Bitcoin Forum

Where do lost assets or coins go? Whenever I try to make cryptocurrency transactions on any of the platforms, there is always a prompt before and even after I have imputed the address to double-check and ensure that the network matches the withdrawal or deposit address and that the platform supports it, as failure to do so may result in the loss of your coin.
Where do lost assets or coins go? And can they ever be recovered? Has anyone had an experience with this?

Edit: A suggestion would be if these platform can  be programmed such at once you input an address the network can be automatically detected. Can't this be done as well? Is there a downside to this?

Since they have the an option of network to choose from even though evm addresses are the same. Probably they are coded to get lost or proceed to somewhere default storage. Obviously they put the network options to have a consistent and systematic transaction. Maybe a wrong specified network is detected or isnt on their program means you are wrong.

Same like on metamask. They are a lot of evm L1 that you need to change network first before using it to another dapp which is compatible with it. You cant proceed with the said dapp, so maybe if you made a network error here on Binance it wont proceed, if yes maybe a punishment for human error and that statement of loss would be a penalty.

Not sure though, but very good question, maybe we can try that using small amount and see what would happen.

About decentralized coin like bitcoin which is the most decentralized coin, transaction can not be reversed, developers do not program anything about bitcoin in a way you can prove lost bitcoin and you will be given back, that is not possible. Which means a lost coin is lost forever, but the value is transferred to everyone that owns bitcoin because the supply is reduced.

For altcoins, it depends on the coin used, but people should know that prevention is better than cure because the coin may not be recovered. You need to read about a project to know how it works. I have read that if you can proof that you are the owner of this fake coin, bitcoin sv, that it can be recovered for you. But most people with low amount may not be able to do that and that means the coin may go to the developers or remain lost forever. There are many coins that may be centralized this way too.

You saw when BSC was attacked and some BUSD or BnB was stolen, the coins were freezed. Also you would have read about USDT and USDC too that do freeze coins on noncustodial wallet, if they can freeze coins as centralized as they are, what makes us think that they can not have access to the coins too.

For centralized shitcoins like BNB, nothing absolutely happens. You just lose the coins you bought, and they can bring them into circulation at their own will.

For decentralized assets like bitcoin, lost coins consist donation to everyone, because everyone's coins now worth a little more.

It will go to a wallet of that exchange but they will not support you by using their private key to claim the coin or token they don't support on their exchange. Some exchanges can give you support but they charge you a very expensive fee. If the amount you sent wrongly is small, forget it and move on.

If an exchange gives you that reminder and you still make mistake, think about yourself and correct yourself, your carelessness. You can not say why they don't support your to correct your mistake because they have warning or disclaimer already.

Well you and me know very well that the thge coins will be sitting on that wallet, but to avoid confusion or being credited with the wrong amount I believe the system works better with specialization in only picking one coin type at a time.

I also think they say you will lose your coins because it's too much work if you look at all generated addresses in their system, and also very few people are given special access to these private keys as a control to prevent theft by servant and you don't want tempting people... Trust no one.

Technically it can be done programed this way, but I think these guys actually use different addresses for different assets as a safe guard incase a private key is compromised.. instead of losing all coins on that chain only a small proportion will be lost, think of it as them spreading their risk.

Lost coin have no where they were particularly stored at,so if you have someone claiming to you that they can actually help in assisting you to recover a lost coin then know that they were most likely liable to scam you in addition to what you're experiencing already, lost coin mostly happens by using a wrong receiving address through ommisision or any alterations caused to the address or maybe through the phishing attacks on copy and paste malware that changes addresses when careful observation is not given to know that the address has changed

I still remember the term being burned so we can say that when we send our coins to the wrong chain it's a complete loss forever for us but it can be recoverable or not depending on which address we sent it to. On most cases the address format will be different for different chains so you won't even see the send popup unless the address resembles other chain address.

I never experienced sending to the wrong network and that's because of those people that did the mistake, shared, and gave a warning to everyone so I just followed.
I've seen those problems wrongly sent to the other network and they were recovered when some users approached the exchange they used. The exchange helped them in recovering them and I think it's on them and they have ways of recovering it since I've seen not just one or two stories about it.
But for those coins that are truly decentralized as said, we can consider them burned if sent to the wrong network.

I remembered my friend that send the tokens to a different coin ticker. The exchange didnt help them to recover the tokens and said to her that they cant do anything. Theres a possibility but the cost is far greater than the amount of the tokens mistakenly sent. I believe this is an alibi, cause what if the amount send is like million worth, I doubt they will just say to someone its loss, but will definitely find a way to recover it.

This will happen if you were sending to the different native blockchain


The different thing when you were sending in the different blockchain but still compatible like sending token or coin from ethereum network to the polygon. Even though the blockchain was different but since polygon blockchain was EVM compatible and you will still be able to recover your asset as long as you will able to access the address that has used to send your token or coin.

Some platforms like kucoin already programmed to detect it automatically. When you wanna try to withdraw your token or coin and it will be detected. The only compatible network will be available to send your token or coin. I often used kucoin.

There is an EVM-compatible address in which a network uses the same particular address. That can not be programmed so that the option is automatically chosen into some specific network. Take a look at https://blockscan.com/address/0xbe0eb53f46cd790cd13851d5eff43d12404d33e8, the address exists/used on many chains, so that is out of option since for sure the exchange's side can't figure what the user actually wants. Nor, it can't expect that if one address is particularly used on the ETH chain, it must certainly be transacted on the ETH chain.

There isn't pretty much standard in regard to how address should be used on a particular network, so, the scenario to preprogram an address to match some networks is very unlikely to be implemented.

I agree, there's really a cost to the recovery process and if the exchange can do something with it, they have to do it but with a cost. Since you've mentioned about the cost, I also remember those cases that they have to pay a certain fee for the process and if it's not that going to take the whole cost since it's a mistake, it's better to pay that cost and to recover some than to lose everything.

I remember before on FTX Exchange, they have this service to recover coins if you just sent them to the wrong network.
Let's say you supposedly send USDT on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) but accidentally sent it via the Ethereum network or other networks, they offer it to recover but with some charges as far as I remember. I don't think some centralized exchanges also offer this. I saw on Binance article (https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/how-to-recover-crypto-transferred-to-the-wrong-network-on-binance), that you need to contact them about this issue.