Electrum not sending payment? Pending forever..

[dvzx360]

Hi all,
 
I transferred my crypto from Binance into the Electrum app and opened the blockchain there to find my balance unable to be send to another platform (it is pending forever.
I have been struggling to solve this issue for two weeks now but my basic knowledge is not sufficient to solve it.
The current steps were made to get into this situation:

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).
2. For some reason I considered Electrum to be able to open this address so I download the android app and the amount is now as a balance in my electrum wallet (possibly just watching-only but I am not completely understanding this I guess).
3. Tried to send amount to other platform, no success..
4. I tried several options on the computer software application but I end up with a watching only wallet or if I use my seed which I got on the android app I get addresses that are not matching with the Binance send address.
5. Current situation: If I check the blockchain the amount is still there so nobody "stole" the crypto. I am not entirely sure the address in Binance was an address that I put there and what the other platform is (is it even Electrum? Probably yes but how can I retrieve this amount?

Few questions I have which I cannot answer:
-How do I proceed with this? Am I doomed in this?
-Is Electrum even the platform of the address?
-Is this address even mine? (It is an Segwit Bech32 address)
-Electrum asks for a master key, am I in need of this? (or private key)
-What can Binance secret key and API key do for me or is this not playing a role at all?

Sorry for all the questions guys, I should have got some better understanding of what I was actually doing before I withdrew the amount. If it was a few hundred bucks I would probably be able to just forget this but since it is more than that I'd hope to get this solved. Hopefully anyone here can help this poor fellow out.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,
dvzx360

[jackg]

Where did you GENERATE  the address? Was it from electrum or was it from blockchains website?

What type of wallet do you have? It'll say at the top of the wallet window if it's a "standard wallet" or "watching only"?

[hosseinimr93]

For spending bitcoin from any address, you need to have its private key (or a seed phrase which generates that private key). If you have the private key, the address is yours. otherwise, the address is not owned by you.
In the case you have created the wallet using Electrum and that's not watch-only, you can access your fund using the wallet file (you need the password if it has been encrypted) as well.

You cannot spend bitcoin from a watch-only wallet. Watch-only wallets are used only for checking the balance and cannot be used for spending fund. Because you don't enter your private key when creating a watch-only wallet. It is created using your public key or your addresses.
Note that anyone can generate numerous watch-only wallets with million dollars balance. But having a watch-only wallet doesn't mean you own the address shown in your wallet.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

I am Just trying to lay out possibilities thou you are not clear on how you got the address you were sending funds to from your Binance account

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).

There is a possibility you have a clipboard hijacking malware. These malware are usually changes your copied correct bitcoin address to a hacker's bitcoin addresses just as you paste it to the "receiving address" field in your Binance account. It's why you should always cross check your address to every character before confirming the transaction in the email. Indeed binance is not responsible and can not help you

2. For some reason I considered Electrum to be able to open this address so I download the android app and the amount is now as a balance in my electrum wallet (possibly just watching-only but I am not completely understanding this I guess).

Can you please tell us a step by step procedure you used to create or restore your wallet. Did you import the wallet using
- A private key?
- Seed phrase?
- Bitcoin address?
- Master Public key?
- Master Private Key?

-What can Binance secret key and API key do for me or is this not playing a role at all?

the API key is usually used for trading and sometimes withdrawing funds from binance using a third party app or bot like 3commas.io or tabrader. It has nothing to do with your receiving address

Please answer the questions i asked to create a clear picture of the problem.

[HCP]

The current steps were made to get into this situation:

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).
2. For some reason I considered Electrum to be able to open this address so I download the android app and the amount is now as a balance in my electrum wallet (possibly just watching-only but I am not completely understanding this I guess).
[/quote]
You will need to identify where this address came from... it seems you downloaded Electrum after you had already sent the coins from Binance??!?

So, the first question you need to find the answer to is: where did you get that address from? Did you have Electrum installed on a PC before you installed the android version?

[joniboini]

The first step sounds so weird. If you don't recognize the address or even adding that to your contact list (since it sounds like you just select the address and not copy pasting it), I'd assume that your account is possibly compromised. The malware issue might be possible too.

Looks like you don't control that address too since you don't have the seed/private key (and no, it is not specifically related to Electrum). Sorry to say this but sounds like you lost your coin already.

[sheenshane]

OP's problem sounds weird and there's no response yet from the OP. All questions above should be answered by the OP to clarify his problem furthermore.

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).

Binance wouldn't help you once you already withdrew the amount from them, once the transaction is confirmed by the withdrew address, that's not their problem if you have control on this or even not on the address.

Can you drop it here the withdrawal transaction that found in your Binance account in the withdrawal history? If it is marked as a success, it means your Bitcoin was successfully transferred into the other address. So that we can trace if where goes your Bitcoin sent. If the address were under your control, you will unlikely recover it.

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there..

The above question is this, where the address generated come from? How came up you've sent your Bitcoin to that address that even you didn't have under control.

[dvzx360]

First of all, thanks for all the replies and your time.

Where did you GENERATE  the address? Was it from electrum or was it from blockchains website?

What type of wallet do you have? It'll say at the top of the wallet window if it's a "standard wallet" or "watching only"?

It is indeed watching-only, I suppose that that already instantly indicates that Electrum is not related to this address.

I am Just trying to lay out possibilities thou you are not clear on how you got the address you were sending funds to from your Binance account

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).

There is a possibility you have a clipboard hijacking malware. These malware are usually changes your copied correct bitcoin address to a hacker's bitcoin addresses just as you paste it to the "receiving address" field in your Binance account. It's why you should always cross check your address to every character before confirming the transaction in the email. Indeed binance is not responsible and can not help you

2. For some reason I considered Electrum to be able to open this address so I download the android app and the amount is now as a balance in my electrum wallet (possibly just watching-only but I am not completely understanding this I guess).

