Bitcoin Forum

Please help a newbie here. I made several transactions and picked the right hash IDs.

Unfortunately for me the "value when sent" that I see when I check blockchain explorer are different from what I paid out.

Kindly help me sort this by cross-checking. In this particular transaction I paid out $170.95 but when I click on it in blockchain explorer it shows value as $462 when transacted.

What could cause this? https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/b9a1336b135b024004d3d64bf76a9e0874ce5f2a5f15b7e135d8a00de4b72d80

It's because transactions must be used as a whole as per the protocol
So when you send an amount to someone, the wallet takes an incoming transaction with a higher amount (the one with $460, to 15CTQfNhp5DBnVowSVk5isy1pZTQDQqwjk) and sends the remaining coins to a "hidden" address (12BwatpDHMp9EM3aF4dxiC91DGEdPCiHTB) from your wallet

Think of it as having $1.00 and buying something for $0.25
You sent the $0.25 and got back $0.75 in change.
You has ~ $460 in your address. You sent $170 to 1Ct9QsdLkSG8eV5n8xEqGKy8EBZJtj5MP8 and got back $290 in change to address 12BwatpDHMp9EM3aF4dxiC91DGEdPCiHTB.

I rounded the amounts just for simplicity.

-Dave

These are the two recipient addresses with the bitcoin amount sent:

The recepient address
1Ct9QsdLkSG8eV5n8xEqGKy8EBZJtj5MP8
0.00511630 BTC

Your wallet address (UTXO)
12BwatpDHMp9EM3aF4dxiC91DGEdPCiHTB
0.00931519 BTC

The first address is the address you transfer Bitcoin to, if you multiple 0.00511630 BTC with the price of bitcoin at the time you sent it, it will amounts to $170.95 which is the amount your sent. The remaining 0.00931519 BTC is sent back to your another wallet address, it is your wallet unspent transaction output (UTXO) which is sent back to an address on your wallet that you used to make the transaction which is 12BwatpDHMp9EM3aF4dxiC91DGEdPCiHT

In addition to the posts above: "blockchain explorers" (blockexplorers) can't tell which is the recipient's address(s) from your change address.
It will consider all of the outputs as the sent amount when you explored a TXID instead of an address.

You are correct if sending bitcoin from a wallet and will leave change, the change will be from the transaction output and will be sent back into the address from the wallet which the person use to send the bitcoin, this is what that happens in this case in a way the wallet will use the sender address to automatically send remaining amount to change address of the sender wallet after sending the amount.

Thanks immensely guys. I really appreciate. But my query is this, how then do I get a hash I'd that shows the exact amount I sent?

For instance, when someone a friend $11,000, he sent a transaction hash which showed almost the same amount.

How then do I get a hash ID to show the exact value I sent?

Is it impossible in my case? If so, how do others like this one get it? https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/5315874373ef66252970019fc5ce43270c81693d22f564ebc419513fefaada29

Thanks once again.

You're looking at the transaction, that can include more than one input and output. In this case, there are 2 outputs. If you want to know what was send to a certain address, you simply look at the amount at that address:
If you want to know a dollar value with this, you'll end up with an estimate. You're sending Bitcoins, not dollars.

My advice would be to click on the "BTC" button and leave it there... stop dealing in "USD" and trying to send "exact USD" amounts... it is an "impossible" task as the USD price of BTC is literally changing every second (depending on the source you use).

If someone says "I want $10" and you're going to send them BTC, then you will need to agree on a set BTC-USD conversion rate (and/or a set price in BTC)... otherwise send them USD $10 via paypal or some other fiat currency transfer.

It's the same with fiat transfers... if someone says "I want USD$10" and instead you send them EUR€8.22 and in the meantime the conversion rate goes to 0.83... you've only sent them "USD$9.90"... currency values flucuate... agree a price in whatever currency you are going to send, then send that amount.

Food for thought

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b

That transaction's change is too small that the dollar equivalent of it is just a fraction of the sent amount.

It's also possible if the transaction has only one output, only the recipient, no change.
You can do that: send an exact amount if you have any unspent output(s) that's a little higher (that can cover the fee) than the amount that you want to send.
But that's less likely to happen.

Disregarding the fiat equivalent, you just have to paste the receiver's address to the blockexplorer and the transaction history below will show the received amount in BTC.