Bitcoin Forum

I was given .1569 bitcoin as a gag gift years ago.  I happened to see it in the safe (piece of paper).  After much frustrating research I determine that Electrum is the wallet to use, then transfer it to coinbase and sell it.  I am not interested of care about crypto currency, so I was going to get rid of it.  $156 showed up in my Electrum......the other $1600 was stolen?  Is that possible?

Check the transaction history. Is there is any transaction of coins leaving the wallet? Can you share the Bitcoin address?

If someone stole it, why not take everything instead of leaving $156 in BTC?

Valid question. There must be something that is missing for OP and I am assuming he is very new to the BTC wallet world.

OP, can you identify correctly which one is your private key and which one is your Bitcoin address?

Find something that has started with the number 1, 3 or bc1. For example:

1BoatSLRHtK
3BoatSLRHtK
bc1BoatSLRHtK

If you are okay to share then feel free to post the address.

Caution: Do not share the private key

If you sent 0.1569BTC to an electrum wallet from a paper one, I don't see how it could have gotten stolen in the process.  Are you sure that was the amount?  Is there a residual balance in the paper wallet or something?  I'm not an expert in bitcoin by any means, but there are many of those around here and I've no doubt if you keep reading here someone will give you an answer.

Don't give that private key to anyone, though.  Only disclose public address(es) and only if you feel comfortable doing so.  

Edit:

Whoops--you already said it.

public address is 1AWndKv1HwVcwkUePKsf5FTa5Fe9qxnJpo

Why would I leave $156?  I couldnt figure out how to transfer $1600 after about 10 hours of messing around.  I wont waste another minute for $156.

Before I throw away the paper wallet and unistall Electrum...i just want to see if I missed something ...maybe you guys can see what I did wrong.


J

Take a look here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1AWndKv1HwVcwkUePKsf5FTa5Fe9qxnJpo

As you can see, your whole balance (1600$) has moved to another address  (https://btc.com/bc1q503rlxl7y2gl2fc0vqdwrntsk2r6wraqljhcm4)yesterday and it hasn't moved since.

There is no trace of any other amount that is kept in your paper wallet. If you swept your private keys into Electrum, you should be able to see all of your funds there.

Base on your address, the first transaction was year 2015 and last 08/02 the outgoing transaction. Can you tell us the current version of the electrum you downloaded if its 3.3.8 (https://electrum.org/#download) (recommended) or below 3.3.4 which is easily be targeted for phishing attacks or the electrum phishing version of 4.0.0 made by some hackers.

I have the latest version....I am totally at a loss.   I can see 156 in the wallet.

I can see the chain that says 1600

they are just not together.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/685b4828d731eaa7b9f5ad32b796e8cf2cf7c99a?filter=5# (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/685b4828d731eaa7b9f5ad32b796e8cf2cf7c99a?filter=5#)

Two things occurring to me here.

It is a strange coincidence that you attempted to move ~0.156 BTC, and you can say you can see $156 in your Electrum wallet. Are you absolutely sure you aren't confusing units here?

All of the ~0.156 BTC moved to this address - bc1q503rlxl7y2gl2fc0vqdwrntsk2r6wraqljhcm4. Does that address match exactly the address you can see in your Electrum wallet?

Amount received: 156.83724 mBTC

Damnit

So i have the money i just dont understand the units?

Haha, apparently so. :D

In the Electrum window, you can click on "Tools" at the top, then "Preferences", then the "General" tab, and change you base unit from mBTC to BTC if you prefer. Under the "Fiat" tab, you can also enable "Show Fiat balance for addresses", so when you then click on the "Addresses" tab in the main window, it will show you the Balance in BTC or mBTC, as well as USD Balance in the next column.

So...it took me 16 hours to get this far.  Now I have to figure out how to sell it for cash.

It depends on what country you currently live in. You can look for a Bitcoin ATM in your local area here (https://coinatmradar.com/), trade with someone face-2-face (localbitcoins (https://localbitcoins.com/)) or use an online exchange, for example, Coinbase. If you don't need to cash out urgently then try the first two options. Note that some online services might force you to go through KYC which sometimes is a pain.

for the love of god.

bitcoin is not really fast or convenient...my opinion

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/a7fa197f3991b440b8d7c404870c8db8bf7c8294f1367e418ae0b9cfbda4dc76 (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/a7fa197f3991b440b8d7c404870c8db8bf7c8294f1367e418ae0b9cfbda4dc76)
Your $1600 transaction took only 20 minutes to get confirmation with $0.68 fee :-\

It depends on your client and familiarity, for convenience, use a 3rd-party client that will handle everything for you but most of them are inaccurate when it comes to fees and security risks.

