Sending funds out
Sending to another address
Open the wallet, choose send, paste the destination, select the network, confirm the fee, sign. The transfer broadcasts and confirms on the network’s schedule.
Two things to have ready. You need enough of the chain’s native token to pay the fee, which is the most common reason a transfer refuses to leave: a wallet holding USDT on Ethereum and no ETH cannot move anything. And the destination network has to match, because the address alone will not warn you.
Withdrawing from cold storage
The sequence is the same with one step added. An unsigned transaction goes to the device, the device shows the destination and amount on its own screen, you confirm with a physical button, and the signed result comes back.
Why the screen is the protection
Malware on a computer can substitute an address in the clipboard, and the only way to catch that is reading the destination on the hardware wallet display, which malware cannot reach. Approving without reading defeats the mechanism entirely.
Converting to fiat
Three routes, and all of them cross the same regulated boundary.
An exchange
Sell for fiat, withdraw to a bank account. The cheapest option and the one requiring full verification.
A payment provider
For businesses, conversion happens on receipt and settlement arrives in the chosen currency. This is the arrangement described in the guide to accepting crypto payments.
Peer-to-peer
Sell directly to a buyer who transfers ordinary money. Covered in the entry on P2P, along with the risks, which sit on the fiat side rather than the crypto side.
Why the exit is harder than the entry
Getting into crypto is easy because nobody downstream is accountable for where the money came from. Getting out is harder because somebody is.
A bank receiving funds has to understand their origin. That is what AML obligations require, and it is why the off-ramp carries verification, questions and occasional refusals while the on-ramp mostly does not.
The practical consequence is worth planning around. Check that a withdrawal route exists before you need it, particularly for less common coins. Monero is the clearest example: the network works exactly as designed, and the list of places that will convert it has narrowed considerably.
What it costs
Three layers, and providers disclose them with varying enthusiasm.
The network fee, paid to the chain. The exchange or provider fee, charged for the conversion. And the spread, which is the gap between the rate you get and the market rate, frequently the largest of the three and the only one not shown as a number.
Compare the amount that arrives in your account against the market value of what you sent. That single comparison captures all three layers at once.