Crypto transactions are irreversible, which makes the sixty seconds before you hit send the most important minute in the entire process. A single wrong character in a wallet address can send your coins somewhere unrecoverable, and scammers have built an entire industry around tricking people at exactly this moment. The good news is that checking an address is quick, free, and — once it becomes a habit — almost automatic. Here is the routine that experienced users run every single time.

Step one is to control the source. Copy the address only from the official place it belongs: the receive screen of your own wallet, the deposit page of the exchange while you are logged in, or a QR code shown to you in person by someone you trust. Never copy an address from a direct message, an email, a social media comment, or your transaction history — attackers poison histories with lookalike addresses and send fake deposit addresses through impersonated support accounts. If anyone sends you an address and pressures you to use it quickly, that pressure is the warning sign.

Step two is the format check, which your wallet usually does for you — but you should understand what it is checking. Bitcoin addresses start with 1, 3, or bc1 and run 26 to 35 characters; Ethereum addresses start with 0x followed by exactly 40 hexadecimal characters; Solana addresses are base58 strings with no prefix. Each format includes a built-in checksum, so a single typo usually makes the address invalid and the wallet will refuse it. That safety net only catches accidents, though — it cannot tell you whether a valid-looking address belongs to the person you think it does.

Step three is the full-string comparison, and this is where most people get lazy. Checking only the first and last four characters is not enough, because attackers generate vanity addresses that match the beginning and end of your real address precisely — this is called address poisoning, and it works because humans skim. Open the original source and the pasted address side by side and compare the entire string, or at least a solid chunk from the middle. It takes twenty seconds, and it defeats the most common spoofing trick in existence. When you are sending Bitcoin from Trust Wallet to an exchange, this comparison is the step that matters most.

Step four is the test transaction for anything significant. Send a small amount first, confirm it arrives at the intended destination, then send the remainder. Yes, it costs an extra network fee, and yes, it is worth it every single time the amount would hurt to lose. While you are at it, paste the address into a reputable block explorer: you can see its transaction history, and some explorers and screening tools flag addresses previously linked to scams. A brand-new address with no history is not proof of fraud — every address starts empty — but an address with scam reports attached is a hard stop.

Build the surrounding habits and the whole process gets easier. Save frequently used addresses in your wallet's address book or whitelist so you only verify once. Prefer QR code scanning over manual typing when the source is trustworthy. Keep your devices free of clipboard-hijacking malware with basic security hygiene. And remember that the receiving side has its own timeline — after a correct send, knowing how long Bitcoin takes to appear in a hardware wallet keeps a normal confirmation delay from feeling like a mistake. Verify first, send second, and the irreversible nature of crypto stops being scary and starts being simply a feature you respect.