Computer is typing a different BTC address than I copied

[kdvanderford]

I recently made my first electrum BTC transaction, and am having trouble. The destination address of this transaction is showing up different in the blockchain summary than it was copied and pasted into the send to box during the transaction. I have communicated with someone on this board and they suspect that I have a malware issue which is causing this to happen. Currently my transaction is stuck due to a "low fee" issue, and I have shut down my wallet to keep it from rebroadcasting, hoping that the transaction will fail altogether. Can someone help me with this problem?

https://blockchain.info/address/1KreqwUSUK3aRzP6Y32vPDvXUz3E31vApx

[1715225766]

1715225766

[1715225766]

1715225766

[1715225766]

1715225766

[OmegaStarScream]

Whoever told you that you might have a malware in your PC is correct, this issue has been reported by multiple people over the years and using different wallets so It has nothing to do with Electrum, If your bitcoins aren't gone yet from wallet It means that the malware can only detect and change the pasted bitcoin address and don't really have much access but still, you may want to scan your PC as should be or move your coins somewhere more secure.

[kdvanderford]

move your coins somewhere more secure.

at this time, I do not have access to my BTC. It is still showing as unconfirmed because of "low fee" but my balance is now zero. The BTC is somewhere in lalah land. Will the transaction fail and I will have access to my BTC again?

[achow101]

at this time, I do not have access to my BTC. It is still showing as unconfirmed because of "low fee" but my balance is now zero. The BTC is somewhere in lalah land. Will the transaction fail and I will have access to my BTC again?

No. An unconfirmed transaction with a low fee can still confirm. The only way to guarantee that it won't confirm is to create a double spending transaction which confirms.

To recover your Bitcoin while the transaction is unconfirmed (and only while it is unconfirmed), you need to somehow clear all of the unconfirmed transactions from your Electrum wallet and create a new transaction which sends the Bitcoin back to yourself. Only do that once you have run anti-malware software on your computer to clean out the malware that is causing the issue.

[kdvanderford]

at this time, I do not have access to my BTC. It is still showing as unconfirmed because of "low fee" but my balance is now zero. The BTC is somewhere in lalah land. Will the transaction fail and I will have access to my BTC again?

To recover your Bitcoin while the transaction is unconfirmed (and only while it is unconfirmed), you need to somehow clear all of the unconfirmed transactions from your Electrum wallet and create a new transaction which sends the Bitcoin back to yourself.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to go about doing this. I suppose my only possibility of recovery at this point is the chance that the transaction will not confirm.

[jackg]

move your coins somewhere more secure.

at this time, I do not have access to my BTC. It is still showing as unconfirmed because of "low fee" but my balance is now zero. The BTC is somewhere in lalah land. Will the transaction fail and I will have access to my BTC again?

OK. So for a small regular TX fee you can get your bitcoins fairly easily out of that electrum wallet (and the computer).
1. Change the fees to be set to being fairly high (enough to confirm, using the dynamic fees option - just in case this is required - it does not alter transactions already sent).
2. Download a mobile wallet (if your coins are stored on a PC).
3. Make a backup of said mobile wallet (not necessary but recommended, if possible with a blank sd card that you can remove and store somewhere).
4. Go to electrum and select the "addresses" tab.
5. Select the addresses with money in them and right click them, select "private key", enter your password, click the QR code icon.
6. On your phone app, select sweep papwer wallet (or something that says sweep in the menu tab) and scan the QR code that is on your screen (Don't share this private key though).
7. Repeat this for all addresses.

It may be useful to do this before an antivirus scan as some of them have a tendency to delete electrum and the corrosponding files (and if you have a lot of viruses it'll be difficult to locate the electrum instance to recover those files - but you can copy the electrum data file).

Another note, don't share your private keys as that gives anyone access to your BTC.

[BillyBobZorton]

I have no idea about Electrum and a reason I use Bitcoin Core is that when something like this happens I can use the -zapwallet option to clear any unconfirmed stuck transactions.

In any case when you solve this... forget about running AV or anything. You should save your electrum seed or whatever, get the coins safe, and format your computer. Wipe the entire thing, save any data (no executables or anything that could contain code... so music and video files are usually ok as far as I know)

Also for any relevant amounts of BTC I recommend that you install linux to run electrum, or maybe just get bitcoin core and make wallet.dat backups and save them in offline devices like an usb... learn about more options and make sure this does not happen again.

[jackg]

I have no idea about Electrum and a reason I use Bitcoin Core is that when something like this happens I can use the -zapwallet option to clear any unconfirmed stuck transactions.

In any case when you solve this... forget about running AV or anything. You should save your electrum seed or whatever, get the coins safe, and format your computer. Wipe the entire thing, save any data (no executables or anything that could contain code... so music and video files are usually ok as far as I know)

Also for any relevant amounts of BTC I recommend that you install linux to run electrum, or maybe just get bitcoin core and make wallet.dat backups and save them in offline devices like an usb... learn about more options and make sure this does not happen again.

Music, video and sound files can still contain viruses in metadata. Where possible, it's probably good to delete and redownload them as well as they may be contaminated.
Antivirus may be useful first for if it can find anything. Bitcoin core also has to sync the entire blockchain first which takes a while to do. So electrum's probably better but you can cancel unconfirmed transactions on bitcoin core. It uses lots of hard drive space unless you use pruning.

[DannyHamilton]

Transaction is now confirmed. There isn't anything more you can do about that.

Now, I suggest you clean the malware out of your computer so this doesn't happen again.

[Arcteryx]

move your coins somewhere more secure.

at this time, I do not have access to my BTC. It is still showing as unconfirmed because of "low fee" but my balance is now zero. The BTC is somewhere in lalah land. Will the transaction fail and I will have access to my BTC again?

OK. So for a small regular TX fee you can get your bitcoins fairly easily out of that electrum wallet (and the computer).
1. Change the fees to be set to being fairly high (enough to confirm, using the dynamic fees option - just in case this is required - it does not alter transactions already sent).
2. Download a mobile wallet (if your coins are stored on a PC).
3. Make a backup of said mobile wallet (not necessary but recommended, if possible with a blank sd card that you can remove and store somewhere).
4. Go to electrum and select the "addresses" tab.
5. Select the addresses with money in them and right click them, select "private key", enter your password, click the QR code icon.
6. On your phone app, select sweep papwer wallet (or something that says sweep in the menu tab) and scan the QR code that is on your screen (Don't share this private key though).
7. Repeat this for all addresses.

It may be useful to do this before an antivirus scan as some of them have a tendency to delete electrum and the corrosponding files (and if you have a lot of viruses it'll be difficult to locate the electrum instance to recover those files - but you can copy the electrum data file).

Another note, don't share your private keys as that gives anyone access to your BTC.

Thanks for this little tutorial on doing this cause I just started using Electrum and have had some difficulty in navigating and understanding what is being done once I do send some bitcoin out from it.
Have some unconfirmed transactions and one being parent so can't make out why it doesn't confirm but will try what you have said to do.
About malware, does anyone know what the strain is called that replaces the wallet address when copy and pasting the one you want too but changes it to the thieves wallet address?

[User365]

Well I am quite sure you have a virus on your PC, try to run you Antivirus, if the problem is still there, you might consider trying another AV or if you don´t user data anyways you could reinstall the OS.