BTW, do not discard the private key of 1AWndKv1HwVcwkUePKsf5FTa5Fe9qxnJpo yet, I've checked the other chains and I found out that it still has about <$100 value of different Bitcoin forks (BTG, BCH, BCD, etc).
Ex: $50 https://www.blockchain.com/bch/address/1AWndKv1HwVcwkUePKsf5FTa5Fe9qxnJpo (https://www.blockchain.com/bch/address/1AWndKv1HwVcwkUePKsf5FTa5Fe9qxnJpo) Warning: BCH isn't any faster than BTC.

i understand why you think that way but the reason for it is because you jumped in something entirely new which you have never used or seen before and confused about the new concepts of it. for example when you sent your transaction it immediately reached the destination within 1-3 seconds. this is not at all like bank transfers which can take hours to days to complete (new concept). then the confirmation which is when transaction becomes irreversible took about 20 minutes which is again unlike banks where it takes a couple of months for it to become irreversible (new concept).

This is why sometimes for newbies, its better to just store the BTC in an exchange.

I am sure the OP didn't lose his BTC, it was all an misunderstanding however if you move your coins off the exchange there is so many points of failure.

Such as getting a virus on your computer, a phishing website, phishing software like Electrum had at the beginning of the year, clipboard viruses, etc.

Sure a hardware wallet is better but most won't buy one and in that case the BTC would be the safest at an exchange. So for new people, other than cold storage / hardware wallet the safest place is an exchange and just use a unique password with 2FA enabled.

$1600 in an exchange long term? That’s pretty crazy considering the exchanges that has been hacked. How’s an exchange going to be any safer then all the other methods?

adaseb probably means that a Top exchange is a safer place to keep your funds unless you have proper means to safeguard the money yourself.
We have seen users not taking note of their private keys, entering and forgetting which passwords they used or falling for the Electrum phishing scam.
All these would be prevented keeping the funds in an exchange but in that case we are open to other dangers arising from keeping funds in an exchange.

Although I don't agree with keeping funds in exchanges I understand what adaseb is talking about.
You point is also valid.
There have been so many hacks, exit scams that it has become like a lottery. A spin of the wheel to see which exchange is next.

Fair enough, an email address is easier to remember then a priv key. So I can see the logic behind that.

Consider it this way: You have just used for the first time a brand new (to you) form of money, which you have never used before. You have had to set up a wallet, make a transactions, and are now considering trading with it, all from the comfort of your own home, and in the space of a few hours. Now consider you want to do the same with fiat. You have to go to your bank, undergo their KYC procedures, set up an account, wait a few days for it go live, make a deposit, apply for a debit or credit card, wait a few more days for it to arrive, then spend it online. Once you have actually set up your wallet and are good to go, bitcoin transactions are measured in minutes, rather than the days it takes to make fiat transactions, and fees are measured in cents, rather than in tens or even hundreds of dollars.

There are many more points of failure holding on an exchange, such as scamming, shutting down, insolvency, hacks, rogue employees, seized by authorities, sudden KYC requirements, accounts locked for "suspicious activity", and so forth. Many of your points of failure with holding the coins yourself still apply to holding your coins on an exchange as well, such as phishing sites and clipboard malware.

It is far better advice for newbies to take some time to educate themselves on how to store their own coins properly rather than relying on a third party, given how many funds have been lost from third party hacks, scams, or other misadventures.

You didn't really research anything, because if you did that it would not take you even 16 hours to figure out the basic units of Bitcoins. It takes 30 min to maybe 1 hour to understand how Electrum works, there is how to do step by step in Electrum FAQ (http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#how-does-electrum-work). I admit there is no mention of mBTC in FAQ or how to change that to show BTC or fiat value, and this should be enabled by default.

Just do not panic and rush with sale, maybe you can profit more since price of Bitcoin is going up this days. Amount you have is currenty worth $1685, in few days it can be $1785, so keep that in mind.