Bitcoin Forum

I have a question for you all. What happens to all the tokens mistakenly sent from a wallet to a wrong wallet and where do they go? 

It depends on which exchange this operation will take place. Usually, if you mistakenly sent tokens to another wallet, you can write to the exchange support service and for a certain fee they will return your tokens.

If the address is available and stay live then the fund will be goes to that wrong address. In case the address not available fund will not move out from your wallet address. So please check multiple times when you sending bitcoin or tokens to address.

if it is sends to wrong address you should forget your money and try to earn or buy that tokens again.

It just goes to a wallet that can never be accessed unless someone is lucky (unlucky for the one who lost his/her coins) enough to get that particular address (changes are very less) when they create a new account or someone manages to hack it (which again is nearly impossible if it is not already owned). It's like ICOs send their coins to an address that can never be accessed.

Well will go to address sent and the tokens remain on that address if someone not access it, and the tokens can also get to a wrong address and someone can use it if has private keys of that address.

If you send tokens to wrong address on an exchange then you can get it back by contacting them or if you send bitcoin to BCH address means the wallet provider can give it back but most of the time it won't happen.

To that wallet.
If that wallet doesn't have owner or lost private keys.
There's no way to claim it again, it is lost forever.

Lost forever I guess ,there is no way to recover them back and if its sent to the wrong address on exchanges they might be able to get there hands on the tokens because I believe that every wallet address generated on exchange platform are addresses they have access to ,I have lost countless coins this way in the past so I've learnt the hard way

That depends on the address you sent. If it is the wallet of the same coin and it is available, someone has already started to spend. But, if it is the wallet of another coin, then the situation is confused.

As I understand it, its depend on the coin you try to send, some coins will not allow you to send if the receiving addresses don't exist, but other coins will allow you to send!
That's why you should always double check any address before you send. And don't use an exchange address if you join an eth ICO.

This is a joke.. When the error is from the sender. I can bet no exchange will ever refund a dime.. I mean those fault is it?The exchange or the sender?. Once the transaction is recorded on the blockchain it's a lost cause.. Except if the exchange is at fault.

I made this mistake, when I sent xlm, I did not include the memo and the xlm I sent did not land at all. I am also confused, where are the coins / tokens wasted? but I thought that it would be the right for the coin team, or in general is owned the coin developer.

No, exchange can't return your tokens, if transaction was already done and if such address exists. But if such address doesn't exist, your tokens will stay on exchange and it is possible to return them via support.

You did not mention if the token that was sent is of the same algo if it is an erc20 or ethereum smart contract coin, then I'm afraid your tokens are gone and the owner of the wallet where you sent it, is now the owner of that token, better check the first three digit and the last three digit before sending your tokens.

I wonder which are these exchanges that return the money sent by a user to a wrong wallet/address? Exchanges sometimes don't even return coins sent to an address which is owned by them but for another coin (Their ETH addresses sometimes don't accept altcoins). They may refund if coins are sent to their old wallet and if they have the private keys but never in case the coins are sent to a wrong one.

The owners of the supposedly wrong address will use the funds if it's the case of sending to a wrong blockchain or etheruem address.
But if it's an exchange address,maybe you mistakenly sent coin to a wrong ticker thinking it's same with the particular coin you have.
I don't know what happens to this ones honestly.

hahhah)) i believe they go to those wrong wallets you mistakenly sent ;D or i misuderstood this question.

If you mistakenly send to a real wallet, then it goes to an individual or group that own the wallet, but if sent to a burn address, it means no one will have access to it, because such address has no private key to access it.

An examples of burn addresses are:
0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
3x3333333333333333333333333333333333333333
4x4444444444444444444444444444444444444444
N.B: It most times contain same figure all through.

This is for ethereum tokens.

This one should still be within the capacity of your exchange to retrieve since it has not landed and probably it’s just hanging. If it had gone to an address, then it would have been impossible for them to do so, because they no longer have access or right over such token once it is already in another person’s account.

We just need to be very careful for now and check the account we are sending coins to before sending, although this can be a little bit difficult because of the long address, but until something is developed later that will help to further confirm the account, we just have no choice than to verify it.

You aren't specific and clear at your question. Please mention what does you mean. Is that the same coin's address or totally new coin's address. If it's the same coin like you have mistakenly sent bitcoin to another bitcoin address, coin will be lost. There's no way of recovering those. If that address exist, he will be the owner. On the other hand, there will be nothing lost if you send in another coin's address.

If it means exactly what he says, then it just means the coins stay in those addresses.

You cannot mistakenly send to an address that the format is not recognized. The transaction simply will be considered by nodes to be invalid.

