Today I want to share a costly operational mistake that made me regret it to the core, hoping to give everyone a lesson.

Here's what happened. I deposited some USDC into a wealth management account on a major exchange platform, planning to withdraw it and transfer to another exchange to participate in a high-yield USD1 investment project. Sounds simple, right? But I ended up falling into a trap.

I intended to transfer via the Base chain for faster speed and lower fees. I selected the exchange-provided Base chain USDC deposit address, and the withdrawal was completed with one click. Unexpectedly, the transfer was successful, but the funds never arrived. I was puzzled, and upon closer inspection, I found—what I withdrew from the exchange was not the standard native USDC, but the platform's own wrapped abasUSDC. Although both are on the Base chain, the contract addresses are completely different. As a result, this asset got stuck in the "deposit not received" status, and I was frantic.

Honestly, this money means a lot to me. It’s the result of my time spent participating in various Alpha projects and staying up late researching. I was about to put it into wealth management for growth, but I got caught in a token protocol trap.

Later, I realized that the same token can have different wrapping forms on different platforms. Some are native tokens, others are derivative versions under specific platform protocols. Before transferring, you must verify whether the contract protocol matches; otherwise, even if the chain and address are correct, an incompatible token contract is a waste.

Currently, my transaction details are as follows—deposit currency: abasUSDC, Base chain, amount: 978.301566, and I have already contacted technical support for assistance. I’ve learned my lesson from this mistake, so everyone, be sure to think twice before transferring in the future.