Send SEI

Send SEI from one account to another on Sei Testnet with viem, ethers, or web3.py, then confirm the transfer from its receipt.

This recipe sends 0.01 SEI on Sei Testnet and waits for the receipt. Sei has instant finality, so the transfer is final as soon as the receipt arrives.

Before you start

You need a Sei Testnet account that holds some SEI. Get testnet SEI from the faucet. Then put the account’s private key in the PRIVATE_KEY environment variable:

export PRIVATE_KEY=0xYourPrivateKey

Use a throwaway key that holds only testnet funds. Never commit a private key or paste it into your code.

Install

viem

npm install viem

The TypeScript examples use top-level await. Save each one as a .mts file, such as script.mts. Run it with npx tsx script.mts on Node.js 18 or later. In a new npm project, tsx compiles a plain .ts file as CommonJS, where top-level await does not work.

Send the transaction

Replace 0xRecipientAddress with the 0x address that receives the SEI.

viem

import { createPublicClient, createWalletClient, http, parseEther } from 'viem';
import { privateKeyToAccount } from 'viem/accounts';
import { seiTestnet } from 'viem/chains';

const account = privateKeyToAccount(process.env.PRIVATE_KEY as `0x${string}`);
const publicClient = createPublicClient({ chain: seiTestnet, transport: http() });
const walletClient = createWalletClient({ account, chain: seiTestnet, transport: http() });

const hash = await walletClient.sendTransaction({
  to: '0xRecipientAddress',
  value: parseEther('0.01'),
});
console.log('Transaction hash:', hash);

const receipt = await publicClient.waitForTransactionReceipt({ hash });
console.log('Status:', receipt.status);
console.log('Block:', receipt.blockNumber);

You are done when you see:

Transaction hash: 0x9a9531211a1d7257546558b69b9ea092a3937c6034b665f6440fbf9ef117b712
Status: success
Block: 274527901n

viem prints the status as success and the block number as a bigint, with an n at the end. ethers and web3.py print the status as 1. A status of reverted or 0 means that the transaction was included but failed. To find the cause, see Error handling.

To see the transfer in the block explorer, open https://testnet.seiscan.io/tx/ followed by the transaction hash.

How gas is set

All three libraries set the nonce, the gas limit, and the fees for you:

• Gas limit. The libraries call eth_estimateGas. A transfer to a wallet address uses 21,000 gas. A transfer to a contract can use more, because the contract runs code when it receives SEI.
• Fees. The libraries send an EIP-1559 (type 2) transaction and read the current base fee from the latest block. Sei does not burn the base fee. Validators receive the whole fee. See Gas and fees.

To send on Sei Mainnet, use the sei chain in viem, or the https://evm-rpc.sei-apis.com endpoint in ethers and web3.py. Transfers on Sei Mainnet spend real SEI.

Related recipes

• Read a balance: check the result of the transfer
• Transaction lifecycle: receipts, logs, and past transactions
• Sponsor gas with Pimlico: send from an account that holds no SEI