There has always been some level of pessimism in the use of cryptocurrencies as a result of the possibility of typing the receiver’s wallet address in a wrong or invalid manner. This has led to some level of discomfort for people using crypto wallets as a means of holding their funds.
As a result of these long strings of alphanumeric characters associated with the wallet address, people find it difficult to type the wallet address in a correct manner. Especially with the characters which look similar to numbers, for example, the letter O and the number 0.
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However, there’s a recent development by wallet developers who ensure measures are put in place to help validate the use of wallet addresses. This is done in order to help prevent the users from inputting the wrong wallet address and also copying the correct address in one swoop by simply highlighting the entire alphanumeric strings to be pasted in the right spot.
This has helped to reduce the challenges associated with coping with the wrong and invalid addresses for users when they want to make a transaction.
Most exchanges and blockchain developers have put in measures to check for the validity of the wallet addresses before the confirmation of any transaction from the platform. There’s a caveat, though: most times the user has to confirm that the wallet address the funds are being sent to is correct and the user would hold himself or herself responsible once the funds are sent.
What is a Bitcoin wallet address?
A Bitcoin wallet address is a generated digital address, made up of alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers), that you use for sending and receiving Bitcoin transactions.
However, the same can be said for other cryptocurrencies as they also require wallet addresses to send and receive funds in the form of cryptocurrencies.
What can possibly go wrong with a wrong Bitcoin address?
There are some possibilities why a transaction can not or may not be completed with the wrong Bitcoin destination address. These can be a result of the following:
- Wrongly copied address: This can be synonymous to sending a package to a supposed destination at point A and the package being sent to point C. It would obviously not get to the expected recipient. The same is possible for a Bitcoin wallet address.
Although with Bitcoin, there is just one condition when there could be a refund. This is when the sender knows the owner of the wallet address of the wrong recipient and the owner is kind to refund him. Otherwise, the fund is lost.
- Typo in wallet address: This was the case in the earlier period of the initial participants in crypto transactions. Where wallet address owners were expected to type the wallet address for recipients of funds before transactions were executed and as such there were large cases of funds missing as a result of a typographical error on the part of the senders.
Due to the length of the characters from the hash being 32 which is longer for an individual to get correctly, the chances of entering an invalid address that is wrong but acceptable after translating are 1 in 4.3 billion.
- Blockchain Discrepancy: This would involve sending funds from one blockchain to another blockchain unknowingly. This was significant after the hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain which led to the creation of another blockchain like the Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
Most users were always warned to ensure they use the right wallet address and blockchain to avoid loss of funds as the blockchains were entirely different from each other.
However, there were instances where users due to ignorance and limited knowledge of how the blockchain worked sent their funds to the wrong blockchain.
What is the way out?
It is necessary for users to be conscious of the validation of Bitcoin wallet addresses before transacting with them. The user can decide to confirm the recipient’s wallet address by asking the recipient to validate that the wallet address is correct before sending the funds.
Whenever a transaction is to be made, users should execute a test transaction by sending little amounts to the recipient to avoid any of the challenges listed above. Upon confirmation of the receipt of the test transaction, then the full payment can be made.
It is also recommended to validate the blockchain address by confirming it on a block explorer to know if it is a valid or correct address.
