Just lost $4000 because of addresses starting with "bc1p"

[_act_]

Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

Check and double check the address that someone send you. Also check and double the address that you want to use to send bitcoin to someone after you have pasted the address. The mistake the OP did would likely be because he send bitcoin to a wrong address.

If you want to send bitcoin to someone on an exchange, some exchanges may not yet support taproot address, use old address like bech32 instead.

[Mpamaegbu]

Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

The mistake the OP did would likely be because he send bitcoin to a wrong address.

Sorry, my question was for the OP. I don't want to make assumptions on what happened just like you did there, that was why I directed it to them to answer. I don't want a "maybe" response. OP's response will be saving many a user here the headache of passing through a repeated situation of theirs. So, avail them that space to respond.

[jokers10]

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Like who the hell actually thought that was a good idea? Cmon I'm not the only one who would do this.
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That's why it is so important to spread the word about bitcoin, about that operations in its blockchain are irreversible, about what trustless system means, about how all is working in there. I'm sure I still understand just a part of all that, but even my small knowledge makes me recheck several times payment address each time I send any crypto and even then I worry until I see the transaction in blockchain in correct address. Yeap, I'm paranoid a bit.