Sending cryptocurrency transactions can be a stressful process, especially for those unfamiliar with it. Though concepts such as Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) and Unstoppable Domains (among others) exist as ways to simplify crypto wallet addresses, there are still lots of networks that don’t yet have that function. Additionally, not everyone that uses those networks has gone through the process of getting a “handle”.
With this in mind, we’ve assembled this guide of tips to ensure you send your digital assets to the correct address. Let’s jump in.
Three Tips for Crypto Wallet Address Organization
Avoiding sending your crypto assets to the wrong address is actually a fairly easy thing to do, especially if you follow the tips below. These are actually in order of importance, meaning that tip number one is the most important thing to do. Realistically all you need is tip number one, but the rest will help with organizing multiple wallet addresses.
1. DOUBLE CHECK THE ADDRESS IS CORRECT
Sorry, didn’t mean to yell at you, but this tip is just that important and the easiest tip of them all. Check the address is the right one, check again, check a third time if you have to, as long as the addresses match, you’re good to go. While it can be tedious to verify a long string of letters and numbers is the right one, doing so will guarantee that you aren’t sending to the wrong address.
The only other thing you need to do is make sure it’s the correct network, but most exchanges and wallet apps will detect this automatically, making it difficult for you to send digital assets to the wrong blockchain.
2. Label Your Withdrawal Addresses on Exchanges
This tip is more so for users who send and receive a lot of funds using crypto exchanges. If you keep some Bitcoin on a hardware wallet such as a Ledger, but also use some on Ethereum in a MetaMask wallet as WBTC, make sure the addresses you’ve added to your exchange whitelist reflect the network where the funds are going.
For example, if it’s your Bitcoin Ledger wallet address, put something like “Ledger BTC”. If it’s for wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum or the Binance Smart Chain, put ETH BTC or BSC BTC. Something to denote which network it’s going to is all you need. As aforementioned though, most exchanges do have safety measure automations in place to inform you if you’ve entered an address for the wrong network.
This tip also applies to your addresses within your wallets, meaning you should label all your addresses within your Ledger (or other wallet). For example, if you use Binance and Coinbase to send Bitcoin to, you should label one address Binance BTC and the other Coinbase BTC. Anything you can do to help ensure you’re sending funds to the place you mean to.
3. Get a Handle (ENS, Unstoppable Domains, etc.)
Services such as Ethereum Naming Service and Unstoppable Domains makes it fairly easy to ensure you always send crypto assets to the correct address. The only caveat is that there is always a cost associated with creating these “handles”.
The way this works is you buy or acquire a handle that you want, whether your name, or something else. We could buy “CryptocurrencyHelp.eth” for example. The amount it would cost would depend on a few factors, but generally the shorter the handle, the higher the cost. You can do this with other blockchain networks other than Ethereum too, such as Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL).
Once you have your handle, you can do a variety of things. Generally, you just add addresses you want to the handle. For ENS this is fairly simple as you can just use it for all Ethereum assets.
However, with something like an Unstoppable Domain, you can use your handle for a ton of assets including Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and any other supported asset. You simply designate addresses for each specific blockchain network, and then when someone goes to send you that asset, it will automatically go to the correct one even though all they had to enter was “CryptocurrencyHelp.eth” into the wallet address.
Closing Thoughts
Sending your crypto assets doesn’t need to be a stressful process, all it takes is some due diligence and organization on your own.
Double checking an address is easily the most simple tip and is the one that is guaranteed to help you avoid sending crypto to the wrong address, though it is certainly the most tedious. The other two options may require a little more effort, but will certainly pay off in the long run.
