How Do You Send Money Through a Blockchain? The Steps, in Order
To send money through a blockchain, you need three things: a crypto wallet holding the funds, the recipient's address on the same network, and enough of that network's native coin to pay the transaction fee. You paste the address, enter the amount, approve the fee, and your wallet cryptographically signs and broadcasts the transaction — a structure documented in Ethereum's official transaction documentation. Once the network confirms it, the transfer is done and cannot be recalled.
What you need before you start
- A wallet with funds in it. A wallet app manages the private keys that authorize spending; ethereum.org's wallet guide explains the main types. If wallets are new to you, start with our explainer on how crypto wallets and recovery phrases work.
- The recipient's address, on the right network. An address is a long string of letters and numbers. It must belong to the same blockchain you are sending on — a coin sent on the wrong network does not arrive where you expect.
- Enough of the network's native coin for the fee. On Ethereum, every transaction pays a fee in ETH, called gas, as described in the official gas documentation. This is true even when the thing you are sending is a token rather than ETH itself — we cover that quirk in why you need ETH to send an ERC-20 token. Bitcoin transactions likewise include a fee for the miners who confirm them, per the Bitcoin developer guide.
The steps, in order
1. Get the recipient's address. Copy and paste it, or scan a QR code. Addresses are not meant to be typed by hand.
2. Confirm the network. If the recipient gives you an Ethereum address, send on Ethereum; if a Bitcoin address, send on Bitcoin. Many exchange deposit screens state the network explicitly.
3. Enter the amount. Wallets let you send fractions — you do not need a whole coin.
4. Review the fee. The wallet estimates it for you. Fees change with network congestion, so the same transfer can cost more at busy times, per ethereum.org's gas documentation.
5. Approve and sign. Your wallet signs the transaction with your private key — the digital-signature mechanism described in NIST's blockchain overview — and broadcasts it.
6. Wait for confirmation. The network includes your transaction in a block. What happens during that wait is its own story, told in what actually happens when you send a blockchain transaction.
Where people slip up
Three mistakes account for most grief. Sending on the wrong network for the address. Sending to a mistyped or wrong address — the network delivers to whatever valid address you signed for, with no customer service desk to call. And forgetting the fee balance, so a token transfer sits unsendable because the wallet holds no native coin to pay gas.
One more note on the word "money": a blockchain moves its own coins and tokens, not dollars. If the goal is dollars landing in a bank account, that involves an extra step off the chain — covered in can you transfer crypto to your bank account.