Moving your crypto off the exchange: the checklist that prevents expensive mistakes

"Not your keys, not your coins" is good advice with a missing second half: self-custody transfers the risk from the exchange to you, and you are now the security department. People rarely lose self-custodied coins to sophisticated attacks — they lose them to a mistyped address, a wrong network, or a seed phrase photographed "just temporarily". This is the checklist that prevents the boring, common disasters, in the order you should do it.

Before anything: set up the wallet properly

Choose your wallet deliberately — hardware for savings, software for spending, and our wallet reviews compare the options. Buy hardware wallets only from the manufacturer or an authorised retailer — a tampered device from a marketplace reseller is a known attack. During setup, write the seed phrase on paper (or steel), by hand. Never type it into anything, never photograph it, never let it touch a cloud. Then do the step almost everyone skips: wipe the wallet and restore it from your written phrase. This proves your backup actually works while the stakes are still zero.

The transfer itself: small, verified, then real

Three rules cover nearly every loss. Match the network: many coins exist on multiple chains, and the exchange's withdrawal network must match what your wallet expects — the wrong choice can strand or destroy the coins. Verify the address on the device: copy-paste, then check the first and last several characters on the hardware wallet's own screen, because clipboard-hijacking malware that swaps addresses is real. Send a test amount first: a small transfer, wait for confirmation in your wallet, then the balance. The test costs a few dollars of fees and removes the single largest class of self-custody loss. Every crypto-to-wallet transfer is not a CGT event (transfers to yourself aren't disposals) — but keep the records anyway; you'll want the acquisition history later.

After the move: the maintenance nobody does

Store the seed phrase somewhere that survives fire and flood, ideally two locations. Decide now who could access it if something happens to you — the estate planning article covers doing that without weakening security today. Keep a small exchange balance if you trade regularly; shuttling coins back and forth for every trade multiplies your chances of error. And calendar a yearly check: device firmware, backup readability, and whether your holdings have outgrown your setup. Self-custody done properly is boring — that's what success looks like.

General information only, not financial advice. If a step here surprises you, read it twice — every rule on this list exists because someone learned it the expensive way.