Bitcoin Forum

Hi Friends, Gurus, Experts,

I was trying a BTC send transaction for the first time, so sent 5$ worth BTC, I didn't want to pay higher fees and I was ok to wait for a few hours / days for transactions to confirm, so I chose lowest possible fee of around 250 satoshis. 
The transaction remained unconfirmed for days, I kept on checking it once in a while, then  On 5th or 6th day,
I see following message

Transaction invalid: some outputs that it attempts to spend have been already spent or are no longer valid.

what happens in this case ?
How do I recover my 5$ worth of BTC

Appreciate any help / suggestion.

Thanks and regards,

The fund you were trying to send was spent in another transaction using a higher fee.
What wallet did you use for making the transaction?
Do you own the private key of the address?

There are two possibilities:
1. Your system has been compromised or someone had access to your private key and could double-spend your fund using a higher fee.
2. You were withdrawing BTC from an exchange, a custodial wallet or any other third party and they scammed you

Can you share the transaction ID? so we can check it . (If you don't mind about privacy, off course.)

There is another option. The transaction OP made could have been spending an unconfirmed output, which has since become invalid. This could have happened for a variety of reasons - it could have been double spent as a scam attempt, it could have dropped from the mempool, it could have had the fee bumped via RBF.

Also, if OP is withdrawing from a third party, it is also not necessarily a scam attempt. They may have processed his withdrawal, had the transaction with low fee be dropped from the mempool, and their software didn't realize that and so the UTXO which was being used to process OP's withdraw became "free" again to be used in another transaction.

OP - are the funds you tried to spend still visible in your wallet? As hosseinimr93 says though, we need to know which wallet you are using and the TXID of the transaction.

Thanks @hosseinimr93  and  @o_e_l_e_o, for your response.
I was trying to perform a partially signed transaction using my new coldcard wallet and wasabi wallet on my desktop.
This is first time I am using the wallet.
Not sure if my private keys are compromised because, I have not connected my hardware wallet with computer.
only created a transaction on wasabi wallet, took that to coldcard wallet in a memory card, and signed.
for privacy concerns, I am not sure if should share the transaction url, this is first time i am using the wallet and not sure if in future, I can create new public address using same wallet or it remains same.

If you can't share the txid here for privacy reasons are you able to contact the people you tried to withdraw the funds from?

They might just have to put it though again and will probably be able to help since the funds should still be with them

Check the address you sent bitcoin from in a blockexplorer.
There must be another transaction made from that address spending same output(s). You should be able to find the address the fund has been sent to.

Thanks @hosseinimr93 et al.
While the transaction was in unconfirmed status, address I sent from was showing 0.0 BTC balance.
After transaction got invalid, I had not checked on block explorer.
I had only checked on wasabi wallet, where balance was still 0.0.
I checked on blockexplorer, my  BTC is still there.
So seems earlier 0.0 BTC balance seems to be reversed.
Also I think, I need to import coldcard wallet once again into wasabi for it to show reverted balance.
I will check that in wasabi wallet.

I'm not overly familiar with using Wasabi with a Coldcard, but isn't the Wasabi wallet set up as essentially a watch only or skeleton wallet, which just contains your xpub and addresses? It should update automatically rather than needing re-imported. If you re-import and it shows the correct balance, then for some reason your original wallet is not syncing/updating properly.

It is good that you don't seem to have lost any coin, but it still doesn't explain why the inputs to your transaction were declared invalid. Were they still unconfirmed when you spent them, and then later bumped with a higher fee? Or did you spend the same coins in another transaction?