If the spent is successful, the new input is in the new wallet, whoever controls the private key owns it. That is all.

It depends on the owner of the wallet. If the owner of the wallet you have mistakenly sent your tokens is honest and kine, he or she may return your coins or you have to forget them all. Or if the coins you have mistakenly sent to wrong wallets is worthless, there are high chances that you will get back them. So I want to ask all of you to check and recheck your transaction beforehand. Sending tokens is very much sensitive matter.

Yeah, that's what I referred to. There's nothing to fear if someone mistakenly give another coin's address. Anyway, there's even no chance of giving a wrong address since we always copy and paste address. No one type the address.
Be aware about hacker. They use malware to change the copy paste address.

It depends on your own definition of wrong address, I think wrong address can be classified into two. Wrong addresses for ones that does not exist at all, or wrong address to one that exist but another user’s account.

For the one sent to the wrong address that does not exist, I guess the transaction will just be hanging in the air and left unconfirmed, and since it has not yet been confirmed, the exchange might still be able to do something in withdrawing it. For the ones sent to a wrong existing address, just hope that the user will be kind enough to return it, otherwise, it might be gone forever after it has been confirmed.

Yeah and one wallet holder would be a happy man  if that happens. Though i don't think there are that much careless peeps sending out without checking. I mean, it should be obvious that when you missend or mistype a single character there's pretty much no chance of retrieving your coins.

I don't think there is a particular place those coins go to, being the fact that the blockchain is decentralized and can't be controlled by anybody including those who deployed the contract to the blockchain, this is why they always tell us to be very careful while sending coin and we should make sure we double check the address before sending the coin to avoid sending to a wrong address because there is nothing the owner nor the team can do about it.

It's simple, it goes to the wallet where you mistakenly sent your tokens. It won't be used in less someone owns that wallet where you sent it.

If the sent tokens are sent to a compatible wallet, it stays in the wallet example when you transfer any erc-20 tokens to a wrong Eth wallet, it stays in the wallet it doesn't go anywhere. But if it's exchange wallet, they awards warn against wrong transactions.

 :'( Cryptocurrency is not perfect. And to return the money is simply not possible. But let's confess. This problem exists in the banking system. Incorrect translation can create a bunch of problems for the bank operator. And the money will have to be returned in court. If the cryptocurrency becomes a centralized return of money will become easier.

I think the majority of exchanges are not doing refunds by such operations. If you deposited through a smart contract, then you tokens will stay there. To avoid such things tripple check the address, tokens and the gas fee every time.

Depends on what you mean by mistake really. If you mean a different address than what you wanted to send than the owner of that address gets the money and its gone, this is not bank movements where you can retract back your movements and ask for it back because it was a mistake, this is bitcoin and what you send is already gone to that persons wallet and can't be retracted back to your wallet.

However, if you mean sending money with wrong bitcoin transaction fee (like people who send 0.1 and use 1000 bitcoin transaction fee instead of send 1000 and 0.1 transaction fee) than it goes to the miners who recoup that as profit for solving that block, not equally because whoever solves that block gets that money and that is the end of that. Both of these happened frequently in the lifespan of bitcoin and I know its a problem we have but considering what it brings to the table its lesser problem than the solution it brings.

Probably they just go to the addresses to which they were sent. And if it works out, so you send to non-existing addresses, then probably they simply fall into these wallets that do not exist yet.

If varies, if you send an erc 20 token to a wrong wallet
It stays there harmlessly I believe

But if it were a wrong eth address; it stays in that wallet
If the wallet is functional then the wallet owner claims it

If you send them to the address of another network, you can forget about them. When sending to another address in your coin, the owner may be able to return them out of pity, which is also unlikely, since there is no connection with the wallet owner. 99.9% chance of losing them.

These tokens will be stored until a key is found. The only advantage of such an error is your subsequent heightened attention, since these errors can be expensive. And of course private keys require special attention.

The transactions are irreversible and cannot be undone. If it goes to an existing wallet there is some hope to get back, but it if goes to a non existing address they will be lost forever. This is why we have to be very cautious when making transactions and check them multiple times.

Actually it depends to what kind of wallet you are referring to. If its the burning one for token then it will permanently be there and can never be transferred. And in case of the mistakenly sent then probably its being sent to another active eth adresses for eth users I dont know for other platforms.

There are different types of wallets and they have different rules also. Make sure that you will read first their rules so you have an idea if incase what will happen if you mistakenly send your tokens to the wrong address or wallets.

