Bitcoin Forum

So after a long series of argument today between a friend of mine and myself, we decided to take the question to various platforms for clear response.

The argument was about, Is it possible to recover any digital currency like Bitcoins and others after sending it to a wrong address ?

My friend actually thought it would be possible, but i tried to explain that it is not possible due to the decentralized structure. So my fellow users, please help us clarify this doubt.

Every confirmed transaction on the blockchain is irreversible. Your wrongly sent funds can only be sent back if only you know the owner of the recipient address and he sends it back to you.

Also any bitcoin sent to another address that is also not say a bitcoin address is also lost forever and cannot be reversed. Example is, an ethereum coin sent to a bitcoin address. Most wallets do warn for cases like this, others don’t.

Bitcoin transaction that is confirmed already is not reversible. But there are some cases that you may be able to recover your coins after some research, but the chance is very negligible after such transfer are of huge amount of money.

Better do not send coins to a wrong address because you may never get it back. The chance that you may never back is almost 100%.

There have been cases where the unintended recipient has voluntarily sent the coins back, but such things are very, very rare.  

Once a tx is confirmed, there's nothing a sender can do to reverse, undo or otherwise recover their coins.  

Since the friend is arguing blindly, I would suggest he sends a small amount of BTC to a wrong address and then see if he can recover it.
For the records, digital currencies sent to wrong address can only be recovered if you know the owner of that wallet, otherwise, just forget it.

You've got a point here, but are you really sure sending back is possible ?

As far i know that is not possible, there are some chances if yo have contact to the person who own the address and that person still has the access to his account with great honesty he can possible refund you. Except this there is no way you can get back your coins.

Once a transaction is confirmed and added to a block in the blockchain, it becomes nearly impossible to reverse. The security provided by the cryptographic algorithms makes it extremely challenging to alter any transaction without obtaining a majority consensus from the network. Achieving such a consensus is highly unlikely and practically unfeasible due to the decentralized nature of the blockchain.

Bitcoin (and other truly decentralized currencies) is not possible to be reversed after it has been confirmed cause it is decentralized.

Centralized digital assets like USDT can manipulate transactions cause they are not immutable. This does not mean they would do it if a random person made a wrong transaction, but it's technically possible.

Just as others have said, it's only in the hands of the receiver to decide if the unexpected payment received from an unknown sender will be sent back or not, so your chances of receiving back the coins all depend on the receiver. If he or she is the type that doesn't take what belongs to others, then they can just send it back without even knowing who sent it; just track the sender's address and return the transaction, from which they can deduct the sending fee. If not, just forget it.

It’s possible only if the recipient of the coins decides to send it back. Bitcoin transactions are public, the recipient can easily find the wallet address from which the bitcoins were transferred on the blockchain and send it back. However chances of unintentionally sending to such a honest person are very slim.

Like every other persons have said, though we heard about some cases where a coin sent to another address was recovered, I can say that can only be through hacking, and we all know that technicalities involved, hacking is not something any one can do, it can only be done by highly trained professionals..

So for the average person out there, or maybe like me and you, it is practically impossible to recover a coin sent to the wrong address and is confirmed, except the recipient decides to return the funds back to the wallet he or she received it from.

It is not possible to reverse a Bitcoin transaction that has been confirmed, and even if the sender wants to recover it he/she won't be able to do that. Because all the transactions that are made with Bitcoin are truly decentralized and are irreversible. There have been some cases where some set very high transaction fees that miners have returned, and even the same happened with many people who mistakenly sent higher amount in transaction to an address which were returned back to the original sender.

In your case only the one who received the Bitcoin or any other irreversible crypto-curranty has the power to send you those coins again. Other than that there isn't a way to get those coins, and even if you know hacking, you still won't be able to get those coins back.

There are some crypto-currencies that allow reversible transactions such as USDT, XRP, XLM, and some other crypto currencies also have some level of support to reverse a transaction. However, that's not an easy thing to do, and even if the transaction was made with any of those crypto-currencies, you would still won't be able to receive the money back because they don't have that much time to reverse simple and low amount transactions. In some of those coins the network of users collectively have to decide whether they want to freeze or reverse a transaction or not.

OP, you are right. Transaction that has been confirmed cannot be reversible,this is the reason why you will be advised to make sure that you are sending your coins to the right address. If you are lucky,you might get back your funds if the receiver is a good person. I have mistakenly done this before and I lost my coins finally. This is the reason when transferring,your coins you should be careful and don't do it in a rush.

You both argue because neither of you has a clear understanding of how cryptocurrency works. The straightforward answer is that native cryptocurrencies are irreversible. I'm uncertain about smart contracts, as it may be possible if the code is written accordingly. However, for native coins like BTC and ETH, it's impossible to reverse or recover transactions that have been sent to the wrong address and confirmed.

It is a very simple answer to the question. NO and Eve n your story is not clear for my eye. Your friend know what is bitcoin and he doesn't know that bitcoin that has been send to someone address can't be recovered unless the receiver just pity you and send it back you. That your friend is arguing something that beyond his nature. Apart from the decentrality the owner of that wallet is unknown so how can you plan to the recovering of coins.

