You’re reading this because you want to know how to recover ethereum sent to the wrong address.
I hate to be bearer of bad news but that ETH is gone forever.
The only way you can get that back is if you know who you sent it to and then maybe the person who received it might be kind enough to return it.
Otherwise it’s gone. It’s just how the blockchain works.
Look, I’m excited about the future of crypto but one of the things I think is holding back mainstream adoption is the inability to recover funds being sent to a wrong address.
This kind of user experience friction will slow the adoption of Crypto – until there is a solution to protect the “not-so-tech savvy” from sending their life savings into oblivion.
It’s not hard to do it correctly.
But the dangers of making a mistake and not being able to recover will keep people who aren’t that tech savvy from ever trusting themselves or others with crypto assets.
Here are some of the most common cases:
- You sent ETH/tokens to the incorrect address.
- You sent the incorrect amount of ETH/tokens.
- The transaction is canceled by the network.
Successful transactions are irreversible, making it impossible to reverse lost funds once they have been sent. As a result, you are unlikely to ever be able to recover the misplaced token in cases like this.
The owner of the address is the only one who has the power to grant a refund. There is no other way to get your money back if you don’t know the owner of the address.
There’s also no sure way to know that anyone possesses the private key to a particular address, especially, if there are no outgoing transactions.
As a result, whenever you are sending ETH/tokens, it is critical to use extreme caution.
Always double-check that the address you’re sending to is correct.
Don’t assume that because they share the same name that it will be accurate. It’s good practice to double-check addresses before confirming or executing transactions.
If you sent tokens to the wrong exchange, let’s say Coinbase, the exchange may choose to reimburse the funds at its discretion.
If you create a support ticket and provide the data they require, such as the intended recipient address and transaction hash that went to the incorrect address, exchanges may be able to assist you.
You can view the information on transactions that take place within the Ethereum blockchain via Etherscan.
Now, bear in mind that Etherscan is not a wallet or exchange platform.
- They’re not a wallet service provider
- They do not store your private keys (only you should have that)
- They do not process transactions or have control over the transactions
Which simply means Etherscan cannot troubleshoot transaction failures or refund your transactions.
How To Make Sure You Never Send Ethereum To An Incorrect Address
Here are some ways to avoid this happening in the future.
Due to the nature of how the blockchain works it easy to make a mistake. One extra letter or character on the address will mess it up.
Check the address every time, NOT sometimes
This seems like common sense but you would be surprised that a lot of people don’t do it.
They might do it sometimes but you should check the ETH address you’re sending funds to everytime. Even if you’re doing the transaction 10 times for the day, check it 10 times.
I know it seems tedious but the pain of losing your ETH is way worse.
What I normally do is copy the address and paste into notepad or word file. Then I can “CTRL + F”, to paste in the address again to check before sending the tokens.
Watch out for copy clipboard malware
Hackers can use a malware bug that can manipulate copy and paste feature on your laptop.
When you copy and paste a piece of data on your machine the data is placed in a temporary storage.
To understand how this bug executes its objective of stealing digital assets, you must first understand how people move cryptocurrency from one online wallet to another.
Let’s assume you bought ETH on Coinbase (Wallet A) and want to send it to your own crypto account (Wallet B). To send ETH into your account, you’ll need Wallet B’s address.
Wallet B has a “Ethereum address,” which is a long string of text with random letters and numbers.
Next step is that you would copy your Ethereum address and paste it into a “Send to” field at Wallet A.
Now, Coinbase knows exactly where to send your Ethereum. Once you hit “Send,” your Ethereum will be sent to your crypto account which could be a wallet or another exchange.
So what happens is that the address you copied from Wallet B looked completely different after you paste it.
In other words, the malware bug on your computer can access the clipboard and change the genuine Ethereum address with the hacker’s own address.
This is one of the most used methods by hackers to steal crypto.
How to protect yourself from clipboard hacking
Clipboard hacking isn’t unusual in the cryptocurrency sector, and it’s not new.
In fact, 360 Total Security discovered a Trojan that targeted Bitcoin and Ethereum holders back in 2018. It found a malware targeting Bitcoin and Ethereum owners.
If the malware finds a Bitcoin or Ethereum account address in the clipboard, it will notify the hacker.
It automatically changes the recipient address to its own address in order to send the cryptocurrency to its own wallet.
So, how can you avoid falling prey to clipboard crypto hacking? To begin, always double-check the pasted wallet addresses to ensure they correspond with the code you originally copied.
Second, keep your malware protection up to date to safeguard your digital assets against deceptive individuals.
Send a small amount first then the rest
Let’s say you have 100 ETH tokens on an exchange and you want to send it to your hardware wallet for cold storage, don’t just send all 100 ETH, instead send 1 ETH and see if it went through successfully to the wallet.
If the transaction was successful then you can proceed with sending the rest.