Bitcoin Forum

Hi,


Thanks for help

Change:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

well so :

this is your wallet (address :P ), yes? 1N8HNfHf9YaX9RKAVT5HSzcz4DqeyeCPjw

and you sent from bitcoin-qt client to (another address :P)14bX9vE2zJVR62zi9WCdS4zJkDhHeBdasm 0.25BTC?

so if you dont know nothing about sending anything to 1Bm6LhQZbcFhtbtTQ8KQbwz9K42FYvSg81

you might have some problem :)

but i guess it is only a "change"

No.

That is not a wallet.  That is a bitcoin address.

A wallet is a collection of one or more bitcoin addresses and the private keys necessary to identify all the value under the control of that wallet.


Or perhaps 1Bm6LhQZbcFhtbtTQ8KQbwz9K42FYvSg81 is just another bitcoin address under the control of the wallet.  Perhaps the wallet created that address specifically for the purpose of returning the change from the transaction back to the wallet, and therefore the user has no knowledge of the address, but the wallet does.

Question for the OP...

Does your wallet have the correct balance?

Hmmm,

i knew inputs need to be spent entirely... meaning rest of balance (inputs-amount desired to be sent) must be returned to your wallet. What surprised me that it is not returned to the same wallet which it was sent from and more so that this "return the difference" address is not visible in Receive addresses in bitcoin-qt client. This behaviour is described here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

Anybody has some insight why is it so? Why just not return change to senders address or at least to address visible in receiving addresses book?

It IS returned to the same wallet which it was sent from.

It is not returned to an address that is visible in the "Receive" section of that wallet (since it wasn't "received" from anyone, it was simply kept under the control of the wallet.


For the average user that just wants to be able to use a program to send and receive bitcoins, it would be confusing to have unknown addresses popping up in their "receive" section that they never chose to create.


There is no such concept as a "senders address" in the bitcoin protocol.

Since it is a bitcoin "best practice" to use a new bitcoin address for every transaction (to increase anonymity and security), it would be a bad idea to send the change to an address in the "receive" section (since those addresses are created by the user for specific purposes, and are either already used or will soon be used).

Imagine, I sell a product to someone in exchange for 0.5 bitcoins.  I provide a brand new bitcoin address to the buyer so I will know when they have paid. The buyer decides not to make the purchase after all and never sends payment. Then I create a transaction paying someone else for something, and 0.5 bitcoins of "change" are sent to the address that I previously provided to the buyer. Now I see a payment received of 0.5 BTC at the address provided to the buyer.  I can only assume that he has just made payment.  I send out the product, and he receives it for free.  I prefer it the way it works now.  It isn't complicated unless you are trying to understand the technical details of transactions. In that case, it isn't complicated once you understand the technical details of transactions.

That was just poor choice of words/terms. I do understand there is not senders address and it is returned to the same wallet. What I was asking and you explained to me (thank you for that BTW) was why the rest is sent to normally not visible receiving address but is clear now.

Thank you for clarification

I can see a lot of people misuse the word "wallet" for bitcoin address, and there are dozens of bitcoin websites (mainly faucets or sites for giveaway) out there asking people to "enter your wallet", which makes no sense at all.