Guide 7 - Withdrawing from an exchange to your own wallet

Goal

By the end of this guide you will have moved coins from an exchange to your own non-custodial wallet (set up in guide 6), checked the arrival on the official block explorer, and understood the rules that differ by coin: which network to pick, when a memo or destination tag matters, and what a new account needs before it can receive anything.

A transfer on a blockchain cannot be reversed by a bank, a card network or a support agent. Everything below exists to make the first transfer boring.

This guide is educational. It does not suggest moving, holding or selling any coin.

Time needed

• Preparing the receive address and verifying it on the device: 5-10 minutes.
• A test transaction: usually seconds to a couple of minutes on the chain, plus the exchange's own processing and security holds. Official finality figures per coin are in the coin sections below, and the exchange may add review time of its own.
• The main transfer: the same again.
• Exchanges often add a new-address cooling period or an email confirmation; the length is set by each exchange and is not covered by any chain document.

Before you start

• A funded exchange account with withdrawals enabled. See guide 2.
• A set-up wallet for this coin, with the account already activated according to its rules. See the coin sections of guide 6.
• The receive address checked on the device screen, not only in the app.
• The amount of the coin's reserve or gas token you will need. XRP and XLM accounts have reserves; QNT needs ETH for gas; every chain needs a little of its own coin for fees.
• The exchange's current withdrawal fee, which you read on the exchange's own fee page just before you withdraw. We deliberately do not print amounts, because they change.

Steps

Step 1 - Generate or copy the receive address

In your wallet app choose the coin and "Receive". Copy the full address. If your wallet shows several address forms (Hedera account ID versus EVM alias, XDC with xdc versus 0x prefix), use the form the exchange's withdrawal screen asks for, and read the coin section below before pasting.

Step 2 - Verify the address on the device screen

Connect the hardware wallet and display the same receive address on its own screen. Compare the whole string, or at minimum the first and last eight characters. Malware can swap a copied address on a computer screen; it cannot change what the device itself shows. Look-alike ("poisoned") addresses are a documented scam in which an attacker creates an address that resembles yours so you copy it by mistake, which is why you do not copy addresses from your transaction history. Trezor describes this on EVM-type networks. ^[46]

Step 3 - Choose the correct network on the exchange

On the exchange's withdrawal screen, choose the coin, then the network. The right choice per coin:

These are general rules; the coin chapters of the main coin pages give the sources. An exchange may list fewer or more networks than the table; always follow the network your wallet supports. A wrong-network transfer is usually irreversible.

Step 4 - Add the memo or destination tag if, and only if, the destination needs it

This depends on whether the destination is an exchange or your own wallet.

Two points that are easy to misread. First, the memo requirement for HBAR is an exchange rule, not a Hedera rule: the Hedera documentation only defines the optional memo, and we found no Hedera document stating that exchanges require one. The requirement comes from the exchange help pages cited above. ^[9][12][13] Second, we verified the rules for Kraken and Binance.US only; for Coinbase, Bitstamp, Bybit, OKX, Crypto.com and Bits of Gold we could not confirm a tag or memo rule from an official page, so use whatever the deposit screen shows, and treat any rule not shown there as unverified. For Algorand, the Pera Wallet guide only notes that some exchanges credit deposits to specific addresses and says to copy the deposit address from the exchange. ^[16]

Trezor's knowledge base states the reason plainly: many users share one deposit address, the tag tells the exchange which account to credit, and without it transactions may be delayed or lost. It advises checking with the exchange first and testing with a small amount. ^[14]

Step 5 - Send a small test transaction

Withdraw a small amount first. "Small" must still clear the coin's rules: for a brand-new XRP address, more than the 1 XRP base reserve; for a new Stellar address, at least 1 XLM; for Hedera, enough to cover account creation if the account does not exist yet. The reserve figures are in the coin sections. A test transaction costs one extra fee and removes the biggest risk.

Wait until the coins show in your wallet or on the explorer. Then repeat with the main amount, re-copying the address from your wallet each time rather than reusing a saved draft.

How the reserve changes the size of the test, per coin (figures as documented at the time of writing, re-check before relying on them):

Withdrawing "everything" from an exchange is therefore not always possible or wise on the destination side: the destination keeps part of the balance locked or reserved, and the exchange may enforce a minimum withdrawal of its own. Both numbers appear on the withdrawal screen before you confirm.

