Title: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: Eternity on September 23, 2013, 09:26:26 AM Say someone typed incorrect btc address
Whats the scenario in that case ? If the btc address donot belong to anyone will he get those btc back or are they lost ? Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: jackjack on September 23, 2013, 10:15:47 AM https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address#Addresses_are_case_sensitive_and_exact
Quote Bitcoin addresses are case-sensitive. Bitcoin addresses should be copied and pasted using the computer's clipboard wherever possible. If you hand-key a Bitcoin address, and each character is not transcribed exactly - including capitalization - the incorrect address will most likely be rejected by the Bitcoin software. You will have to check your entry and try again. The probability that a mistyped address is accepted as being valid is 1 in 2^32, that is, approximately 1 in 4.29 billion. Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: Dabs on September 23, 2013, 10:56:22 AM If you were so lucky or unlucky, and type a valid but wrong address, then sent the transaction, you just lost your coins.
Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: Eternity on September 23, 2013, 11:50:26 AM I understand for valid address coins are gone
For invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: jackjack on September 23, 2013, 12:01:08 PM I understand for valid address coins are gone The client will tell you the address is invalid and will do nothingFor invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Similar to what happens if you try to send an email to Quote và"(ç@fzà"oé"*'$@"_ézf!e:;/.23!"é''( Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: Eternity on September 23, 2013, 12:05:10 PM Thats great
Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: DannyHamilton on September 23, 2013, 06:10:03 PM I understand for valid address coins are gone The client will tell you the address is invalid and will do nothingFor invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Similar to what happens if you try to send an email to Quote và"(ç@fzà"oé"*'$@"_ézf!e:;/.23!"é''( If you are using a poorly written third party wallet, and it doesn't validate addresses, will nodes refuse to relay a transaction that attempts to use an invalid address? Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: jackjack on September 23, 2013, 06:32:14 PM I understand for valid address coins are gone The client will tell you the address is invalid and will do nothingFor invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Similar to what happens if you try to send an email to Quote và"(ç@fzà"oé"*'$@"_ézf!e:;/.23!"é''( If you are using a poorly written third party wallet, and it doesn't validate addresses, will nodes refuse to relay a transaction that attempts to use an invalid address? A Bitcoin address is the base58 of this: Quote aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssss Where red is the receiving "account" (it's all you need to send money) and blue the hash of red (blue is totally useless in the protocol, it is only used in clients, it never goes to other nodes)E.g. red of 171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B is 0123456789012345678901234567890123456789 (http://blockchain.info/address/171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B) If a third party client doesn't check that blue is indeed the hash of red, then two cases:
Let's assume that your client is broken/doesn't check the hash and that you want to send money to 171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B If you type 172vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B, then the money goes to an unknown person If you type 171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4C, then the money goes to the correct recipient Edit: Quote Bitcoin address Recipient Hash 171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B 0123456789012345678901234567890123456789fe995d84 172vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4B 01241b1a3ba38145d4e3396b31bc154840300ee83e995d84 171vsZ2rd9xXafKiyCdcjZoad9BkXCE4C 0123456789012345678901234567890123456789fe995d85 Edit2: For the sake of simplicity I ignored the leading \x00 Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: grau on September 24, 2013, 05:43:56 AM I understand for valid address coins are gone The client will tell you the address is invalid and will do nothingFor invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Similar to what happens if you try to send an email to Quote và"(ç@fzà"oé"*'$@"_ézf!e:;/.23!"é''( If you are using a poorly written third party wallet, and it doesn't validate addresses, will nodes refuse to relay a transaction that attempts to use an invalid address? Rather unlikely that an implementation would not validate the address, since validation is simple. There is no way to recognize "wrong" address at the protocol level, at that level it is no longer a string with checksum but just uninterpreted data, therefore the transaction will be relayed and coins lost. Title: Re: Wrong bitcoin address Post by: jackjack on September 24, 2013, 11:21:51 AM I understand for valid address coins are gone The client will tell you the address is invalid and will do nothingFor invalid address coins wont go through right ? Will the transaction fail in that case ? Similar to what happens if you try to send an email to Quote và"(ç@fzà"oé"*'$@"_ézf!e:;/.23!"é''( If you are using a poorly written third party wallet, and it doesn't validate addresses, will nodes refuse to relay a transaction that attempts to use an invalid address? Rather unlikely that an implementation would not validate the address, since validation is simple. There is no way to recognize "wrong" address at the protocol level, at that level it is no longer a string with checksum but just uninterpreted data, therefore the transaction will be relayed and coins lost. As I said just above the coins aren't necessarily lost. ~15% of typing errors don't change the recipient. |