bitcoins lost after recovery with seed

[philsch]

In 2018 I made an electrum wallet and sent my bitcoins on it, and everything was working. After some time I bought a new laptop, and I recovered my wallet with the seed on the new wallet. In my opinion, everything was correct, so I uninstalled the wallet on the old laptop. Some months later I wanted to check my wallet, and then there was zero credit (with an exit equal to the original amount). I don't know what was going wrong, and I did an update, but without success. Unfortunately, I did not export my private key. I'm pretty sure there is a problem with the recovery. What could have happened?

[DannyHamilton]

There's not a lot of detail available in your description, but I suspect that some malware on your computer probably gained access to your Electrum seed and a criminal stole your bitcoins.

What exactly do you mean when you say:
"an exit equal to the original amount"


Was your wallet password protected?

Is there a possibility that you accidentally installed Electrum from a phishing site that provided you with a hacked copy of the wallet software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any software associated with any altcoins (wallets, mining software, etc)?
Is there a possibility that you installed any pirated software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any poorly reviewed open-source software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any closed-source software from an untrustworthy source?

[BitMaxz]

If you installed a legit one and not the phishing or fake Electrum as the above pointing out maybe your Electrum is not connected to the internet?

Can you check the circle bottom right of the Electrum it looks like this below



Check if it shows a green, red, or syncing sign. If it's red or stuck on syncing your Electrum is not connected properly to the server. That's why it shows zero balance because the wallet is not synced yet to the latest data.

The first solution for this is to find a working server under tools>network or try to recheck "Select Server Automatically".

[Charles-Tim]

and then there was zero credit (with an exit equal to the original amount).

Did you mean after you imported your seed phrase, you saw a transaction in which all your bitcoin has been sent out of the wallet?

If you did not see such like that, then you will have to make sure your electrum wallet synchronize, at times it may not synchronize very fast and take some seconds and appear 0 BTC before synchronizing.

Also, make sure your wallet is connecting to the internet, if not connected, it will not be able to synchronize with the blockchain.

If you saw a transaction in which all your bitcoin has been sent out of the wallet, it means your wallet has been attacked, either someone knows where you store your seed phrase most likely, or malware on your device reveals the seed phrase to attackers.

[NeuroticFish]

In my opinion, everything was correct, so I uninstalled the wallet on the old laptop.

Correct means you also had the money in, right?

Some months later I wanted to check my wallet, and then there was zero credit (with an exit equal to the original amount).

If you mean a transaction, then I think that somebody has stolen your money. Sorry.


1. The old laptop, although uninstalled, may still have the original wallet, but if my assumption is correct, that will also be empty.
2. You didn't say anything about where you downloaded electrum from, whether you verified it and what version it was. You didn't say anything about the update you've made - was it a popup dialog offering a download link and you downloaded from there "Electrum 4.0" (a phishing clone of Electrum)?
3. If you always had verified Electrum and indeed you had the money there at least once on the new laptop, you'll have to think on what software (malware) you've installed, what shady links you've clicked, where you saved the backup of the seed (mail, dropbox and other places you should not trust?) or who else had access to the laptop.

[NotATether]

You could not have lost bitcoins from recovering a wallet with the seed phrase because no transaction was made on that date.

It sounds like you used a Windows laptop with a real Electrum version, not one of the fake versions or else the theft would've happened immediately after you entered the seed phrase, but you downloaded something that had bitcoin-stealing malware and your wallet wasn't password-protected (correct me if I am wrong), which would've encrypted the private keys inside the wallet file.

[HCP]

Some months later I wanted to check my wallet, and then there was zero credit (with an exit equal to the original amount).
...
What could have happened?

The short answer is: Your seed phrase/private keys were compromised somehow and your bitcoins were stolen.

How your seed phrase/private keys were compromised is not something that any of us will be able to determine. You'll need to answer the questions asked by DannyHamilton... namely:

Is there a possibility that you accidentally installed Electrum from a phishing site that provided you with a hacked copy of the wallet software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any software associated with any altcoins (wallets, mining software, etc)?
Is there a possibility that you installed any pirated software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any poorly reviewed open-source software?
Is there a possibility that you installed any closed-source software from an untrustworthy source?

If you answered "Yes" to any of those questions... then you have the most probably cause of how your seed phrase/private keys were compromised.

[bob123]

Two more reasons in addition to others that have already been mentioned - either your addresses that hold bitcoin are out of default gap limit (20, "WARNING: Addresses beyond the gap limit will not automatically be recovered from the seed"

If his address would be outside of the gap limit, which basically just means that electrum didn't derive that key pair yet and didn't query the server for its balance, there wouldn't be any outgoing transaction with the exact (complete) amount he had in his wallet (and still should have it nothing was stolen).

or your old Electrum was 2FA but you restored is as the ordinary client that doesn't have 2FA.

This is even less likely, since there is an outgoing transaction.
Either he has a non-2FA wallet and somehow his mnemonic code and/or computer got compromised or he had a 2FA wallet and his mnemonic code or computer together with 2FA device/backup got compromised.

Without any outgoing transaction sending all his balance away (which he seems to not have initialized), both options might be a valid possibility. However, in this case, that's rather unlikely.

[HCP]

Agreed... if the OPs statement:

"there was zero credit (with an exit equal to the original amount)."

means what I believe it means... that is "There was a transaction that I did not create that sent my entire balance somewhere", then things like Gap Limits, 2FA and BIP39 passphrases/Electrum extended seed words etc are not going to be the cause.

The seed phrase/private keys (or wallet file & password) were compromised and the Bitcoins were stolen... or the OP actually did send the coins out and just doesn't remember doing it. Those are the only 2 explanations.

Exactly how the wallet was compromised will be something the OP will need to investigate... checking where Electrum was downloaded from, did they get a "security warning" popup message in Electrum telling them to update?, do they remember entering their seed in an Electrum "clone" or a website to claim BCH/BSV/BTD/BTG/BTCP fork coins? etc