Despite numerous avoidable risks lurking behind every corner, it is often the case that you are your own worst enemy. The nature o the blockchain technology on which the cryptocurrency system is based means that all transactions are irreversible. If, when sending money between banks, you make a mistake in the recipient’s account number, that cash will most likely come back to you with or without the intervention of the bank’s customer service department.
When sending cryptocurrencies, there are no intermediaries (customer service) to help you if, for instance, you misspell the recipient’s wallet address. If you accidentally send money to me and not to your brother, and we are friends, there is no problem. I will send the money back to you after receiving a message from you about it. However, if you send crypto to an address whose owner you do not know because you accidentally typed “f” instead of “e”, you will never get it back because you will not know where your money is now and who you should contact.
Wallets, exchanges and other cryptocurrency service providers have already done a lot to eliminate as many of these potential situations as possible anyway. Complicated wallet addresses can be copied to the clipboard with a single click, ensuring that no one in their right mind would type them in manually. This option makes it impossible to copy an address with a missing number or letter at its beginning or end. If you use this option, you should still check carefully whether the address you copied is really the one you want to send money to.
Fraudsters long time ago have developed software that can install itself on your computer without your knowledge and replace the pasted address directly on the clipboard! If you have copied an address from the exchange and are sending funds from your wallet and if you do not check that the address pasted in your wallet is exactly the same as the one you have just copied from the exchange, you can end up sending funds directly to the fraudster.
When operating in the cryptocurrency market, you need to understand that all responsibility is in your hands and if you make such fundamental mistakes, you only have yourself to blame and no one will be able to help you. However, this is a small price to pay for an opportunity to turn relatively small amounts of money into millions.
Read more in my book ‘Second Crypto Revolution: Build Generational Wealth With Richard Heart’s Crypto Ecosystem’.
‘Second Crypto Revolution’ is now also available as an audiobook! Click here to listen!