Step 6 - Confirm on the official explorer

Paste the transaction id (TxID) or your address into the explorer for the coin. The explorers used on this site are listed per coin below. Save the TxID for your records and for support if anything goes wrong.

Step 7 - Check the withdrawal fee on the exchange's own page

Exchange withdrawal fees change with the network and with the exchange's policy, so we do not print amounts. Read the fee on the exchange just before you withdraw. Official pages:

Amounts are deliberately not copied.

Coin-by-coin rules follow. For every coin: the explorer, the official confirmation figure, what a new account needs, and the one mistake that matters most.

XRP

• Explorer. XRPL Explorer ^[30].
• Confirmation time. The XRP Ledger documentation describes near real-time settlement of three to six seconds. ^[3] A payment is final once it is in a validated ledger, and there is no undo. ^[2]
• New account and reserve. Base reserve 1 XRP and owner reserve 0.2 XRP per object at the time of writing. Funding a new address with less than the base reserve does not create it. ^[8]
• Tag. Not needed for your own wallet; mandatory at Kraken. See step 4.
• Mistake to avoid. Sending to an exchange without the destination tag.

XLM (Stellar)

• Explorer. Stellar Expert ^[31].
• Confirmation time. The Stellar documentation says nodes reach consensus, apply a transaction set and update the ledger every 5-7 seconds. ^[6]
• New account and minimum balance. Two base reserves, currently 1 XLM, plus 0.5 XLM per subentry. ^[7][47]
• Memo. Four memo types exist; MEMO_TEXT is up to 28 bytes. ^[4] SEP-29 exists because users frequently forget the memo on deposits, and compliant wallets can warn when an account requires one. ^[5]
• Mistake to avoid. Omitting the memo on an exchange deposit, or sending less than 1 XLM to a new address.

XDC Network

• Explorer. XDCScan ^[32].
• Confirmation time. The XDC documentation lists a block time of about 2 seconds and near-instant finality. ^[19]
• Address and gas. Replace the xdc prefix with 0x for MetaMask and 0x with xdc when sharing externally; only the prefix changes. Recommended gas price is 0.25 Gwei. ^[18][42]
• Mistake to avoid. Editing characters after the prefix, or picking another network on the withdrawal screen.

ALGO (Algorand)

• Explorer. Allo ^[33].
• Confirmation time. Pera Wallet states that transactions happen in under 5 seconds on the Algorand blockchain, while exchanges may add delays. ^[16] Algorand's own site claims sub-3-second block latency and instant finality; that is a vendor statement. ^[17]
• New account and minimum balance. 0.1 ALGO, rising with each asset (0.1 ALGO each) and with applications. ^[15][49]
• Notes. Do not use Pera's Asset Inbox when sending to an exchange. Opt in to a token before receiving it. ^[16]
• Mistake to avoid. Sending a token such as USDC to a wallet that has not opted in.

HBAR (Hedera)

• Explorer. HashScan. The mainnet deep link on HashScan returned HTTP 404 to our automated check, while the root page opened, so start from the root and choose mainnet. ^[34]
• Confirmation time. Hedera's own HBAR page says transactions are finalized in under 3 seconds and cannot be reversed; that is a vendor statement, not an independent measurement. ^[10]
• Account creation. If you send to a public key or EVM alias with no account, the network creates one and the payer covers the creation fee, 0.05 USD at the time of writing. ^[28][29] Prefer sending to a 0.0.x account ID you created in your wallet.
• Memo. Optional, up to 100 bytes. ^[9] Required by some exchanges for deposits.
• Mistake to avoid. Omitting the exchange memo, or sending to an alias with an amount too small to cover creation.

IOTA

• Explorer. IOTA Explorer ^[43].
• Confirmation time. The IOTA documentation says validators certify transactions to ensure finality and that consensus gives low latency, but we found no numeric figure. Confirmation time is unverified in seconds. ^[24][44]
• Address. Layer 1 addresses are hexadecimal with a 0x prefix; the old "iota1" Bech32 format is deprecated. ^[23] EVM addresses also start with 0x but are a different network.
• Mistake to avoid. Sending Layer 1 IOTA to an EVM address, or the reverse.

