Building a send-to address book
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
Verify the destinations you use often once, carefully, then keep them in an address book. It removes most of the risk that comes from pasting an address afresh every time — provided the verification at registration is genuinely thorough.
Key points
- An address book exists to stop you pasting a fresh address every time
- Confirm each entry with a small test transfer before trusting it
- Combine it with an exchange's own withdrawal whitelist where available
- If a destination needs a memo or tag, store that value with the address
Definition
A saved list of destinations you use repeatedly, each with a label, its chain, and any required memo. Many wallets and exchanges provide one built in.
Most transfer accidents are not clever attacks, they are mix-ups: picking a lookalike address, reusing a stale one from your history, choosing the wrong network. All of them come from hunting for the address again on every send. An address book removes the hunt.
Spend the effort at registration. Re-confirm an address received from someone through an official channel. For your own wallets, read the address off the receiving device's screen directly. Then send a small test amount and confirm it arrived before sending anything real. Skip this and a wrong address settles into the book wearing a trustworthy label.
Store a label saying whose and what for, the chain, the address, any memo or tag, and the date you last verified it. The chain matters because the same address format is valid on several networks and it is easy to send over the wrong one. Memos and tags belong in the same entry: to some exchange destinations, an address without its tag does not arrive.
Where your exchange offers a withdrawal whitelist, use that as well. Restricting withdrawals to pre-registered addresses means that even a compromised account cannot send straight out to an attacker's address. The address book protects you from your own mistakes; the whitelist protects you from someone else's access.
Watch out for
- · Verify with a small test transfer before an address enters the book
- · Copying addresses out of past history is exactly what address-poisoning attacks exploit
- · A destination that requires a memo or tag may not credit funds sent without it
Frequently asked questions
Where should the address book live?
Prefer the built-in address book in your wallet or exchange. If you keep a separate file, it should contain only addresses — public information — and nothing related to keys.