Bitcoin Forum

I know may be this topic discussed before but I can't remeners. However today once again noticed another thread about losed bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5124086.msg50292502#msg50292502). On that case most likely hacker has been hacked victims device or keyboard. So during copy paste hacker used his own address and bitcoin has been sent into wrong (hacker) address.

So this is important to double check your bitcoin address before click send button. Because bitcoin is irreversible, and your device might be hack anytime. So please make sure your send address is ok before send it. Perhaps you will not lose your fund like others.

This topic especially for nebiwes. I believe most of old member aware about this kind of hack.

I would like to say that this topic concerns not only bitcoins, but all other cryptocurrencies. It is very important to check not only the address to which you send your tokens but also the token Of your token.
He personally faced the fact that he was not convinced of the marking of the token that he wanted to send to the exchange and due to the fact that the alphabetic symbols were completely identical, he lost about $ 1,000.
Now there are a lot of ICO projects for which no one is watching them, even the letter designation of the token is similar to some already existing projects and you have to be very careful with this. Never hurry up and check all the data when transferring your funds.

One thing that most people who got scammed/hacked have in common is that they're so careless. Refusing to take a couple of seconds just to make sure all things are right. I mean, even if I'm only sending a small amount of BTC, I probably doublecheck the address thrice.

Quite unfortunate for the OP though. Quite an expensive mistake. Some people need to learn the hard way unfortunately.

It's worth making absolutely clear that you should double check the address after you have copy pasted it. There is plenty of malware out there that can change what is stored on your clipboard, so you can copy the correct address but end up pasting the wrong one.

Also, using a hardware wallet with a screen such as Ledger or Trezor helps to protect against this, as you have to manually confirm the transaction address on the screen of your wallet before it will send.

It is really important to double check the wallet address to where you send whether it is from your wallet address to another wallet address, your wallet address to your friend's wallet address and more transactions to come especially if you transfer your bitcoin and you copy your wallet address rather than typing it yourself which is more secured but you may typed it incorrectly and lost your bitcoin if you won't also double check the wallet address you have typed. The clipboard can be hijacked or hacked and this is what will happen, you copy your wallet address in where you want your bitcoin to be stored in which the wallet address you just copy is (sample wallet address) 1A2b3c4D5E6f7g8H9T9h8G7F6e5d4C3B2a but when you paste it, the wallet address has been change or different from the one you just copied (sample wallet address) 3b4C5d6E7F8g9H1ay3h4G5f6e7D8c9B1aF. I hope those who don't know about clipboard hijacking should be aware that the statement above about copying an address and pasting a different wallet address may happen if your clipboard has been hijacked. Most cases that it will happen is not checking what you download and most of all "PLUG-INS". This is not just about bitcoin but all cryptocurrency.

Oh no, I just read the thread and it's just sad on what happened to him. Personally, I have made it a habit to double check the front and the ends of the BTC Address, but since I'm a little bit paranoid (I think a portion of us is always going to be) and checks the whole address. If I'm on mobile I switch apps, when on PC, alt-tab. Lol.

Anyways, thank you for sharing this. I think it's best to transact within a trusted application for your phone and not to use browsers for transacting, only on PC that's helpful. That's just my opinion towards it.

Even if it's not copy and pasting everyone still needs to check thoroughly before clicking the sent button because no one is above a simple error which can lead to one sending bitcoin into the wrong bitcoin address

Many complaints on the forum, which are caused by careless or nonchalant altitudes from forum members who are too busy to double check their addresses before they send out their transactions. Many others, are as a result of careless act in exposing their secret credentials to potential hackers.

In addition to this always be proactive, if your device is hacked there are other means your funds could be stolen. Regularly scan your device, avoid clicking on unverified links and double check permissions apps have on your device. Your safety is your priority.

It is an essential step when moving bitcoin around.
Not only to be protected from hackers, but also to avoid typo.
Typo, I meant after copying and pasting from clipboard, senders might unintentionally delete last letters, and enter space, something like this.
Always have to check, before clicking send.
Some wallets have Preview feature, please using this if you want to have double checks.

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For withdrawals from exchanges, sometimes tripple checks:
1. First check when composing withdrawals.
2. Second check when information and confirmation links sent to your registered email.
3. Tripple check when clicking on the link to confirm the last one.

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Doing this, I don't see probabilty to get your bitcoin lost by stupid mistakes.

I agree, people are a careless and get scammed.

Even if you copy paste the address you still need to double check if the address is correct, because you may have copied the wrong address or whatever.

Another thing that I have notice is that the scam wallet address for most copy/paste victims are no way even similar to the wallet addresses they intended to send the Bitcoins in or at best only the first three to four numbers/letters are correct which is not even an excuse to make a mistake in. This is really a dumb mistake to do for crypto users as it is an act of carelessness on their part, I mean even before this malware existed I always double check my address before I even proceed with my transaction.

For users who suspect they are infected with the copy/paste malware (aka the Clipboard Hijacker) this originated with the All-Radio 4.27 software so for people who are downloading some shady softwares online recently you should test out your pcs if you are copying the right address, if not you now know what to do as they are various guides online.

