So, where did my bitcoins go?

[Bradlibs93]

I recieved ~3.5 bitcoins that I bought from a friend, and, shortly after, sent about 1.45 of those to another friend. I recently had to change computers and I imported my wallet to this new computer. The block chain is out of sync by like 50k transactions, so I've been waiting on that to confirm my other ~2 bitcoins to sync with my wallet.

It was taking a while so I exported my private key and opened a virtual wallet through blockchain.info, and it says I do not have any bitcoins. It says that, when I sent the 1.45, it sent the rest to a different address at the same time, within the same transaction.


Now, I am unsure whether this is just some confirmation thing or an error, because on my actual client I noted that I only sent 1.45, and that I should have the other 2. Do I just have to wait a few days for the block chain to sync? I figured that an online wallet would be instant and up to date.


Thanks for your help.

[CIYAM]

It was taking a while so I exported my private key and opened a virtual wallet through blockchain.info, and it says I do not have any bitcoins. It says that, when I sent the 1.45, it sent the rest to a different address at the same time, within the same transaction.

The "rest" was sent to a "change" address (which is part of your wallet but not something you normally can see) - provided you haven't deleted things you will be able to retrieve your coins.

(you did keep a backup of the wallet?)

[Bradlibs93]

It was taking a while so I exported my private key and opened a virtual wallet through blockchain.info, and it says I do not have any bitcoins. It says that, when I sent the 1.45, it sent the rest to a different address at the same time, within the same transaction.

The "rest" was sent to a "change" address (which is part of your wallet but not something you normally can see) - provided you haven't deleted things you will be able to retrieve your coins.

Define "deleted things", because all I did was export the .dat file and reopen it with a new client. Was there something else I was supposed to take with me?

[DannyHamilton]

I hope you haven't deleted your other wallet.dat files yet.

When you spend bitcoin, you spend an entire input all at once.  So if you receive a single transaction that has 3.5 BTC in the output, then later when you want to send 1.5 BTC, you have to spend the entire 3.5 BTC in a single transaction.  Think of it like if someone gave you a $5 bill and you then later wanted to buy something for $2.  You would have to spend the entire $5 bill all at once (you can't just rip it into 5 pieces), but you would get $3 back in change.

The client program hides most of this messiness from you.  It spends the full 3.5 BTC, creating 2 outputs, one for the 1.5 BTC that you are sending to someone, and another output for the remaining 2 BTC in change that gets sent back to you.  The client program chooses a new private key/address, adds it to your wallet, and sends the change back to you with this new address that is now in your wallet.  It is the private key for this new address that you would need to export if you want to import those coins somewhere else.  The change coins are no longer associated with the address where you originally received the 3.5 BTC.

[CIYAM]

Define "deleted things", because all I did was export the .dat file and reopen it with a new client. Was there something else I was supposed to take with me?

If you copied the "wallet.dat" file then I don't think you should have any problem at all (although am not sure exactly what you mean by "export" wrt to wallet.dat).

[Bradlibs93]

Define "deleted things", because all I did was export the .dat file and reopen it with a new client. Was there something else I was supposed to take with me?

If you copied the "wallet.dat" file then I don't think you should have any problem at all (although am not sure exactly what you mean by "export" wrt to wallet.dat).

Yeah, I went to "back up wallet", saved the wallet.dat to a flash drive, then opened it back up on a new computer. So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

[memvola]

Yeah, I went to "back up wallet", saved the wallet.dat to a flash drive, then opened it back up on a new computer. So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

Yup. The change from the transaction is at another address. (That address won't be visible through the client but is in your wallet and included in the total.)

[CIYAM]

Yeah, I went to "back up wallet", saved the wallet.dat to a flash drive, then opened it back up on a new computer. So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

Yes (you can always download the blockchain rather than wait if you are willing to trust a downloaded version).

[Raoul Duke]

Define "deleted things", because all I did was export the .dat file and reopen it with a new client. Was there something else I was supposed to take with me?

If you copied the "wallet.dat" file then I don't think you should have any problem at all (although am not sure exactly what you mean by "export" wrt to wallet.dat).

Yeah, I went to "back up wallet", saved the wallet.dat to a flash drive, then opened it back up on a new computer. So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

Or export the private key for the change address and import it on blockchain.info like you did to the other one.

[Bradlibs93]

Yeah, I went to "back up wallet", saved the wallet.dat to a flash drive, then opened it back up on a new computer. So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

Yup. The change from the transaction is at another address. (That address won't be visible through the client but is in your wallet and included in the total.)

Ah, that's a relief. On the other hand, I still don't get why it wouldn't show up on my blockchain.info wallet.

[DannyHamilton]

. . .So I guess I just have to wait for the block chain?

Not necessarily.

