is what carries your deposit memo. Merge straight into an exchange
and the lumens land on the ledger at the exchange's wallet, but nothing tells the exchange
the deposit is yours.
When the destination is an exchange the app recognizes, it routes the close through a short-lived helper account instead. Your account merges into the helper, and the helper sends the exchange a normal XLM payment carrying your memo, then removes itself.
From the exchange's side this is an ordinary memo-bearing deposit.
Do this
Get your deposit address and memo from the exchange
Copy both. Exchanges share one deposit address across all customers, so the memo is the only thing that tells them the deposit is yours.
Paste the address into the destination field
If the app recognizes it, an Exchange detected notice names the exchange and tells you which memo type it needs.
Set the memo type and value
Pick the type the exchange asked for and paste the value. The app refuses to start when the memo is missing, the wrong type, or malformed for its type, and it names the exchange in the refusal.
Continue as normal
The rest is the standard flow in Close an account. The plan gains a final step, Deliver to destination, which is the helper account forwarding your funds. That step needs no signature from you.
Exchanges the app recognizes
Twelve deposit addresses are built in. All twelve require a memo.
| Exchange | Memo type |
|---|---|
| Kraken | Text |
| Binance | ID |
| Binance Deposits | ID |
| Bitfinex | Text |
| Bitstamp | ID |
| KuCoin | Text |
| Upbit | Text |
| CEX.IO | Text |
| Crypto.com | Text |
| Robinhood | Text |
| Coinbase Deposits | Text |
| Blockchain.com | Text |
Kraken publishes a 1 XLM minimum deposit and Binance a 0.1 XLM minimum. Check your exchange's own deposit page for its current terms before you close.
Sending to an exchange that is not listed
You can still use the address. The close runs as a direct merge, so the exchange most likely will not credit it.
Withdraw to a wallet you control and move the funds to the exchange yourself. That gets you a normal payment the exchange can credit.
If you run an exchange and want closes to reach your deposit addresses, see Exchange integration.
Things worth knowing
Custom tokens cannot go to an exchange. An exchange deposit address cannot receive a raw Soroban token. If the account holds standalone tokens, the app tells you to move them to a personal wallet first, or they stay behind on the closed account.
A shared account cannot close to an exchange in one signing request. The exchange path runs as several transactions, which cannot be bundled into the single transaction a multisig signing request collects signatures on. Close to a self-custody address instead. See Close a shared account.
If the forward is interrupted. If the final delivery does not complete, the next time you open the app with that account connected a banner reads An exchange forward was interrupted, with a Resume the forward button that sweeps the funds on to your destination.
How it works underneath
The mediator forward protocol covers the helper account, how its signing key is derived per closure, and the exact envelope the server will co-sign.