If My Locker Misses the BTC Deadline, What Do I Get?

After you burn teleBTC in TeleSwap, you get a recorded request for a Locker to send native BTC by a deadline; confirmation does not guarantee that Bitcoin has been paid. If the Locker misses the deadline, the fallback is collateral tokens on the destination chain, whose value depends on the collateral and the oracle price when it is slashed.

A burn records a request, not a Bitcoin transfer

Burning teleBTC commits a Locker to pay the specified amount of BTC to the Bitcoin address recorded in the request before its deadline. The burn transaction destroys the teleBTC and records the amount, address and deadline on the destination chain. That record establishes the obligation; it does not show that a Bitcoin transaction has happened.

So if you are asking whether the BTC payout is certain, the answer is no. The burn confirms that your request exists, but the Locker still has to make the Bitcoin payment. A valid proof of that payment must reach the destination chain to close the request. Until then, the request remains open, even if you have seen the burn confirmed.

Only a proven Bitcoin payment closes the request

The request closes when the Locker’s Bitcoin payout is proven on the destination chain. That proof connects the Bitcoin payment to the recorded request, allowing the destination-chain contract to recognize the obligation as fulfilled. A burn confirmation alone cannot do that: it records the request, not the later payment.

This distinction matters if you are thinking about the whole journey back to Bitcoin. A redemption burn creates a claim with a deadline; what a TeleSwap Bitcoin round trip involves covers the wider path between chains. The burn is the point where you give up teleBTC and wait for the Locker’s Bitcoin payment, so consider the outstanding request and its fallback before confirming.

A missed deadline makes collateral available for compensation

If no valid Bitcoin payment proof arrives by the deadline, the request becomes overdue and can trigger slashing of the Locker’s collateral. Slashing means the protocol takes some of the collateral the Locker has put up and uses it to compensate the requester. This is the enforcement mechanism because the protocol cannot force a transaction from the Locker’s Bitcoin wallet.

Compare two otherwise identical requests for the same BTC amount, with the same Locker and collateral. If valid proof arrives before the deadline, the Bitcoin payout closes the request. If proof has not arrived when the deadline passes, the request is overdue and the collateral fallback becomes available. The deciding event is proof recorded by the deadline, not simply whether the Locker says it sent BTC.

If your request reaches that fallback, you receive collateral tokens on the destination chain—not native BTC. Those tokens may compensate for the missed payout’s value, but they leave you outside Bitcoin. To hold BTC again, you would need to buy it with the compensation or bridge again; neither is the same as receiving the original Bitcoin payout.

Collateral compensation tracks BTC only if its value holds up

How much value the compensation preserves depends on the collateral backing the Locker’s obligation and the oracle price used when slashing occurs. Overcollateralization means the Locker has pledged collateral worth more than the BTC obligation, providing a buffer if collateral value moves. But the outcome still depends on the amount available and the price the oracle reports at slashing time.

That means a missed deadline does not translate into a guaranteed BTC amount paid to your Bitcoin address. It gives you a claim to compensation in the Locker’s collateral asset under the protocol’s slashing rules. Before burning, treat the deadline as the point at which the payout path can change: first you expect native BTC, but if proof is absent in time, the recovery path is collateral on another chain.

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