Receive
Intended reader: anyone being paid. Goal: funds arriving at an address you control, on the network you meant. Prerequisites: an unlocked wallet with the intended account and network selected. Safety: the risk here is publishing the wrong address, not losing what you already have.
- Confirm the account and network shown at the top of the wallet.
- Open Receive.
- Copy the address, or show the QR code for someone to scan.
- Optionally set an amount and a note. The wallet encodes those into the QR code and into a copyable link, so the sender’s wallet can pre-fill them.
- Share it.
Verify before sharing
Section titled “Verify before sharing”- Compare the first four and last four characters of the address against what the recipient sees. Clipboard-replacement malware changes the middle and leaves the ends plausible.
- Check the prefix matches the network. See Payment and asset addresses.
- Check the chain. A Bitcoin address is not a Dogecoin address and nothing will stop a sender trying.
Address reuse
Section titled “Address reuse”Reusing one address works and links every payment to it publicly. Using a fresh address per payment is better for privacy and makes no difference to safety. See Privacy.
Which address to publish
Section titled “Which address to publish”| You are receiving | Use |
|---|---|
| Plain bitcoin | Your default receiving address, Native SegWit unless you changed it |
| An inscription or ordinal | Your Taproot address, unless the sender specifies otherwise |
From a service that rejects bc1 | Your Nested SegWit address, starting with 3 |
Expected result
Section titled “Expected result”The payment appears under Activity as pending, then confirms. Your balance rises by the amount sent. The sender pays the fee unless they chose to take it out of the amount.
Common failures
Section titled “Common failures”| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing arrives, sender has a transaction id | It went somewhere, possibly not to you | Look up the id and check which address it paid |
| It arrives but the balance is unavailable | Unconfirmed, or classified as asset-bearing | See Protected outputs |
| Balance updates, assets do not | Asset data comes from indexers and can lag | Wait, then see Troubleshooting |
| Amount is less than agreed | The sender took the fee out of the amount | Not a wallet problem. Ask the sender. |
Recovery path
Section titled “Recovery path”Nothing about receiving can lose funds you already hold. If you published an address that was not yours, the funds went to whoever owns it, and there is no recall.