Checking an Address Before You Press Send
Four checks, thirty seconds, and the end of the single most expensive mistake in crypto.
Gabriel Mas ·
A transfer to a wrong address is final. Four checks prevent nearly every version of it.
Check 1: the first and last characters
Compare the first four and last four characters of the address in the destination against the one in the send field.
This defeats clipboard malware, which substitutes a visually similar address. It cannot defeat an address you typed wrong, which is why you should never type one.
Check 2: the network label
The send screen names a network. The receive screen names a network. They must be the same word.
Same address, different network, is the second most common total loss. The address can look perfectly valid.
Check 3: the memo or tag, if there is one
Some assets and some venues require an additional identifier alongside the address. A transfer without it arrives at the venue and is not credited to you.
If the receive screen shows a memo field, the send screen must have one filled in. Recovery is a support ticket and sometimes impossible.
Check 4: the amount and the fee
Confirm whether the fee is deducted from the amount or added to it. On a withdrawal of your whole balance, the difference decides whether the transaction goes through at all.
The habit that replaces all four
Send a test first. It is slower and it costs one fee, and it catches everything above including mistakes you did not think to check for.
Somewhere the test transaction is cheap enough to bother with turns this from a nuisance into a default.
The address book
Most venues let you save a verified address with a label. Once an address has been tested, save it.
Afterwards you select from a list instead of pasting, which removes the paste step where most errors enter. A venue that confirms the address before sending will also require a confirmation before a new address can be used, which is a useful delay.
What never to do
Accept an address sent in a chat message without confirming it through a second channel. Address substitution in messaging apps is a standard attack and it works because people are in a hurry.
A platform where each step tells you what happens next will slow you down at exactly these points, which is the feature rather than the friction.