Blog How to transfer an urbit galaxy to another person

Urbit galaxies are a special case because they almost always have stars in a lockup contract. When you transfer the galaxy itself through bridge, the locked up stars do not transfer.

Here are the complete directions for transferring an urbit galaxy with all of the lockup stars.

to send the galaxy:

1. Make sure you have some amount of ETH on the sending address (0xaaa...) to pay for the transaction
2. Go to bridge.urbit.org
3. Log in with the ethereum address that owns the galaxy. if you're using a ledger, you may need to connect it to metamask first, then log in with that.
4. Optionally, if you own multiple assets with this address, click on the galaxy
5. Click on "ID" -> "transfer this point"
6. Put in the recipient address, 0xbbb...
7. Click "generate and sign transaction", then click "send transaction"
8. Wait for the transaction to confirm

At this point, the transaction has been initiated, but still needs to be completed by the recipient. until they do, the previous owner still owns & controls the galaxy.

Next, the receiver can:

1. Make sure that the receiving address (0xbbb..) has some ETH to pay for the transaction
2. Log into bridge.urbit.org with that address
3. The galaxy should show up as an incoming transfer. click "accept"
4. Click "generate & sign transaction", then "send transaction"
5. Wait for the transaction to confirm

Once this completes, the galaxy is officially sent.  In case the galaxy was running somewhere, it will stop being able to talk to the network (accepting the transfer cleared its networking keys) 

To transfer the lockup stars:

1. Make sure the relevant address has some ETH to pay for the transaction
2. Log into bridge.urbit.org. usually, the address that controls the lockup is the same address that owns/owned the galaxy
3. At the bottom of the screen, click "view star release"
4. Click the "transfer" tab
5. Put in the 0xbbb receiver address
6. Click "approve transfer", then "send transaction"
7. Wait for the transaction to confirm
8. Bridge will give you a link to share with the recipient. it will look something like https://bridge.urbit.org/?kind=takeLockup&lock=linear&from=0xaaa

At this point the transfer has been initiated but not completed. the recipient must:

1. Ensure sufficient ETH to pay for the transaction
2. Go to bridge using the link provided by the sender, log in
3. You may need to click in & out of the input field, but it should be prefilled with the 0xaaa address
4. Click "generate & sign transaction", then "send transaction"
5. Wait for it to confirm

An important note is that it is not possible to lose assets during this process.  If you put in the wrong information, the sender can just undo the transaction.  For a transaction to go through, both the sender and the receiver have to confirm it.