Anyone who sets out to send crypto and picks the wrong network along the way will as a rule lose the balance for good. The exchange executes the withdrawal correctly, the chain confirms it, and still nothing arrives at the other end. Kraken puts this in its own withdrawal guide without softening it: a withdrawal to an unsuitable network can lead to the permanent loss of the funds.

How large that risk is across the market is a question nobody had counted out. We have. Of the 100 largest crypto assets by market capitalisation, 51 exist on two or more blockchains at the same time, 22 of them on five or more. For every one of those 51, the network selector in the withdrawal form is not a detail. It is the decision over whether the money…