Most of the time, it will be lost. But if you are lucky, they will refund your money but this kind of case is very rare but I have experienced being refunded using an exchange.
So double or even triple check everything before sending any money to any address to avoid having problem later.

i have experienced this.
but i was lucky to be able to issue the token from there after reporting it to the exchange support service.

some cases are not as fortunate as me and lose their money.
this experience made me continue to be careful and check repeatedly before sending the token to another wallet.

Depending on the token sent to whose address, if it was sent to a personal address someone might sell it, but if it was sent to an exchange address, the token would be stored at the exchange address and not sent anywhere else

in some cases, the token could not get out of there and others managed to get it out. so i think that depends on the wallet owner.

i think these errors are very rare even almost never found, because now we just copy and paste. but it doesn't hurt to always be careful and check it again before sending to any wallet address.

If you sent the tokens to a good wallet address (mistakenly) it will be there and will stay there which you can't take back or cancel.
If you sent the tokens to the address with some wrong capitalization, it will be recover and back to your wallet in few hours.

I think in majority of cases, it is considered to be already gone.

Here are possible scenarios:
1. The wallet has no owner or lost private keys.
2. The owner is not that active and cannot reply to you whenever you contacted him.
3. The owner already used the tokens. Delay of payment will be possible.

LESSON LEARNED:

Be careful and cautious.

With decent exchangers, if you report the issue and the tokens is recoverable then you will be lucky as they can send it back to you or they assist you to send it inside the right wallet, but if your mistake happen to be in another wallets which is not associated with the exchange then you can say goodbye and accept the loses that you've made, as there's no other way recovering a tokens with wrong address or different token address, no one can assist you, treat that as a learning practice to be more extra careful next time.

If you send the token to the wrong wallet that actually exist and is functional, it be in that wallet forever, or incase you send the token to a very generous person, he/she will return the token to you. In case that you send your token to a wallet that never actually exist, it will either the transaction will never be processed or it will be processed but then canceled and then the token be sent back to your wallet.

I think your question is focusing on the already answered question by you? Think about the fact that when you send a token, they go to the address where you've sent it. They will be transfered exactly to the wallet address of a user which is unknown. I think there will be problem if you send the token to a different blockchain address like: ETH-BTC wallet.

That's accurate. This thread is already answered but I think you have just make wide topic? You should shrink it up to focus on the main problem about where does all tokens go when mistakenly sent.

Add some twist like what will happen if you sent tokens to other wallet address?

If the address is a available then the tokens will stuck on that address forever until the owner open the wallet. If sent to the wrong wallet for example like from bitcoin address to bch address, it will gone forever (cmiiw). There is a discussion like this before though, but i forgot what is the answer.

If you send your funds to a wrong wallet from an exchange,  you have good chances to get your funds back if you raise a support ticket.

If you sent a wrong transaction from your personal wallet then your chances to ever see your funds back are near zero.

They are always warning about sending coins to a wrong address, but I think some platforms if this error can help to return the currency, but if the platform does not support this feature, I think the money has gone and will not return with regret if no one own the wallet

Well, most tokens that has been mistakenly sent, has either been to a wrong user’s address or an address that is not correct, it is on a rare case that a token will be sent wrongly to an exchange, and it also depends on the exchange too, imagine you ending a wrong coin to Yobit, o you think they will even recognize any complain or email from him.

So, nothing can really be said that it is the right solution, it is a 50:50 things, they receiver might decide to be nice and listen to him to send it back, depending on the kind of coin that was being mistakenly sent. It will be very hard to receive any BTC mistakenly sent, compared to tokens like TRON or BAT.

please send to the wrong wallet and they will be giving the prophets without any work and most of the time it will not happened but sometimes we cannot read this mistake also and it will not be refundable anytime.

Maybe I misunderstood the essence of the question asked, regarding the loss of a certain asset that was sent to someone else’s wallet, but it seems to me that for a simple user nothing can be changed.  But if you take into account updates ethereum St. Petersburg, then the basis of this update was the return of funds for certain companies that were blocked.

I do not know how this is possible, but it is very difficult to return your coins, especially if you are not familiar with the owner of the address where the coins went.  I do not know how in theory, but in practice it is not feasible.

They will remain in the wrong address and never be able to used unless we know the key.
Based on the cryptocurrency nature, i think it is impossible to use the token that has been sent, because we will never be able to find the private key.

Tokens that You have mistakenly sent to another wallet will get exactly to the wallet to which You sent them, if the address of such a wallet exists. If this address does not exist, the tokens will return to Your wallet. Even if You mistakenly send tokens to the exchange address, the probability of token return is extremely small. I have faced such a situation. The exchange refused to return me!