If you thought that title was controversial and unclear, wait until you have read this story we’re about to share with you.
As you know, it is impossible for cryptocurrencies of different types to cross each other’s blockchains. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any mix-ups though…..
Let’s say you want to send over some Bitcoins, and you accidentally enter a Litecoin address. Normally, that would give you an error message when executing the transaction.
However, that’s not the case with all coins unfortunately. Little over a week ago, it didn’t give an error when someone was trying to send UFO coins , but erroneously entered a UFC address as the recipient.
(For those unaware : UFO is just the name of cryptocurrency A, UFC (United Federation of Planets Credit system) is cryptocurrency B)
Somehow, by entering a UFC address, the UFO coins were still sent out and broadcasted through the blockchain.
Now, as you can imagine, the coins never arrived in the UFC wallet, they just remained marked as “not yet redeemed”, even though the transaction was getting confirmations.
Eventually, the coins were recovered, and sent to the correct address, with the help of some amazing people on the ScifiCoinTalk forums.
Apparently, UFO uses the same address validation as UFC does, and this was the reason why the transaction could be sent.
An interesting story, to say the least!
The problem is that there are so many coins that are descendant of Foocoin, directly or indirectly. So this problem is more common than you think, and it’s not just between UFC and UFO.