How to Send Crypto Safely: Your First Send and Receive
Lesson 7 of 10 · Beginner
Before you send: three things to get from the recipient
Every crypto transfer, whether Tether or any other coin, needs three precise pieces of information. If one is wrong, the funds can be lost for good:
- The destination address: a long string of letters and numbers, for example starting with T for Tron or 0x for Ethereum and compatible networks.
- The network: TRC20, ERC20, BEP20 or any other. The sender's and receiver's network must be exactly the same.
- A memo or tag (only for some coins and some exchanges): an extra number or text that identifies which user a deposit belongs to.
Get this information from the original source: the deposit page inside your own exchange account, or a direct message from a recipient you know. If someone sent you the address in a group or a messaging app, confirm it through another channel before sending an important amount.
Remember that to receive crypto, only the public address is needed. If anyone asks for your recovery phrase, password or an SMS verification code in order to pay you, you are dealing with a scammer.
Check the whole address, not just the first and last characters
Most of us are in the habit of glancing only at the first and last few characters of an address. Attackers count on exactly that habit. In an address poisoning attack, the attacker generates an address whose beginning and end resemble addresses you normally transact with, then sends a worthless or zero-value transaction from it to your wallet so that it shows up in your transaction history. The next time you copy from history, you may pick up the attacker's address.
This attack is not rare. According to a CoinLaw report based on Bitquery data, about 4.5 million wallets were targeted between October 2025 and October 2026, and some individual victims lost up to tens of millions of dollars in Tether.
Good habits:
- Never copy an address from transaction history; always take it from the original source or from a saved, verified address book.
- After pasting, compare the whole address, or at least the middle sections, with the source. Clipboard malware can swap a copied address at the moment you paste.
- If you use a QR code, still read the final address that is displayed.
Memo and tag: a small detail, a big loss
Some coins, such as XRP, XLM, TON or ATOM, are deposited to a single shared address for all users on many exchanges. The exchange uses a memo or destination tag to tell whose deposit is whose. If the exchange shows a memo for your deposit and you leave it out, the transaction succeeds on the blockchain and the money reaches the exchange's address, but your account is not credited. Recovering it usually takes a support ticket, time and sometimes a fee, and it is not guaranteed.
Sending Tether over TRC20 or ERC20 to an exchange deposit address normally does not need a memo, but always treat that exchange's own deposit page as the authority. The rule is simple: if the deposit page gives a memo, the memo is mandatory.
A test transaction, then the real one
For your first send to any new address, or whenever you change network or exchange, send a small amount first. Suppose (a hypothetical example) you plan to move a significant amount of Tether to your new personal wallet:
- Take the address and network from the destination wallet.
- Send a small amount, small enough that losing it would not hurt.
- Wait until it appears in the destination wallet and the explorer shows the transaction as successful.
- Now send the main amount to the same address on the same network.
A test transaction costs an extra fee, but it is cheap insurance against losing the whole amount. Note that a test does not protect you from address poisoning if the address was wrong from the start, which is why checking the full address is still necessary.
Confirmations and safe receiving
After sending, a transaction has an ID (hash or TxID). Until it is included in a block, it is “pending”. Once recorded, each new block adds one confirmation. Exchanges wait for a set number of confirmations before crediting a deposit; each exchange sets this number for each network.
When you are the receiver, especially in a peer-to-peer trade:
- A screenshot from the sender is worthless. Get the transaction ID and look it up in the explorer yourself.
- Check that the token received comes from the official USDT contract, not a fake token with the same name.
- Tether offered below the market price, including what is advertised as “flash USDT”, is always a scam, as warned by Arzdigital.
A confirmed transaction cannot be reversed. So do not hand over goods or the other party's money until you are certain.
Common mistakes
- Copying an address from transaction history instead of the original source.
- Checking only the first and last four characters of an address.
- Leaving out the memo or tag when the exchange's deposit page shows one.
- Sending the full amount to a new address without a test transaction.
- Accepting a screenshot as proof of payment instead of checking the transaction ID in an explorer.
- Trusting an offer of Tether below the market price.
What do volume and data say here?
In a transfer, the only “data” that matters is the blockchain's own record. After every send or receive, search the transaction ID in that network's explorer (Tronscan for Tron, Etherscan for Ethereum, BscScan for BNB Smart Chain) and read these items:
- Status: successful, failed or pending.
- Sender and receiver: is the destination address character for character the one you intended?
- Token and contract: was the transfer made from the official USDT contract?
- Amount and fee: how much arrived and how much network fee was paid?
- Confirmations or block number: has it reached the exchange's required level?
This habit does two things: it protects you from baseless claims (from a buyer or from support alike), and if something goes wrong it gives you precise evidence to follow up. We cover reading an explorer in detail in the next lesson.
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Frequently asked questions
How long does a USDT transfer take?
It depends on the network, its congestion and the number of confirmations the receiving exchange requires. Recording on the blockchain is usually quick, but being credited at an exchange can take longer. Check the exact status with the transaction ID in an explorer.
What should I do if I forgot the memo?
Keep the transaction ID, address, amount and time, and open a ticket through the exchange's official support inside its site or app. Do not trust people on social media who offer to “recover” it.
Is a test transaction really necessary?
For a first send to any new address or network, yes. One extra fee is a small cost compared with the risk of a wrong address, network or memo wiping out the whole amount.
Education only, not a recommendation to buy or sell; we never give signals. Price examples are illustrative. Test any method on a demo account first, with strict risk management.