QNT (Quant)

• Explorer. Etherscan token page for QNT ^[22].
• Confirmation time. Ethereum produces a block in each 12-second slot. ^[21] Finality takes longer, and the exchange may require a number of confirmations it chooses.
• Gas. Gas must be paid in ETH, so your own wallet needs ETH before you can move QNT out. ^[20]
• No memo. Ethereum addresses have no memo field. If a QNT deposit form asks for one, recheck the network and coin.
• Mistake to avoid. Sending QNT to the token contract address, which cannot be recovered.

ADA (Cardano)

• Explorer. Cardanoscan. Our automated check received HTTP 403 from a bot challenge, so it is unverified by script; it is expected to open in a normal browser. ^[45]
• Confirmation time. The Cardano documentation defines confirmation as probabilistic (a transaction is confirmed once the probability of it becoming immutable is high enough) and gives a stability window formula but no fixed wall-clock figure. Follow the exchange's stated number of confirmations. ^[26]
• Address and minimum. A mainnet Shelley address begins with addr1. ^[48] A send that carries tokens must include a minimum amount of ADA; the epoch 660 parameter was 4,310 lovelace per byte of output. ^[27] Your wallet shows the exact amount.
• Mistake to avoid. Sending tokens without enough ADA, or typing the address by hand.

Common mistakes

• Skipping the test transaction. The extra fee is small; the loss from a wrong address is permanent.
• Forgetting the tag or memo on an exchange deposit (XRP, XLM, HBAR). Kraken warns that a deposit sent without the tag may be credited much later and sometimes cannot be recovered. ^[11]
• Adding a memo where none is needed, such as an own-wallet transfer. It is usually harmless but is never required.
• Choosing the wrong network on the withdrawal screen.
• Withdrawing everything and leaving nothing for the reserve or for gas. XRP, XLM and ALGO accounts keep a minimum; QNT needs ETH.
• Copying the address from your transaction history. Address poisoning relies on this.
• Assuming a fee from an old article. Fees change; read the exchange page.

If something goes wrong

The transfer is not in my wallet. Open the TxID on the coin's explorer. If it shows as confirmed to your address, the wallet app needs a refresh or the account needs activation. If it shows as failed, the usual causes are an amount below the reserve or a wrong-network address.

I forgot the memo or tag on an exchange deposit. Contact the exchange's support at once with the TxID, the coin, the amount, the deposit address and the time. Kraken describes this recovery in its deposit recovery article and says recovery is not guaranteed. ^[11][35] Do not send a second payment. More in guide 10.

Funds went to the wrong network. Do not send anything else. Gather the TxID and contact the exchange and the receiving wallet's support. Recovery depends on whether you control the receiving address on that chain.

The transaction is pending for a long time. Check the exchange's own status page and the explorer. Exchanges often wait for their own confirmation count.

The exchange says the address is invalid. Check that you chose the matching network, that nothing was added or cut when pasting, and, for XDC, try the other prefix form (xdc or 0x), changing only the prefix. ^[18] For IOTA, an old "iota1" address is a deprecated format. ^[23] Do not edit characters inside the address to make it pass.

The exchange asks for a minimum amount you cannot meet. Minimum withdrawal amounts are set by each exchange per coin and network, and are shown on the withdrawal screen and on the fee pages in step 7. If your balance is below the minimum, the choices are to add to the balance or to leave it on the exchange; both are your decision and neither is advice.

I am not sure whether the destination is an exchange or a wallet. If the address was given to you by an exchange deposit page, treat it as an exchange and look for a memo or tag. If it came from your own hardware wallet, treat it as a wallet. When unsure, stop and ask the exchange's support before sending.

Official help articles

• XRP Ledger docs - Source and Destination Tags ^[1]
• Stellar docs - Operations and Transactions (memo field) ^[4]
• Stellar SEP-29 - Account memo requirements ^[5]
• Hedera docs - Transaction properties (memo) ^[9]
• Kraken - Destination Tag for XRP deposits ^[11]
• Kraken - Memo for Hedera (HBAR) deposits ^[12]
• Binance.US - Cryptocurrencies that require a memo for deposits ^[13]
• Trezor - Destination Tags (Memos) explained ^[14]
• Pera Wallet - Transacting with a centralized exchange ^[16]

Sources