Moving coins to self-custody

In your wallet, choose receive. Read the address there. If you use a hardware device, read it on the device, not only on the computer. After you paste it into the exchange, compare the whole address with your wallet screen, including the middle, not just the start and end. Malware can swap in a look-alike that matches both ends. An address you share is not a secret. A swapped address is how withdrawals go to someone else.

Send an amount you can afford to lose, to that address. Name it as a test in your own notes. Do not send the rest in the same breath. The test is how you find a wrong address, a wrong network choice, or a wallet you cannot actually spend from.

The withdrawal is pending until a miner includes it. Blocks are found about every 10 minutes on average, and the gap varies. See it in your wallet, not only as a “completed” line on the exchange. One confirmation is enough for a test of this size. The exchange may wait for more before it lets you withdraw again.

When the test has arrived and you can see it in the wallet, generate a new receive address in the same wallet and check it on your own screen again, as in step 2. A fresh address for each receive is ordinary practice. It avoids address reuse, which makes your payments easier to link on the public chain. Because it comes from the same wallet and the same backup, the test you just ran still covers it.

After the second withdrawal confirms, the exchange balance should be what you chose to keep there, which can be zero. The coins in your wallet are now yours to lose as well as yours to move. The fee you paid was set by the exchange’s withdrawal policy, not by a number this page invents.