How a send actually leaves your wallet

Crypto Wallet Basics publishes general information. It is not a wallet, an exchange, or a substitute for your own checks. A wrong address or a lost backup can mean the coins are gone.

When you press send, the wallet builds a message: which coins or balance to spend, where they should go, and what fee you offer. The private key signs that message. The app then broadcasts the signed message. It does not hand the key to the network.

Until the network includes the message in a block, the send is still a request. You may be able to wait, or in some networks speed it up with a higher fee. After it is confirmed, the usual tools cannot cancel it.

The receiver does not need to be online. Their address is already valid. Their wallet will show the incoming coins the next time it reads the network, including on a different app if it holds the same keys.

If a send sits unconfirmed for a long time, the fee was probably too low for the traffic that day. Check the wallet’s fee estimate before you assume the address was wrong.