Look-alike addresses: why checking the ends is not enough

Several readers wrote this month about tiny payments from unknown addresses (sample note). They are not gifts: they put a look-alike address into your history.

The look-alike is made to share the first and last few characters with an address you use. If you copy from your history and glance at the ends, it passes.

Compare every group of four characters, or save contacts you have checked and send only to those. If a look-alike appears in your history, hide it from the list. Crypto-assets can lose most or all of their value, quickly, and payments cannot be reversed. Nothing on this site or in the app is financial advice: we help you send carefully, never tell you what to buy or hold.