How to verify a receiving address
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
Never type an address by hand: copy, paste, and compare what you pasted against the original. Checking the first and last characters is not enough — check the middle too, or use a QR code. When sending to a hardware wallet, confirming the address on the device's own screen is the most reliable check.
Key points
- Do not type it — paste it, then compare
- Checking only the start and end will not catch a look-alike
- Picking from history is risky when fake entries have been seeded into it
- For a hardware wallet, confirm on the device's own display
Definition
Confirming, before you send, that the destination address you entered is character-for-character the one you intend.
Sending to the wrong address is among the most common crypto accidents and the hardest to recover from. A confirmed transfer cannot be reversed and comes back only if the recipient chooses to return it. That makes the few seconds of checking before you send effectively the only defence there is.
The baseline is not typing it. Reproducing a long alphanumeric string by hand is beyond human reliability, and a mistyped address can happen to be structurally valid. Copy the string the recipient gave you, paste it into the send screen, and then compare what landed there against the original.
How you compare matters. Most people glance at the first four and last four characters, which is exactly what attackers target. They generate a look-alike matching at both ends and push a tiny transfer to you so it sits in your transaction history — a technique called address poisoning. Copy from history next time and you send straight to the fake. Checking a few characters in the middle, or refusing to copy from history at all, defeats it.
The other threat is malware that rewrites the clipboard, so the address you copied becomes the attacker's the instant you paste. Comparing after pasting catches this too. Copying and pasting and sending without a second look is the single most dangerous habit. Where available, scanning a QR code avoids this path altogether.
If the destination is a hardware wallet, there is a stronger method: display the receiving address on the device itself and match it against what the send screen shows. A computer or phone display can be manipulated; the device's screen is independent. The larger the amount, the more that extra step earns its keep. And whatever the case, test with a small amount the first time — that is your final safety net.
Watch out for
- · Do not copy addresses out of your transaction history — that is precisely what poisoning targets
- · An address means different things on different chains; a similar format sent to an unsupported chain can be unrecoverable
- · If a counterparty changes their address at the last moment, confirm through a separate channel — compromised email and chat accounts are used to swap addresses
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a test transfer every time?
Not every time, but it is worth doing for a new destination, one you have not used in a while, or a large amount. Test transfers cost a fee too, so weigh that against the sum involved.