How to send ADA and tokens and the mistakes that lose them

Addresses

Which Cardano address formats can receive a payment?

A normal mainnet receiving address starts with addr1. CIP-5 defines addr as a "Mainnet address" with a payment credential and an optional stake credential (CIP-5, checked September 12, 2026). Shelley-era addresses are Bech32, so lower case with a built-in checksum (CIP-19). Any addr1 can receive ada and native tokens alike.

A stake1 address is a reward address: "funds cannot be received via transactions; instead, their balance is only increased when rewards are distributed" (docs.cardano.org, checked September 12, 2026). Explorers show one because it groups a wallet's addresses, but you cannot send to it.

Two more you may meet. addr_test1 and stake_test1 belong to a testnet (CIP-5); mainnet wallets reject them. Byron addresses, the pre-2020 format, are Base58 rather than Bech32 and are "kept only for backward compatibility" (CIP-19). They still work, but nothing modern issues them.

Finally, a $handle. ADA Handle "replaces complex Cardano wallet addresses with simple, human-readable names like $yourname" (handle.me, checked September 12, 2026). A resolver looks up "the stake and payment addresses behind a provided ADA Handle" (Cardano Foundation resolver); wallets that support handles do this for you. Still check the resolved addr1 before signing, because the handle points wherever its token currently sits.

Doing it

How do I send from a self-custody wallet, step by step?

Screens differ between Lace, Eternl, VESPR, Typhon and Yoroi, but the transaction is the same. Cardano's wallet list flags hardware support for Lace, Eternl and Typhon (cardano.org/wallets, checked September 12, 2026).

1. Enter the destination. Paste the addr1 address, scan its QR code, or type a $handle where supported. Yoroi's guide calls the "Receiver" field "the wallet address of the receiving party" and says to "double-check the wallet address you are sending to" (emurgo.io, checked September 12, 2026). Get it from the recipient directly, never from an old transaction in your history.
2. Pick the assets. Choose ada, one token, or several. Lace can "send multiple assets to different addresses in one transaction" with one fee (lace.io).
3. Enter the amount. For a token, type the token quantity; the wallet adds the required ada itself. In Yoroi, "Send all ADA + all tokens" empties the wallet.
4. Review the fee and total. The fee is "calculated automatically" and shown before you sign. For a token send, the total leaving includes the ada riding with the token.
5. Check the address again, then sign. With a hardware wallet you approve on the device; "check the first five and last five characters against what shows on the hardware device's own screen" (lace.io, checked September 12, 2026).
6. Wait for the block. The wallet shows pending, then confirmed, usually within a minute or two.

New destination? "Always send a small test amount before a full-balance transfer" (lace.io). It turns an irreversible mistake into a cheap one.

Min-ADA

Why does sending a token always cost some ADA too?

It is a ledger rule, not a wallet choice: "it is impossible to create outputs that contain only custom tokens" (docs.cardano.org, checked September 12, 2026). The reason is storage: requiring ada in every output "limits the maximum total size taken up by UTXO entries on the ledger" (cardano-ledger docs).

How much depends on the output's size in bytes, so on how many token types it holds and how long their names are, not on quantity: "the number of types of tokens contained in an output increases the min-ada-value". The current charge is 4,310 lovelace per byte (Koios epoch_params, epoch 655). The ledger docs' worked examples, written for the earlier Mary-era formula, run from 1 ADA for an ada-only output to about 1.41 ADA with one policy ID and about 1.56 ADA with a 32-character asset name; under today's per-byte rule the same outputs come out a little lower. Your wallet shows the exact figure before you sign.

That ada is not a fee. It moves to the recipient with the token, and "the ada sent alongside the tokens no longer belongs to the sender". A wallet holding many tokens and almost no ada can be unable to move anything until you top it up. Sending $CATSKY, policy ID 9b426921a21f54600711da0be1a12b026703a9bd8eb9848d08c9d921copy, works exactly this way: the token, a little ada alongside it, and a fee.

Fees

What does a Cardano transaction fee consist of?

Every fee follows one formula: "a * size(tx) + b, where a/b are protocol parameters and size(tx) is the transaction size in bytes" (docs.cardano.org, checked September 12, 2026). Parameter a scales with size; b is "a payable fee, regardless of the size of the transaction". Fees are paid in ada only.

On mainnet today a is 44 lovelace per byte and b is 155,381 lovelace (Koios, epoch 655). A simple send of a few hundred bytes costs roughly 0.17 to 0.20 ADA; a bundle of several tokens or recipients costs a little more because it is bigger. There is no priority fee. Both parameters can change by on-chain vote, so trust the fee your wallet quotes over this page.

The numbers

Which prefixes and parameters matter when sending?

Exchanges

What is different about sending to an exchange?

A deposit address is not a wallet you control, so three things change. First, copy the ADA deposit address from the exchange's Cardano deposit page and read that page: Kraken tells users to "carefully read the deposit requirements and warnings provided on each individual currency's deposit page" (support.kraken.com, checked September 12, 2026). Second, there is no memo or destination tag on Cardano; Kraken's list of currencies needing one is XRP, XLM, STX and EOS, and ADA is not on it.

Third, the expensive one: an ADA deposit address is for ada. An exchange that does not list a native token will not credit it, even though the send succeeds on chain. Recovery, where offered at all, is a paid manual process: Kraken charges a flat fee for "unsupported tokens on supported networks" and warns that "some cases may not be recoverable due to blockchain limitations" (support.kraken.com, checked September 12, 2026). Only send a token to an exchange that lists that exact token, and to the deposit address for that token. Otherwise swap it to ada in your own wallet first. Kraken's missing-deposit checklist starts with "did you deposit the crypto using the correct network or token standard?" (support.kraken.com).

Confirming and avoiding losses

How do I confirm a send, and what mistakes cost money?

Paste the transaction hash from your wallet's history into Cardanoscan or Cexplorer. The transaction page shows the block, the fee, and every output, so you can see exactly which address and assets went out (see reading a transaction on Cardanoscan). If the explorer shows the token but the recipient's wallet does not, see tokens not showing in your wallet.

There is no undo: "cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible" (support.kraken.com, checked September 12, 2026). The common losses are avoidable with these checks:

1. Wrong asset or network. Ada to a deposit address for another coin, or a native token to an ADA-only deposit address. Match asset and network on both ends.
2. Typing an address. The checksum catches most typos, but a wrong address that is valid goes through. Paste or scan; never retype.
3. Copying from history. Address poisoning is where a scammer builds "a 'vanity address'" resembling your usual recipient's and sends you dust so it appears in your history; "when the victim carelessly copies the address from a previous transaction, they may accidentally send their assets to the fraudulent address" (trezor.io, checked September 12, 2026). So "avoid copying addresses from transaction history".
4. A fake wallet or site. Scammers mimic "popular wallets like Typhon, VESPR or Eternl"; "never share your recovery phrase, even with 'support' staff or 'moderators'" (cardano.org/common-scams, checked September 12, 2026). A send never needs your seed phrase.

Keep a few ada spare for fees and min-ADA, and make the test send a habit.

Related: all guides · Cardano transaction fees explained · buy ADA and withdraw it to a wallet · verify a token policy ID