Can you please tell us a step by step procedure you used to create or restore your wallet. Did you import the wallet using
- A private key?
- Seed phrase?
- Bitcoin address?
- Master Public key?
- Master Private Key?

-What can Binance secret key and API key do for me or is this not playing a role at all?

the API key is usually used for trading and sometimes withdrawing funds from binance using a third party app or bot like 3commas.io or tabrader. It has nothing to do with your receiving address

Please answer the questions i asked to create a clear picture of the problem.

None of this is relevant at this moment since Electrum is probably just watching only as a used a Master Public Key. I suppose I should try to figure out the source of the address.

The current steps were made to get into this situation:

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).
2. For some reason I considered Electrum to be able to open this address so I download the android app and the amount is now as a balance in my electrum wallet (possibly just watching-only but I am not completely understanding this I guess).

You will need to identify where this address came from... it seems you downloaded Electrum after you had already sent the coins from Binance??!?

So, the first question you need to find the answer to is: where did you get that address from? Did you have Electrum installed on a PC before you installed the android version?
[/quote]

It was not installed yet, I indeed need to look for the source

The first step sounds so weird. If you don't recognize the address or even adding that to your contact list (since it sounds like you just select the address and not copy pasting it), I'd assume that your account is possibly compromised. The malware issue might be possible too.

Looks like you don't control that address too since you don't have the seed/private key (and no, it is not specifically related to Electrum). Sorry to say this but sounds like you lost your coin already.

This could indeed be one of the stupidest things I have ever did. But as I was mostly using the Binance app I am not entirely sure it is compromised and I probably just need to figure out where the address came from. The balance is also still the amount that I transferred so that implies it is probably not compromised.

OP's problem sounds weird and there's no response yet from the OP. All questions above should be answered by the OP to clarify his problem furthermore.

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there, so this is were it even started going wrong (Binance cannot help me though).

Binance wouldn't help you once you already withdrew the amount from them, once the transaction is confirmed by the withdrew address, that's not their problem if you have control on this or even not on the address.

Can you drop it here the withdrawal transaction that found in your Binance account in the withdrawal history? If it is marked as a success, it means your Bitcoin was successfully transferred into the other address. So that we can trace if where goes your Bitcoin sent. If the address were under your control, you will unlikely recover it.

1. Binance > Withdrew crypto amount into an address I did not even remember putting there..

The above question is this, where the address generated come from? How came up you've sent your Bitcoin to that address that even you didn't have under control.

OP didn't manage to reply yet.
Binance can not do anything about this that is correct, I could ask them when the address was initially added that might help for my search of the wallet it is transferred to.


Based on all the above my latest view on this is that I have probably put the address there myself a long time ago and the emailadress linked to this platform's wallet is compromised (this is not the emailadres is used on Binance though and it is recovered for future use). Old e-mails are gone and I can not simply trace the wallet that is used.

I guess I just need to figure out which platform is used for my wallet based on the software/apps that are floating around? Does anyone has any advice on this?

Thanks all, hopefully it will be solved in the end.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

If you had access to the master pubic key then there is a high chance that where you got that Master public key from, you could easily access the seed phrase or Private key of the address.
Once you get those one of those two, It means you will be able to have access to your bitcoins and even spend them. Try tracing back where you got the master public key from.

[HCP]

It is indeed watching-only, I suppose that that already instantly indicates that Electrum is not related to this address.
...
None of this is relevant at this moment since Electrum is probably just watching only as a used a Master Public Key. I suppose I should try to figure out the source of the address.
...
It was not installed yet, I indeed need to look for the source

All of that is going to be very problematic You've somehow withdrawn to a "watching-only" wallet that you do not have the private keys/seed mnemonic for. Until you get access to the private key(s) for that wallet, you will be unable to spend those coins.

I don't use Binance, so I'm not overly familiar with their products. Does the "Binance Wallet" you're using not ask for an address when you initiate the withdrawal? Does it have a "stored" withdrawal address that it automatically sends coins to when you request a withdrawal?

I guess I just need to figure out which platform is used for my wallet based on the software/apps that are floating around? Does anyone has any advice on this?

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of wallets and "platforms" that you might have generated a wallet on and got the Master Public Key from... trying to track down the exact wallet software or website you used is going to be VERY difficult.

Do you have any notes anywhere that include a 12/24 word recovery seed mnemonic? The fact that you used a Master Public Key in Electrum would indicate that the source of that key is likely a BIP39 compatible wallet. These generally provide 12 or 24 word recover seed mnemonics...

Also, I'm wondering if you used Blockchain.com (previously blockchain.info) and tried to "export" your wallet? With their HD wallets, it has a "show XPUB" option:


It's one of the few wallets that make it somewhat easy to actually find/display your XPUB.

[khaled0111]

I guess I just need to figure out which platform is used for my wallet based on the software/apps that are floating around? Does anyone has any advice on this?

If no coins have been spent from that address then it's impossible to link it to any wallet or platform. However, I doubt it belongs to an exchange or any other online service since it's a bech32.

Check in your Binance app if you have the whitelist feature turned on and if the address is saved there. Maybe this is where it came from!

edit after reading HCP' reply:
@OP, did you use an extended public key (xPub) or the public address to create the whatch-only wallet?

[jackg]

If you click file and look for a "recently opened" type label (I don't remember exactly what it's called) is there another wallet there?

I'd imagine you could've made it with electrum and just clicked off it and somehow ended up with this second one.

How old is the wallet also? If its recent then it might be easier for you to check your browsing history to see where you have been (or check your downloads folder).