How to Send and Receive Bitcoin Safely

Key takeaways

• To receive bitcoin, your wallet gives you an address, and the address is all you share. Never share a seed phrase, a private key or a wallet password.
• To send bitcoin, you enter or scan the recipient’s address, check it on your own screen, set an amount and a network fee, and confirm.
• A confirmed Bitcoin transaction cannot be reversed. Checking the address and sending a small test first prevent most costly mistakes.
• A pending transaction has been broadcast but is not yet in a block. It usually needs time or a higher fee, not panic.
• A bitcoin address works only on the Bitcoin network, so a mistyped address or a mismatched network can send coins where they cannot be recovered.

How do you receive bitcoin?

To receive bitcoin, open your wallet, choose “receive” and give the sender the address it shows, as text or as a QR code. That is everything the sender needs. Your wallet watches the blockchain and shows the incoming amount when a payment to that address appears.

Most wallets create a fresh address each time you open the receive screen, and it is worth keeping that habit. A new address for every payment stops unrelated payments from being linked on the public ledger, as What Is a Bitcoin Address? explains. Older addresses still work, so nothing is lost if someone pays one you shared last month.

Make sure the address belongs to a wallet whose keys you control. Bitcoin Wallets Explained covers the difference between holding your own keys and using an exchange account. With a hardware wallet, display the address on the device itself, since malware on your computer cannot alter that screen.

What should you never share to get paid?

Never share your seed phrase, a private key or your wallet password to receive a payment. Receiving needs only an address. Anyone who asks for your recovery words to “verify” you, “release” a payment or “set up” a transfer is trying to empty your wallet, and What Is a Seed Phrase? explains why those words are equivalent to the coins themselves.

Be wary, too, of a stranger who offers to send you money and asks you to forward part of it onward. That is a common shape of fraud, and the person in the middle can end up answering to their bank or the authorities. Common Bitcoin Scams and How to Spot Them catalogues more.

How do you know a payment has arrived?

A payment shows up first as unconfirmed and becomes confirmed once a miner includes it in a block. Your wallet usually displays an incoming payment within moments of the sender broadcasting it, marked pending. That is a notice, not a guarantee, because until the payment is in a block it can still be replaced or dropped.

Blocks arrive about every ten minutes on average, so the first confirmation can come quickly or take longer. Each later block adds a confirmation and makes the payment harder to undo, a point explained in How Does Bitcoin Work?. Many services wait for several confirmations, and larger amounts justify a longer wait. There is no single correct number, so decide your standard in advance, and be wary of anyone who pressures you to hand over goods before it confirms.

How do you send bitcoin?

To send bitcoin, open your wallet’s send screen, enter the recipient’s address, set the amount, review the network fee and confirm. The order matters because the last step cannot be taken back.

1. Get the recipient’s address from a source you trust, and confirm it a second way if the amount is large.
2. Paste the address into the send screen, or scan its QR code.
3. Compare the beginning and end of the address on your screen with the original.
4. Enter the amount in bitcoin or satoshis.
5. Choose a fee speed and read the total the wallet shows.
6. Send a small test amount first and wait for it to arrive.
7. Send the rest and watch the status until it confirms.

New to Bitcoin? The Start Here path covers the basics in order.

Why check the address and the network?

Check the address because a payment cannot be recalled and because some malware swaps a copied address for one the attacker controls. After pasting, compare the first and last several characters with the original. For a large amount, read the whole address, since lookalikes can match at both ends. On a hardware wallet, confirm it on the device’s own screen.

Check the network too. A bitcoin address works only for bitcoin. On the main network, addresses start with 1, 3, bc1q or bc1p, and an address beginning with 0x belongs to Ethereum-style networks. If a withdrawal screen asks you to choose a network, pick the Bitcoin network for a bitcoin address. Coins sent across a mismatch can be lost for good, and no support desk can pull them back.

Treat an address that reaches you by surprise in a message or email as unverified, even if it appears to come from someone you know.

How much does it cost, and how fast is it?

The network fee depends on the size of your transaction in data and on demand for block space, not on the amount you send. Your wallet will suggest a few speed options. A faster setting pays more per unit of data and is more likely to be included within a block or two, while a slower one costs less and can leave you waiting when the network is busy. Bitcoin Fees Explained covers where fees go. This article gives no fee figures because they change.

Look at the total before you confirm. A “send max” option sends your entire balance and takes the fee out of it, so the recipient gets slightly less than your starting balance.

Mind the units. One bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis, so 50,000 satoshis is 0.0005 bitcoin, and a decimal point in the wrong place changes the amount tenfold. Read the amount on the confirmation screen twice. The Bitcoin unit converter switches between units without live prices.

Why send a small test first?

A small test confirms that the address is right and that the funds can arrive before you commit the full amount. It costs an extra network fee, which is usually a small price against a mistake that cannot be reversed.

Suppose you are moving a large balance from an exchange to a new wallet. You withdraw a small amount, wait for it to show up in the wallet and check that the address matches what the wallet displayed. Only then do you withdraw the rest. Some exchanges add a waiting period for new withdrawal addresses, so allow time.

Can you cancel or reverse a bitcoin transaction?

You cannot reverse a bitcoin transaction once it is confirmed. There are no chargebacks and no central office that can recall a payment. The only way to get the money back is for the recipient to send it back voluntarily.

Before confirmation, some wallets let you replace a pending transaction with a new version, mainly to raise its fee. That works only while the transaction is unconfirmed and only if your wallet supports it, so do not treat it as a safety net. Irreversibility also explains why scammers favor bitcoin, as Is Bitcoin Safe? describes.

What if a transaction is stuck?

A stuck transaction is usually one whose fee is low compared with what other pending transactions pay. Miners pick the best-paying transactions first, so a low-fee payment can wait until demand eases. What Is the Bitcoin Mempool? Why Transactions Wait explains the waiting area where it sits.

Your options, simplest first:

• Wait. If the transaction is never confirmed, nodes eventually drop it and the coins stay with you. They were never gone.
• Raise the fee. If your wallet supports it, replace the pending payment with a higher-fee version, often labeled “bump fee” or “speed up.”
• Ask the recipient. Some wallets let the receiver spend the incoming amount in a new transaction with a higher fee, which helps both along.

Do not send the same payment again while the first is pending, or you may pay twice. To check status, paste the transaction ID into a block explorer. Never enter a seed phrase on any website.

Should you use Lightning instead?

For small, frequent payments, the Lightning Network is often a better fit than an on-chain transaction, because payments are usually fast and cheap. What Is the Lightning Network? covers the trade-offs.

Lightning does not use ordinary addresses. The receiver creates an invoice, a one-time payment request, and the payer scans or pastes it. Check which one the other person is asking for, an invoice or an on-chain address, and whether your wallet supports it.

What about records and taxes?

Keep a simple record of what you send and receive: date, amount, address and reason. Moving coins between your own wallets is generally not a taxable event, but paying someone with bitcoin generally is in the US, as How Is Bitcoin Taxed in the US? explains. A qualified tax professional can say how it applies to you.

Where to go next

• What Is a Bitcoin Address?: formats, reuse and how to check one.
• What Is the Bitcoin Mempool? Why Transactions Wait: why a payment can sit pending.
• Bitcoin Fees Explained: Exchange Fees vs Network Fees: what you pay and why.
• Bitcoin Wallets Explained: Types and How to Choose One: where your addresses come from.