How Stellar Path Payments Work A path payment on @StellarOrg lets a sender dispatch one asset and have an entirely different asset arrive at the destination, all within a single on-chain oper
A path payment on @StellarOrg lets a sender dispatch one asset and have an entirely different asset arrive at the destination, all within a single on-chain operation. Rather than transferring assets directly between accounts, the network routes the payment through its built-in decentralized exchange (SDEX) and liquidity pools, crossing order books along the way. A payment can leave as $XLM and land as a stablecoin, for example, without any manual swap required by either party.
There are two flavours of path payment, and the difference comes down to which end of the transaction the sender wants to pin. With Strict Send, the source asset amount stays fixed and the amount received varies depending on available offers in the order books. With Strict Receive, the destination amount is fixed and the cost to the sender varies instead. Developers can choose whichever model fits their use case.
For a path payment to complete, a viable route through the DEX or liquidity pools must exist. Stellar's documentation notes the network only considers routes of five hops or fewer. If no path is found, the transaction fails outright rather than settling at an unfavourable rate. Critically, the entire sequence is atomic: it either completes in full or reverts entirely, protecting both sender and recipient from partial fills.
Sources:Stellar Developer Docs: Path Payments GuideStellar Developer Docs: List Strict Send Payment Paths