Why did I receive unexpected (scam) tokens in my Web3 wallet?

Seeing a token you do not recognize in your Web3 wallet is a common experience for crypto users. Because public blockchains are open by design, anyone can send tokens to any active wallet address. This article explains why you might receive unexpected assets and how to handle them safely.

Why you receive unexpected tokens

The open nature of Web3 means you might receive tokens for a variety of reasons:

• Promotional campaigns: Projects often send out tokens with names or symbols that look like website links or reward announcements. This is a marketing technique to encourage you to visit their site and interact with their platform. While some of these are genuine marketing efforts, many are designed to lead you to phishing sites or scams aimed at stealing your funds or personal information. Treat any link or instruction in a token's name with suspicion, and never connect your wallet or enter your seed phrase on an unfamiliar site.
• Network activity: Some senders distribute small amounts of tokens to many wallets to make a new project appear more active and attract community interest.
• Address poisoning: You might receive tokens from an address that looks very similar to one you have used before. This is done in the hope that you might accidentally copy the sender's address for a future transaction. If you send funds to the wrong address, they cannot be recovered as this process is irreversible. Always double-check the full address before confirming a transaction.

Curating your wallet

You have full control over how you interact with the assets in your wallet. For unfamiliar tokens, the safest and most effective approach is to leave them untouched. As long as you do not interact with them, they cannot affect your other assets. To keep your wallet secure, avoid clicking on unfamiliar tokens, visiting websites mentioned in their names, or approving transactions related to them.

To help you navigate Web3 safely, Bitvavo automatically flags certain assets. You might see a note saying, "Some assets may appear in your web3 wallet as spam. Be cautious with tokens you don't recognize". You may also see an icon next to specific tokens indicating, "Our data providers flagged this as spam". These helpful indicators make it easy to decide which tokens to hide.

Bitvavo moves these flagged assets to a hidden view in your Web3 wallet, so your overview stays organized. It is currently not possible to remove these tokens from your wallet entirely, but we expect to add this option in the future.

Frequently asked questions