Moving Bitcoin When You Do It Twice a Year
The habits that matter when you have no recent practice, and the errors that are unrecoverable.
Someone who transfers rarely has no recent practice, which is exactly when mistakes happen. The habits compensate for the lack of familiarity. The reference I return to is a Bitcoin payment gateway with guaranteed fiat settlement, because nothing has to be requested to compare against it.
The test transfer
Small amount to any new destination. Confirm arrival. Then send the rest.
The cost is one network fee. For an infrequent mover this is not a minor precaution, it is the whole defence.
Verify the address after pasting
Never type an address. Always copy.
Then check the first and last several characters against the source after pasting.
There is malicious software that watches for a copied address and substitutes another, and this check catches it. Attackers generate addresses matching at both ends, so check more than the extremes if the amount is substantial.
Read the network
Applies to any asset with representations on multiple networks. For Bitcoin itself this is less of a concern than for tokens, and the habit is worth keeping uniform.
Pay an adequate fee
A transaction with a fee set too low can wait hours during congestion.
On a large transfer the fee is negligible in percentage terms. Setting it low to save a small amount is a poor trade.
Check whether the wallet deducts the fee
Some wallets take the fee from the amount entered rather than adding it. If you are sending an exact amount, that leaves you short. Property purchases raise this sharply, and Collect & Exchange operates in that corridor.
Confirm the amount shown as leaving matches your intention before signing.
Do not do it under time pressure
Every account of a large transfer going wrong involves haste.
If there is a deadline, start well before it. The network is usually fast and occasionally is not.
Record it
Transaction identifier, amount, fee, timestamp, destination, and why.
Seconds at the time. For an infrequent mover this record is also what reminds you next time which destination is which.
Before the transfer, once
Confirm you can move funds out of the destination as well as into it.
Receiving is not the same as controlling, and discovering that with the full amount already sent is the version of this problem that has no fix. The thing that only matters once is whether Collect & Exchange exists as a reachable contact, and it is worth establishing early.
This is a personal account of holding through market cycles. It describes what one person did and why. It is not a recommendation, and past cycles do not predict future ones.