Ethereum is a public blockchain, with its own cryptocurrency, called Ether, or Ethereum. Like a lot of other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum has gone through some important changes since its inception and has a few key concepts that are unique to it.
To ensure that you’re able to correctly transact Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens with Luno, you’ll need to understand what ERC-20, gas, and the EIP55 standard are. Let’s get into it!
ERC-20 tokens
ERC-20 tokens are sets of fungible digital tokens that live on the Ethereum network. Luno supports several ERC-20 coins. The exact coins supported will vary depending on the country in which your Luno account is verified.
Warning
Even though ERC-20 coins have wallet addresses that are compatible with one another, it’s important that you only send the correct crypto to the correct wallet.
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Only send the cryptocurrency ETH to your Ethereum wallet. Do not send any other type of cryptocurrency to this wallet, even if it is based on ERC-20. For example, don’t send LINK, UNI, USDC, USDT, etc. to your ETH wallet.
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The crypto you receive must match the crypto your wallet was created for. For example, don’t attempt to receive LINK with your UNI wallet, and don’t attempt to receive USDT without creating a USDT wallet first.
Luno is not able to recover cryptocurrency sent to an incorrect wallet.
What is gas?
Gas is a price unit used in the completion of Ethereum transactions. It measures the amount of work an action on the Ethereum blockchain is required to perform.
When it comes to paying for gas, the transaction fee is charged in ETH, which is used to compensate Ethereum nodes for block production.
Tip
Get a better understanding of Ethereum fees and how gas works.
Is there a minimum gas limit when sending ETH to my Luno wallet?
Yes. Luno receive addresses require a minimum of ~32k gas to ensure that your ETH is successfully and promptly received to your Luno wallet.
Sending ETH to a Luno receive address with less than ~32k gas will result in a failed transaction, in which case the ETH will be returned to the sender.
Note
The gas used is unrecoverable. Please contact the wallet provider you're sending from for further details.
What are EIP55 compatible addresses and why do they matter?
EIP55 is a checksum standard that was created to ensure that wallet addresses contain a mix of both capitalized and lowercase letters.
What exactly is a checksum? A checksum is a small error-detection function that you can add to anything to verify it was not tampered with, ultimately improving its security.
When you’re looking at Ethereum wallet addresses, you’ll notice that they have a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, whereas other times they consist of lowercase letters only. The reason for this is that there are two types of Ethereum addresses: Checksummed addresses and Legacy addresses.
Here are examples of each type:
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Checksummed addresses: 0x416299AAde6443e6F6e8ab67126e65a7F606eeF5
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Legacy addresses: 0x416299aade6443e6f6e8ab67126e65a7f606eef5
Both of these examples represent the same address, however, the difference is that the checksummed address contains mixed-case characters while the legacy address is lowercase only.
Note
For safety reasons, we only accept checksummed addresses, so you may get an error message when attempting to use non-checksummed addresses.
To change a legacy address to a checksummed address, simply follow the steps below:
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Copy the wallet address you want to send to
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Open https://etherscan.io
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Paste the address in the search bar on the top right-hand side of the screen and click search
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The wallet address is now displayed as a valid EIP55 address - with upper and lower case letters
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Copy the wallet address, paste it back into the Luno app, and hit send