It is a clear question for anyone with knowledge about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general: it is not possible to reverse a transaction that is confirmed unless the recipient decides to send you back your funds. Due to the decentralized system of the Bitcoin blockchain that nobody has control over it. It is really clear that when you send Bitcoin to the wrongwallet address, due to it doesn't involve any third-party, and that means it is only person that get the wallet that has control over it wallet, you have nothing to do about the transaction that is confirmed because nobody have access to the recipient's wallet like bank, so this is the reason why someone always needs to check the wallet address before performing transactions.

If the other end is willing, for sure! For starters, they can see the address/es where the bitcoins come from on block explorers. They can go around crypto communities as well.

I think there's also a chance that the sender had contact with the person on the other end at least once since mistyping is unlikely. One, majority copy-paste. Two, mistyping would likely land you with an invalid bitcoin address which you won't be able to actually send B's to.

Blockchain transaction that is decentralized cannot be reversed once confirmed.  Even transactions that are yet to be confirmed cannot be canceled unless the transaction is RBF enabled where it can double spend the amount sent by sending the same bitcoin to another address but with a higher fee.

The only way to recover the cryptocurrency sent to the wrong address is by asking the owner of the address to send it back to you.  But the problem lies on whether we know the owner of the address or not and if the owner has the intention to send the sent amount.

That is a dead case..
There's no way a lost transaction would be reversed to the sender, all less in most cases were the owner of the address is partially know and such person could be phone or email to make a reversal to your address otherwise, any transaction that has been confirmed can not be refunded to origin address.

I doubt that it's possible even if it's fiat... Actually the only way to get money back in this case is to find (1) the owner of a "wrong" wallet and explain (2) to him/her the problem. Then, if this person is a good guy (3), money will be returned. 1,2,3 - all of these things are a bit impossible, so in total its a bit impossible cubed.

Absolutely! It is totally possible to send coins back to your address. When you send coins to someone and the transaction gets confirmed, that person becomes the new owner of those coins. He has the freedom to send the coins wherever he pleases, including back to your address if he chooses to do so. It is entirely up to him.

Always exercise caution when sending Bitcoin from your wallet to another address, as once the transaction is confirmed by the network, the Bitcoin will move without the possibility of returning to your wallet. The chance of recovery solely depends on the recipient of the Bitcoin, whether they will send it back to your wallet or not. It is entirely their right as the wallet holder.

Always double-check the address, contract address, and compatible wallet before deciding to send digital currencies like cryptocurrencies.

This is a decentralized network, when you send the wrong wallet address it will never be sent back if you don't know who he is.
So please check your wallet address carefully before sending to avoid the worst case scenario

and most of the time, you don't know who owns such address, so nope, it is considered lost. i hope the OP and his friends got the finality of their answers here. this is why always double-check or triple check where you are sending your coins, is it the same network or not?
if you are still in doubt and your first time to send to this address, you can always send small amount to test if it will go thru. the next time you will send, you will be more confident doing it.

It's going to be a hard thing to do knowing that it's impossible to know who owns it. Most of the time, they would probably think that it's "FREE MONEY". And also the likelihood of sending to a wrong address is low because you don't manually type it or something and typo in one letter or number in an address would be low chances of an address being used. That definitely has low chances.

Before I received a small amount of Bitcoin and I don't know where it come from or who is the sender, when I checked the transaction on a blockchain, I saw there are hundreds of addresses that receive a small amount too like me which I don't have an idea what it is. 
The amount that I received I didn't return back. 

In the same case by the OP, Bitcoin transactions don't contain identifiable information about the owner.  So, therefore, if you send Bitcoin to the wrong address, it's generally not feasible to determine the identity or location of the recipient which considering lost once you've mistakenly sent it to the wrong address.  Not unless the case of the transaction wasn't confirmed yet in the blockchain network which is you can cancel it by using RBF

Yes, it's actually possible but all that depends largely on the phase of the transaction.
Should the transaction happens to have been broadcasted on the network, recovery is still possible. All you've got to do is, initiate a differentransaction with a different and higher fee rate to the right transaction and your sure to have your wrong transaction cancelled.

Where it becomes irreversible is in the case that the transaction has started undergoing some confirmations on the blockchain. You could as well make peace with the fact that, the coin is lost to the address.
You might still be able to get it back but, that implies you've got to know who owns the address and that too sweat you can't determine yourself less you already knew. That way, you could simply ask the owner for a reversal.

The short answer is cannot the long answer user above me already explained.

If the transaction can retract like this then it would be a danger to everyone since we can deposit and reverse the transaction back to our account. Cex would bankrupt and bitcoin might will not have price like today

If you read bitcoin's whitepaper, it will tell you that it is irreversible, and I think this is one features that Satoshi put in order to protect both parties. Perhaps it could be possible if there are legal ramifications, i.e. the court of law decided that the receiver (if know to the sender), will have to give it back.

But I don't see this happening in most cases, I mean all our identify is hidden and there are no names attach to each addresses. Unless again, if it is a centralized exchanges and that the court of law subpoena those exchanges to reveal the identify.

