Before you press send: network and test transfers

Sending crypto works differently from the payments most people already know. When a card payment goes wrong, a bank can open a dispute and sometimes pull the money back. A blockchain transfer has no such middle party. The network records the transaction, the recipient's address receives the value, and nobody in charge is available to reverse it. That is why a wrong address or a wrong network matters so much. An address is a public identifier, a string of characters that points to an account on one particular network. The send screen in a wallet app asks for three things: an address, an asset and a network. A mistake in any one of them can leave value somewhere the recipient cannot see.

The order of events behind a send explains why the checks come first. You enter the recipient's address and the amount, and the wallet builds a transaction. Your private key signs it, which proves the request came from you. The wallet then broadcasts the signed transaction to the network, where it waits in a queue of pending transactions. Validators pick it up and include it in a block. Only after that does the transaction count as successful. Until then it is pending, and a pending transaction can still fail or be replaced. Once a block holds it, there is no support desk to ask, because the rules of the network are the only authority. Everything that can be fixed has to be fixed before the signing step.

Consider a made-up case. Dana is paying a freelance designer who gave her an address by email. Dana notices that the designer's wallet app lists the main network and also a test network and a second chain, each showing an address that looks the same. She asks the designer which network the payment should use and gets a reply naming one. Dana pastes the address, compares the first and last characters with the email, and selects that network in her own wallet. Before the full payment she sends a very small test transfer. The designer confirms it arrived. Dana then sends the rest, and saves the address in her wallet's address book under the designer's name for next time.

Several things go wrong in practice, and each has a clear cause. The first is a network mismatch. Many chains use the same address format, so one address can look valid on several networks even though the recipient's account only exists, or is only watched, on one. Value sent on the wrong one may sit there unseen. The second is a pasted address that was swapped by malware on the device, which replaces copied text with the attacker's own. The third is a test network, where tokens carry no real worth, being picked by mistake during setup. The fourth is impatience. Someone sees a pending status, assumes the money is lost or stuck, and sends it again, which creates a second payment instead of waiting for the first to finish.

A short set of checks can be done alone, without help from anyone. Ask the recipient, through a channel you already trust, which network and which asset they expect. Read the address in full on the screen, not only the start and end, and compare it with what the recipient sent. Confirm that the network chosen in the wallet matches the one the recipient named. Send a small test transfer first and wait until the recipient sees it. Save regular recipients in an address book so you never need to paste a new string again. Then, on a public block explorer for that network, search for your transaction and look for the status that shows it was included in a block.

These habits reduce the chance of an error, but they cannot remove it, and they cannot reverse a transfer that has already gone through. The documentation published by ethereum.org on accounts, transactions and community support explains each of these terms in more detail and is a sensible next read. Wallet apps differ in how they label networks and test transfers, so the screen in front of you takes priority over any general description. This page is general education, not financial, legal or technical advice, and it does not judge any particular wallet, network or payment. Anyone moving significant value to a new recipient may want to read the help pages of their own wallet first.

• A completed blockchain send usually cannot be reversed, so every check belongs before signing
• The same-looking address can exist on several networks, so confirm the network with the recipient
• A pending transaction is not final; it counts as successful only once included in a block