Guide
Exchange withdrawals frozen: what happens to your crypto payments
Money sent to an exchange deposit address belongs to the exchange until you withdraw it. When the exchange suspends withdrawals, every customer payment that landed there is suspended with it, and there is nothing to do but wait. Payments sent to a wallet only you control are yours the moment the network confirms them. This page explains the difference and how to move your incoming payments to your own wallet.
Why a freeze stops your income
An exchange deposit address is an address the exchange controls. When a customer pays you there, the network moves the money to the exchange, and the exchange records a balance in your name. That balance is a promise: you can spend it only when the exchange lets you withdraw.
A security incident, a technical fault or a legal order can suspend withdrawals for hours or for weeks. While it lasts, payments keep arriving at the exchange and none of them can leave it. For a business that means revenue that cannot pay suppliers, staff or refunds.
What to do now
Stop handing out the exchange deposit address. Every new payment sent there joins the frozen balance.
Receive into a wallet only you control: one whose recovery phrase you hold, written down and kept offline. A payment to that wallet is final once the network confirms it, and no company stands between you and the money.
Keep the transaction ids of payments already sent to the exchange. If the exchange reopens withdrawals or compensates users, they are how you show what was yours.
How Unheld receives a payment
Unheld creates the invoice, watches the network and tells your systems when a payment is confirmed. The address on each invoice is derived from your own wallet: Unheld stores only public keys and never the private keys or the recovery phrase, so it cannot move, hold or freeze what you receive.
If Unheld went offline, the money you had already received would still be in your wallet, because it never passed through Unheld. New invoices would wait until the service was back.
This holds only when the addresses are your own. If you set Unheld up with deposit addresses imported from an exchange account, payments land at that exchange and share its freezes, so point Unheld at a wallet you control.
What a breach of Unheld could and could not reach
It could not reach your received funds: there are no private keys on Unheld’s servers to steal and no balance to drain.
It could reach what Unheld does store: your account details, your invoice and customer records, and your public keys, which reveal the addresses you receive on and their history. Someone in control of the service could also try to show payers a different address or send your systems a false payment notice. For a large order, check the payment in your own wallet or on a block explorer before releasing the goods.
The trade: you hold the only key
Holding your own keys removes the exchange from the path of your money, and it also removes anyone who could recover it for you. Lose the recovery phrase and the funds are gone; share it and anyone who has it can spend them. Keep it offline, never type it into a website, and never send it to anyone, Unheld included.
Questions about frozen exchange withdrawals
Are payments sent to my exchange deposit address safe during a freeze?
They are held by the exchange, not by you. Whether you get them back, and when, depends on the exchange. A payment sent to a wallet you control does not depend on any company.
Can my customers keep paying me while withdrawals are suspended?
They can send to the exchange address, but you cannot move that money until withdrawals reopen. Give them an address from a wallet you control instead.
Can Unheld freeze my payments?
No. Each payment goes straight to an address derived from your own wallet, and Unheld never holds the private keys, so it has nothing to freeze or withdraw.
What happens to my money if Unheld is hacked or goes offline?
Money you have already received stays in your wallet, because it never passed through Unheld. An attacker could reach your account records and public keys, not your funds; check large payments in your own wallet before you ship.
What is the risk of holding my own keys?
Losing or sharing the recovery phrase. Nobody can recover it for you, so keep it written down and offline, and never give it to anyone.