How a Subtle Wallet Address Change Cost Me More Than I Ever Expected

<p data-start=”320″ data-end=”728″>I want to share something that happened to me that I genuinely never saw coming. It’s one of those situations where you think you are being careful, you think you know what you are doing, and still everything can fall apart because of a tiny detail. It happened when I was transferring some cryptocurrency from my exchange to my hardware wallet, something I had done plenty of times before without any issue.</p>
<p data-start=”730″ data-end=”1039″>I copied my wallet address like I always do and pasted it into the withdrawal field. I glanced at the first few characters and the last few characters, which is what I usually do for verification. Everything looked normal. I proceeded with the transfer and waited for the confirmation email from the exchange.</p>
<p data-start=”1041″ data-end=”1402″>About an hour later, I checked my hardware wallet expecting to see the funds. Instead, I saw nothing. At first, I thought maybe the network was slow or the transaction was still pending, but when I checked the transaction ID on the blockchain explorer, I saw the funds were already confirmed. The problem was they were confirmed to an address that was not mine.</p>
<p data-start=”1404″ data-end=”1923″>At that moment, I felt sick. I copied the address again just to compare, and that is when I noticed something I completely missed earlier. The address on the transaction was only different by a few characters from mine. Almost identical, but off just enough to steal my funds without me noticing. I started researching immediately and learned that I had been hit by a clipboard hijacker. It is a type of malware that automatically replaces any crypto address you copy with the scammer’s address the moment you paste it.</p>
<p data-start=”1925″ data-end=”2317″>I had never experienced anything like this before. I had no idea such a simple thing could cause such a big loss. It was frightening to realize how easily the malware slipped into my computer without any symptoms or warnings. After more research, I found that several people had faced the same issue and most of them could not recover their funds because crypto transactions are irreversible.</p>
<p data-start=”2319″ data-end=”2564″>I cleaned my system, updated all my security tools, and started using additional verification steps like scanning QR codes or typing portions of the address manually. It is a habit I never thought I would need, but now it feels like a necessity.</p>
<p data-start=”2566″ data-end=”2832″>I am sharing this in the hope that others do not make the same mistake I did. Always verify the entire address, not just a few characters. And if anything on your device feels unusual, even if it is small, take it seriously. It might save you from losing your funds.</p>