Argument: Can a digital currency sent to a wrong address be recovered ?

[ColdLava40]

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.

[Zaguru12]

Is it possible to recover any digital currency like Bitcoins and others after sending it to a wrong address ?

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.

[Charles-Tim]

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

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%.

[DooMAD]

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.  

[Victorik]

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.

[ColdLava40]

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.  

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

[MCUKing]

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.

[royalfestus]

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.

[Upgrade00]

Is it possible to recover any digital currency like Bitcoins and others after sending it to a wrong address ?

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.

[Nwada001]

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

[SatoPrincess]

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.  

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

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.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

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.

[SamReomo]

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

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.

[Sim_card]

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.

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.

[The Cryptovator]

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.

[Agbe]

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.

[SOKO-DEKE]

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.

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.

[Potato Chips]

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

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.

[serjent05]

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.

[Adbitco]

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.