Unless you personally know the recipient and he will voluntarily return them to you. Otherwise, after confirming the address, you will not be able to return your funds and they will be permanently lost to you

But if these arguments are not enough for your friend, he can check it in practice by sending bitcoin to the wrong address and try to return it

You should let your friend know that immediately a transaction has been confirmed, then that’s all you can never recover the transaction again, that’s why I always recommend to people to always make sure they confirm the wallet which they are sending a coin to whenever they are making transactions, slight mistake in the wallet address then your bitcoin is gone already.

The only way which I know that you can recover the bitcoin sent to another wallet is maybe the receiver decided to send the bitcoin back to your wallet which is really rear. So just have it at the back of your mind that any bitcoin sent to a wrong address is gone.

tell this to your friend that all transactions that have been sent, whether the wallet address is correct or wrong, will not be refunded in any way. therefore you need to make sure that your wallet address is correct, because if not it will be your responsibility because of the wrong wallet address you made.

but if you can find the owner of the wallet address, you can ask him to return it, but the chance is very small because it's very difficult to find the owner of that address.

Look, there's a reason why we say crypto transactions are like rocket launches: once they've taken off, there's no calling them back. It's an immutable ledger, my dude. Once you send those bits and bytes into the abyss, there's no Ctrl + Z to reverse it.

You've already touched upon the essence of the problem - decentralization. There's no higher power, no supreme authority to plea for a transaction reversal. All you got is the remorse of not triple-checking that address.

And why is that? Because in the decentralized, open-source utopia we call the Blockchain, accountability rests solely on our shoulders. Security is the price we pay for sovereignty. Let's drop a truth bomb: In this wild, wild west of the crypto world, it's every hodler for themselves.

Of course we can never recover this because the transaction we made is wrong, but we can get back if the address that got the coins we kirem sent back to our address because he knew that we made a mistake but this is suli we find, there are so many people who have made mistakes but all assets that have been sent have no change from the second party, Maybe they thought it was good luck so they used the coin to enjoy themselves.

If Bitcoin and other crypto currency was sent to a wrong address it cannot be recovered. Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are decentralized and operate on a peer to peer network. Once a transaction is initiated, it cannot be reversed or canceled. Therefore, if a digital currency is sent to the wrong address, it cannot be recovered. The recipient of the funds would have control over them and would need to voluntarily send them back. However, some digital currency wallets have implemented features that help prevent sending funds to the wrong address. Some wallets use address verification to ensure that the address is correct before sending funds.

Just to add up, avoid bots or Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and whatever social media platform as they go on that claims to be recovering agencies, as there are no such agencies, just group of people impersonating and wanting to scam people of their money.
The answers you seek have already been presented, I hope no matter you don't let greed push to still to pay funds just to get funds lost.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are no just the  coins targeted in this whole recovery bullshit, be safe out there mate and same goes to your pal. Peace!

I have heard of a virus that can hijack and change the receiving address for a transaction when it is copied to be pasted. The virus changes the address to another address which of course is the address of the scammer and when the person sends the Bitcoins, they have no idea that it is going to another address, not the one they want to send it to. Once the transaction is sent, it cannot be recovered, that is why this scamming method can work for the people who do it.

There is no project that have a reversible transaction yet and there is no need for such, because if you can still reverse a transaction, you can easily start stealing from people online by pretending to pay with the coin and reverse the transaction later, it's impossible.

Even if it's possible, it makes not sense and no one will trust or use such a project for transactions, Bitcoin and Ethereum are good examples, and every other project in the crypto space follow the same idea.

Once you send out your coin to another wallet you aren't getting them back unless the receiver decides to send the coins back to the sender.

When a digital currency is sent to the wrong address, it is usually not possible to recover it easily. Cryptocurrency transactions are designed to be irreversible, meaning once the transaction is confirmed and added to the blockchain, it becomes extremely challenging to reverse or modify. Unlike traditional banking systems, there is no central authority or customer support to assist in retrieving funds sent to an incorrect address. It is crucial to double-check the recipient's address before initiating any transaction to ensure the funds are sent to the intended recipient. Taking extra caution can help prevent the loss of digital currency.

Hello everyone,

I've been following this discussion with great interest, as the concern of sending digital currency to the wrong address is something that's crossed my mind many times. It's true that due to the decentralized structure of cryptocurrencies, once the funds are sent to a wrong address, recovering them becomes nearly impossible.

However, recently I came across a service called WalletID that introduces an interesting solution to this problem. Instead of using the long, complex traditional crypto addresses, WalletID allows users to receive crypto on a short, personalized WalletID that they can create for themselves. It's like a username for your crypto wallet. You can send from popular wallets like Metamask, Coinbase, and Trust Wallet directly to these WalletIDs. This approach greatly reduces the chances of sending funds to a wrong address because the ID is more memorable and user-friendly.

It's not a foolproof solution, but it's an innovative step towards minimizing errors in transactions. Worth checking out if you're concerned about sending funds to the wrong address.