Users who mistakenly send unsupported ERC-20 tokens to Coinbase addresses can return them for 5% of the transfer fee.
Coinbase launched a tool that allows users to return ERC-20 tokens to the sender’s address without having to open access to private keys. It concerns mistakenly sent tokens unsupported by the exchange.
There are about 4,000 ERC-20 tokens in total available on Ethereum, only a small fraction of which is listed on Coinbase. But users regularly send unsupported tokens by mistake to the exchange’s addresses. Such assets weren’t previously listed on Coinbase, and there was no way to recover them. The new tool allows you to make a “refund” to the sender’s address.
To make a refund, users need to specify the following:
- the transaction identifier (TXID) of the fund transfer to the Coinbase address;
- the Coinbase address to which the mistaken transaction was made.
Wrapped Ether (wETH), TrueUSD (TUSD), and Lido Staked ETH (stETH) are among the popular assets to be refunded in this way, the press release states. Transactions over $100 will be available for recovery. The recovery fee will be 5% of the transaction value.
The tool works on the basis of a “patent pending technology,” details of which aren’t disclosed. The only thing known is that the centralized exchange infrastructure isn’t involved in this process. Earlier, a group of researchers from Stanford University came up with the initiative to introduce the functions of freezing and returning assets based on Ethereum. They presented prototypes of the relevant tokens of the opt-in standard.