Hey while this topic may have been discussed many times before it’s yet a relevant topic especially for the newbies joining bitcoins club. In my early days I too used to quickly copy paste, and send the money till I read a thread here how people lost their coins due to sending it to wrong addresses. However now I have a strict rule to double check my coin amount, and the coin address before I confirm the transactions better to be safe than sorry.

I always do triple check the address I am going to send funds to
- I always look at the first 5 characters and Last 5 characters before confirming
- I use QR codes scanner whenever possible but even after scanning i still check before sending
- Certain wallets and exchanges have a provision for adding a whitelisted address so that you don't have to copy the address every time you are sending funds.

Yes this is an good idea. But we are lazy sometimes to recheck coin address. In a result, if hackers have control of our devices or keyboard then they scam our coin very easy way. But we realize that after got scam. I have seen few similar case. That's why once again today made this post just for reminder. We should handle our fund very carefully. Hope newbie will more careful.

I suggest to everybody who can read this try to learn how to do an offline transaction that can generate a hex or raw transaction before you broadcast it to the bitcoin network. The good thing in doing this you can check the transaction you made before you send it to the network if you see something wrong about the address you can delete the transaction and make a new one.

I'm doing this on Electrum wallet and broadcast it in https://coinb.in/#broadcast or any site that has pushtx feature. Or if you have a private key you can do an offline transaction from coinb.in.

The offline method is much safer than you just copying and paste the address and sent bitcoin because there is no way to cancel or reverse the transaction. So if you do an offline transaction you can delete and create a new one.

Thank for the very valuable hint on doing transaction safer and having option to cancel transactions to avoid losing money due to hack or typos.
Honestly, I started to use Electrum wallet last two months, and have not known about the off-line transaction feature of the wallet.
From now on, I will learn about it and will use it later when I totally understand how to use it.
By the way, how long the waiting time will last to cancel transactions?
I guess there is maximum allowable minutes to cancel them, right?

I too have seen 2 more this type case. People need to be more careful as well as using address book if possible. All of the hot wallets including exchanges allow people to use address book.

Instead of warning beginners/newbies, it is better to report to Github or Development & Technical Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0) about the need to add a small feature to all wallets.

When you paste an address and press "SEND" button, the wallet asks you to type the first & last 3 characters/numbers of that address before sending.
Until then, do this manually.

Agree with it. It would be nice solution ever to avoid device hack or keypad hack. Especially mostly happend this kind of hack on web wallet. But it will be better if all kind of wallet add this feature. So at least we can avoid this kind of hack and save our fund from scammers. You can proceed to create thread about it.

It is good, but I am curious that if senders are carefully enough to spend time to check first 3 and last 3 characters, why not check all addresses?
It will cost less than a minute to check the whole address, not only 6 characters.
Are there probability that some addresses have same first 3 and last 3 characters/letters?
Not sure, I am not technical guy in Bitcoin and cryptography, but I think the best approach is checking the whole address.
Safety first! Laziness second!

I mean, this is what happens on hardware wallets such as the Ledger, for example. When you try to make any transaction, the entire address scrolls across the screen and requires manual confirmation before it will send. The same thing then happens for the desired amount. It takes all of 10 seconds to hold your device up to your computer screen beside the address in question and read them both off at the same time. It amazes me that people don't even bother to do these simplest of checks and continue to be scammed in this way.


Just one more reason why no one should ever use a web wallet.

Some people mentioned verifying just the first and last few characters of an address. We wouldn't do that personally as it still leaves you vulnerable to clipboard hijackers. These things have become pretty smart and can even paste addresses that look similar to yours. See the following video to understand how it happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty-_IjavYH4

Verifying anything less than the full address exposes you to risk. How much risk? You can estimate this by how much it would cost an attacker to generate a similar looking address. For example, if you only verified the first and last 3 characters, it would costs an attacker 0.0097 BTC (per https://bitcoinvanitygen.com/ (https://bitcoinvanitygen.com/)) to generate a similar looking address. (Note: Just enter 6 random characters into the website. The order doesn't matter since the computational cost is the same whether it is the first and last 3 or the first 6 characters). If your transaction is worth anymore than that value, then it would make sense to verify more characters.

Thus, rather than having to evaluate each time how much risk you are taking on, we think it is simpler to just verify the entire address. Once from left to right, and then a second time from right to left (just to be doubly sure). Transactions on the blockchain are irreversible so we certainly won't risk it.

Another point to consider: Do you really process so many transactions in a given day that it would take up significant amounts of time to verify entire addresses? Looking at Bitcoin adoption around the world, we suspect most people have problems even finding places to spend their Bitcoins.

We have also written an article of precautions to take when sending and receiving cryptocurrencies (https://whotookmycrypto.com/safely-sending-receiving-cryptocurrencies/). Hope it helps.

Stay safe.

My question is that is there a way to recover funds that were sent to a BCH address?

Yes. Simply import your address’ private key or the wallet seed in a BCH supported wallet (e.g Electron Cash) and spend the BCH.

Not just double check but check all characters of the wallet, so we are sure we send to the right address.

It's happened with my friend wallet, every time he copy and paste the wallet, and he always got a different wallet address, so he types manually one by one and then checks one by one the characters and push the send button.
He decides to buy a new laptop because he knew that something wrong happens with his laptop and he doesn't want to think twice besides that, and he needs to change his old laptop.