How to Send Crypto to Another Wallet

Summary: Sending crypto means pasting the recipient's address, picking the matching network, paying a small network fee and confirming. Two mistakes account for almost every loss: using the wrong network, and not checking the address properly. Neither can be undone once the transaction confirms, which is why a test send exists.

• Take the address from the recipient directly, then verify it character by character.
• The network has to match on both ends. Right coin, wrong network, lost funds.
• You need a little of the network's native coin to pay the fee, even when sending a token.
• Some destinations need a memo or destination tag. Leaving it out is its own way to lose money.

What You Need Before You Start

Three things. The recipient's address for the exact coin and network you are sending. Enough of that coin to cover the amount. And a small balance of the network's native currency for the fee, which is the requirement people forget.

That last point catches out anyone sending a token rather than a coin. USDT on Ethereum is paid for in ETH. USDT on Tron is paid for in TRX. A wallet holding 500 dollars of a token and nothing else cannot send any of it, which looks like a bug and is not one.

How to Send Crypto, Step by Step

• Ask the recipient for their address and, separately, which network it is on. If they are giving you an exchange deposit address, ask whether a memo or tag is required.
• Open Send in your wallet and choose the same coin and network.
• Paste the address rather than typing it, or scan the QR code, which removes transcription errors entirely.
• Compare the first four and last four characters of what appeared in the field against the original.
• Enter the amount, review the fee, and check the total leaving your wallet rather than the amount arriving.
• Confirm, then save the transaction hash. It is your only proof and the only way to trace the payment later.

On anything large or any first payment to a new person, send a small amount first, wait for it to arrive, and only then send the rest. The fee on a test send is the cheapest insurance in crypto.

Choosing the Network

Many coins and most stablecoins exist on several networks, and the same asset on two networks is effectively two different things for the purposes of sending. Your wallet will label them: ERC-20 for Ethereum, TRC-20 for Tron, SPL for Solana, BEP-20 for BNB Chain, and so on.

The recipient decides, not you. If they give you a Tron address you send over Tron, whatever the fee. Where you genuinely have a choice, cost varies enormously between networks, and picking a network for a stablecoin payment goes into the trade-offs in more detail.

What the Fee Pays For, and How Long It Takes

The fee does not go to your wallet provider. It goes to whoever validates the transaction on the network, and it rises when the network is busy because you are bidding for space in the next block. Network fees are the reason an identical transfer can cost cents one day and several dollars the next.

Most wallets offer a slow, normal and fast option. Choosing slow when nobody is waiting is free money. Choosing fast during congestion is worth it when the payment is time sensitive. Settlement ranges from under a second on Solana to an hour or more on Bitcoin when fees are underpriced, and how long a bitcoin transaction takes depends more on the fee you chose than on anything else.

The Mistakes That Actually Lose Money

• Wrong network. The tokens exist at that address on a chain nobody is watching. Recoverable if you control the keys, sometimes recoverable by an exchange for a fee, otherwise gone.
• Missing memo or destination tag. XRP and several exchange deposit addresses need one to identify which customer the funds belong to. Without it the exchange receives money it cannot attribute, and recovery means a support ticket and patience.
• Clipboard tampering. Malware that swaps a copied address for the attacker's is old and still effective, which is the real reason to check those first and last characters.
• Below the minimum. Exchanges set minimum deposits, and sending less can mean the amount is simply absorbed.

Sending From an Exchange or From Your Own Wallet

From an exchange, a withdrawal is a request rather than an instruction. Expect two-factor authentication, possibly a holding period on a newly added address, and occasionally a manual review. Address whitelisting is worth turning on: it slows down your first send to a new address and makes an attacker's send impossible.

From your own wallet you are the only approver, which is faster and less forgiving. With a hardware wallet the signing step happens on the device, and the address shown on its own screen is the one that matters, not the one on your computer. That is the entire security benefit of a Ledger device, and the reason to actually read that small screen before pressing the button. Hot and cold storage differ mainly in where that approval happens.

Before You Hit Send the First Time

Run the same four checks every time and the risk drops close to zero. Right coin, right network, address verified at both ends, memo included if one was asked for. Then a test amount if the sum would hurt to lose. Nobody who does this loses funds to a mistyped address.

One thing worth knowing: if the reason you are sending crypto is to give it to somebody, an address is an awkward way to do it, because they need a wallet ready before you can send anything. A CryptoVoucher hands over the value as a code they redeem into whatever wallet they set up later, with no address to get wrong.