Sending ETH looks simple: paste an address, pick a fee, hit confirm. The simple part hides three traps that cost users real money every day. The address format works across every EVM chain, which means MetaMask will happily let you send Ethereum mainnet ETH to a Base or Arbitrum deposit address that looks identical but lives on a different network. Gas is priced in gwei (one billionth of an ETH) and split into a base fee that gets burned plus a priority tip that goes to the validator. And "confirmed" on Ethereum has two meanings: one block (about 12 seconds) is enough for a small wallet transfer, but exchanges typically wait for finality, which lands two epochs later, around 12 to 15 minutes after broadcast.
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This guide walks through ETH send mechanics on Ethereum mainnet and the major L2s (Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon), step-by-step instructions for the four wallets most people actually use, and the three mistakes that show up in support tickets every week.
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A funded wallet, the recipient's 0x address, and enough ETH on the source network to cover both the transfer and gas. If you are sending from Ethereum mainnet during a busy hour, that gas can be more than the amount you are sending. Confirm the network in your wallet's network selector before you paste the address.
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An Ethereum address is 42 characters: the prefix 0x followed by 40 hexadecimal characters derived from the public key. The same address format works on Ethereum mainnet and on every EVM-compatible chain, including Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Linea. That is convenient and dangerous in equal measure, which we cover in the mistakes section below.
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Addresses are case-insensitive at the protocol level, but most wallets display them with mixed-case checksums (EIP-55). The capitalization pattern encodes a checksum that catches single-character typos. Etherscan, MetaMask, and hardware wallets all warn you if a pasted address fails the checksum test. Per ethereum.org, the underlying address is just a 20-byte identifier; the checksum casing is a display convention.
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Gas is the unit that meters computation on Ethereum. A simple ETH transfer uses exactly 21,000 gas. Gas is priced in gwei, where 1 gwei equals 10⁻⁹ ETH, or 0.000000001 ETH. Your total fee is gas units times gas price, paid in ETH.
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Since EIP-1559 went live in August 2021, each transaction pays two components:

You also set a max fee, which is the ceiling you are willing to pay if the base fee spikes. If the base fee plus tip lands below your max, you only pay the actual amount. MetaMask, Rabby, and most modern wallets handle this math for you and show a single "estimated fee" in USD.
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Check the Etherscan Gas Tracker for the current base fee in gwei and the suggested priority fee for slow, standard, and fast inclusion. For a 21,000-gas transfer at a 20 gwei total, the fee is about 0.00042 ETH. MetaMask's own gas estimator pulls from a similar oracle and usually lands within a few percent. On L2s, gas is dramatically cheaper: Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism transfers typically cost a few cents because they batch transactions back to Ethereum mainnet.
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Ethereum produces a block every 12 seconds. One block confirmation is enough for most wallet-to-wallet transfers. Exchanges and bridges usually wait for stronger guarantees:

Finality means the block can no longer be reverted without a coordinated attack on two-thirds of validators. Per ethereum.org's consensus docs, an epoch is 32 slots (6.4 minutes), and finality requires two consecutive justified epochs.
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ETH lives on Ethereum mainnet (L1) and on several rollup L2s. The same 0x address works on all of them, but the balances are not interchangeable. ETH on Arbitrum is a different on-chain asset from ETH on Ethereum mainnet, even at the same address. To move between networks you bridge.
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Numbers approximate. Pull live values from Etherscan and the equivalent L2 explorers before a large send.
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Per the MetaMask Help Center, if a transaction stays pending because gas was set too low, you can speed it up or cancel it by submitting a replacement transaction with the same nonce and a higher fee.
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Coinbase Wallet (the self-custody app, not the Coinbase exchange account) works the same way. Open the app, tap Send, choose ETH, select the network, paste the address, enter the amount, and confirm. Coinbase Wallet defaults to Base for new users because fees are lower, so double-check the network if you intended to send on mainnet.
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Trust Wallet shows ETH balances per network as separate line items. Tap the ETH balance on the network you want to send from (Ethereum, BNB Chain wrapped ETH, Polygon, Arbitrum, etc.), tap Send, paste the address, set the amount, and confirm. Trust's gas estimator is conservative; you can usually drop the priority fee one tier without issues for non-urgent sends.
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Hardware wallets do not initiate transactions on their own. Pair the device with a software interface: Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, or a connected MetaMask account. Build the transaction in the software wallet, then approve it on the hardware device by physically pressing the confirmation buttons. Verify the recipient address and amount on the hardware screen, not just the computer screen, because that is the whole point of the hardware wallet.
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This is the costliest mistake. Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken all generate separate deposit addresses per network. If the exchange gave you a Base deposit address and you send from Ethereum mainnet, the funds arrive at the same 0x address but on the wrong network, and the exchange will not credit them. Recovery depends entirely on the exchange's policy; some support manual recovery for a fee, some do not. Always match the network in your wallet to the network the exchange asked for.
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If your max fee is below the current base fee, the transaction sits in the mempool indefinitely. The fix is replace-by-fee (RBF): submit a new transaction with the same nonce and a higher fee. MetaMask's "Speed Up" and "Cancel" buttons do this automatically. A cancel transaction sends 0 ETH from you to yourself at the same nonce with a higher fee, which clears the stuck send.
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Closely related to the first mistake. The exchange supports ETH deposits on, say, Ethereum and Arbitrum, but not on Polygon. You send from Polygon. The funds reach the address but never get credited. CEX recovery for unsupported networks ranges from "$200 fee, 8 weeks" to "not possible." Read the deposit page carefully and use the network selector the exchange provides.
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Gas mechanics and EIP-1559 details from ethereum.org developer docs. Live gas pricing from the Etherscan Gas Tracker. Wallet workflows from the MetaMask Help Center, Coinbase Wallet docs, and Trust Wallet support. Finality timing from ethereum.org consensus documentation. L2 fee estimates cross-checked against L2Fees.info and each L2's block explorer as of May 2026.
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