How to send crypto without losing it

In crypto there's no "cancel." Once a transaction confirms, no bank can reverse it, no support team can help you, and there's no way to contact whoever received it.

That's why this process has exactly one step that really matters.

The only rule you need

Send $1 first. Wait for it to arrive. Then send the rest.

It costs pennies and saves you from every mistake on this page. People skip it because it feels excessive — until the first time they send $3,000 to the wrong network.

The 4 things you have to confirm

1. Address
   copied, never typed by hand
2. Network
   the same one the recipient expects
3. Token
   USDC ≠ USDT ≠ USDC.e
4. Gas
   do you have the native coin for that network?

1. The address

Copy it from the person's message. After pasting it into your wallet, compare the first 4 and the last 4 characters with the original.

0x834fC75B56580B544b449705b4d0cf583949bB10
  ^^^^                                ^^^^
 verify                              verify

If you're going to send to the same person often, save it in your wallet's address book.

2. The network

This is where money gets lost. Your wallet and the recipient's have to be on the same network.

If you're sending to an exchange, the exchange tells you exactly which network it accepts for that token. Read it. Don't assume.

3. The token

Some tokens have almost identical names and are not the same thing:

They look alike	But
USDC and USDT	Different companies, different contracts
USDC and USDC.e	The second is the "bridged" version on some networks
Any token and its fake copy	Same name, different contract — see fake tokens

4. The gas

To move any token you need that network's native coin to pay the fee:

Gas is paid in that blockchain's native coin: ETH on Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base; SOL on Solana; POL on Polygon.

The "I have 500 USDC and can't move it" mistake

It happens to everyone at least once: you have the token but zero native coin, so you can't pay the gas and you're stuck. The fix is to send yourself a few cents of that coin to the same address.

→ How gas works

The process, step by step

1. Confirm with the recipient: network + token
2. Check that you have gas on that network
3. Send a $1 test
4. Wait for the person to confirm it arrived
5. Only now send the rest

On cheap networks (Solana, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum) step 3 costs less than a penny. There's no excuse.

How to know it sent correctly

Your wallet gives you a transaction hash. Paste it into that network's explorer and check for:

• Status: Success — it went through
• To: the correct address
• Enough confirmations (on Bitcoin, wait for at least one; on the rest it's usually instant)

Send the hash to the recipient. That's the proof, not the screenshot.

I made a mistake. What do I do?

What happened	What you can do
I sent to the wrong network, but I control the destination wallet	Add that network to your wallet: the funds are there
I sent to the wrong network, to an exchange	Contact support right away. Sometimes they recover it for a fee
I sent to the wrong address (someone else's)	Gone, unless you know them and they want to return it
I sent the wrong token to an exchange	Support. Sometimes it's recoverable
The transaction has been "pending" for hours	On Ethereum you can speed it up or cancel it from your wallet by raising the gas

No one is going to "recover" your funds

If you search for help online and someone offers to recover your lost crypto, it's a scam. No exceptions. See Spotting scams.

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If you came looking for something else:Someone's about to send me crypto · Which network should I use? · Common mistakes