From what you've said here, it sounds to me like you know how to export a private key from your wallet.  You can export the private key that is associated with the "change address" (the address you said you saw in blockchain.info) from your wallet.dat.  If you can import that private key into your virtual wallet, then you should have immediate access to those coins.

[DannyHamilton]

. . . On the other hand, I still don't get why it wouldn't show up on my blockchain.info wallet.

Because you imported the wrong private key.  The coins that were sent to the address associated with that private key have already been spent.  The coins that are in your wallet are now associated with a different private key (the private key for the "change address" that you saw when you looked up your previous transaction in blockchain.info).  If you export that new private key and import it into your virtual wallet, the coins will be there.

[Bradlibs93]

. . . On the other hand, I still don't get why it wouldn't show up on my blockchain.info wallet.

Because you imported the wrong private key.  The coins that were sent to the address associated with that private key have already been spent.  The coins that are in your wallet are now associated with a different private key (the private key for the "change address" that you saw when you looked up your previous transaction in blockchain.info).  If you export that new private key and import it into your virtual wallet, the coins will be there.

Okay, well I just tried to export that address using the same method as my other address and it gave me "couldn't connect to server". I'm following the same mental steps as before, to the tee. Is there a different process?

[memvola]

In short, you can't spend some portion of coins from an address, you always spend all of it. The excess of the coins are sent to a change address.

The change address can be the original address, so that the result would be what you had expected at first. The default Bitcoin client doesn't work that way, it pulls a new address from the address pool.

Okay, well I just tried to export that address using the same method as my other address and it gave me "couldn't connect to server". I'm following the same mental steps as before, to the tee. Is there a different process?

Make sure bitcoind is running or "server=1" is defined in bitcoin.conf if you are using the GUI client.

[DannyHamilton]

. . . On the other hand, I still don't get why it wouldn't show up on my blockchain.info wallet.

Because you imported the wrong private key.  The coins that were sent to the address associated with that private key have already been spent.  The coins that are in your wallet are now associated with a different private key (the private key for the "change address" that you saw when you looked up your previous transaction in blockchain.info).  If you export that new private key and import it into your virtual wallet, the coins will be there.

Okay, well I just tried to export that address using the same method as my other address and it gave me "couldn't connect to server". I'm following the same mental steps as before, to the tee. Is there a different process?

No, the process should be the same.  It would seem that you are missing a step this time that you didn't miss last time.  I'm not sure what process you are using, so I can't be certain what step you are missing, but my best guess is that this time you either don't have the client program running while you are attempting the export, or this time it isn't running in server mode and last time it was.

[Bradlibs93]

. . . On the other hand, I still don't get why it wouldn't show up on my blockchain.info wallet.

Because you imported the wrong private key.  The coins that were sent to the address associated with that private key have already been spent.  The coins that are in your wallet are now associated with a different private key (the private key for the "change address" that you saw when you looked up your previous transaction in blockchain.info).  If you export that new private key and import it into your virtual wallet, the coins will be there.

Okay, well I just tried to export that address using the same method as my other address and it gave me "couldn't connect to server". I'm following the same mental steps as before, to the tee. Is there a different process?

No, the process should be the same.  It would seem that you are missing a step this time that you didn't miss last time.  I'm not sure what process you are using, so I can't be certain what step you are missing, but my best guess is that this time you either don't have the client program running while you are attempting the export, or this time it isn't running in server mode and last time it was.

I run bitcoind from the command prompt and wait like two minutes, then run bitcoind dumpprivkey [address] in a new command window.


I'm going to try it from the client, but the above method worked multiple times in the past.



EDIT: It worked, but when I imported it to blockchain it still said I didn't have the 2 BTC. Mehhhh

[memvola]

EDIT: It worked, but when I imported it to blockchain it still said I didn't have the 2 BTC. Mehhhh

If it didn't produce the same address as the change address you saw through blockchain.info's transaction details page, it's probably isn't the right key. If it did, then you should see the 2 BTC sitting there.

[DannyHamilton]

EDIT: It worked, but when I imported it to blockchain it still said I didn't have the 2 BTC. Mehhhh

Sounds like you still aren't importing the right private key.  Perhaps you made another small transaction after the one that sent 1.45 BTC?  If you'll post the transactionID or one of the public addresses I can probably help you figure out which are the addresses you need to export private keys.

Note: (hopefully obviously) don't post any of the private keys, just the public addresses or the transactionID.

[Bradlibs93]

EDIT: It worked, but when I imported it to blockchain it still said I didn't have the 2 BTC. Mehhhh

If it didn't produce the same address as the change address you saw through blockchain.info's transaction details page, it's probably isn't the right key. If it did, then you should see the 2 BTC sitting there.

Yeah, the address was wrong. It worked now ^^ thanks so much for all your help.