Move your coins off an exchange, step by step

If your coins sit on an exchange, someone else decides whether you can move them. Taking custody yourself is not complicated, but it rewards going slowly the first time.

Pick a wallet before you touch the exchange

Choose one wallet and learn it properly instead of installing four. A hardware wallet is best if you hold an amount you would be upset to lose; a well-known phone wallet is fine to start.

Write down which network each coin lives on. Bitcoin goes to a Bitcoin address. Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens go to an Ethereum address. USDT exists on several networks and they are not interchangeable.

Send a test amount first

• Copy your receiving address from the wallet, never type it by hand
• Send the smallest amount the exchange allows
• Wait for it to appear in your wallet before sending anything else
• Only then move the rest

A few pennies of fees is a cheap price for certainty.

Check the boring details

Compare the first four and last four characters of the address in your wallet against what the exchange shows. Malware that swaps a pasted address is real, and this check defeats it.

Expect a network fee, and expect the exchange to hold the withdrawal for a few minutes. That is normal.

Once it has arrived

Label the wallet, note the date, and test that you can restore it from your backup before it holds serious money. A backup you have never tested is a hope, not a backup.