I'm a journalist - I have 'lost' my Bitcoin - Requesting help on this story.

[CosmicVisionNews]

Greetings all,

I am an international, alternative news journalist.  I have been following Bitcoin since 2013, and even recommended to my listeners to get into it.

I have now been able to raise some funds to buy in myself - so I am very new to the buying/selling/trading part, BUT I now have another challenge.  I have lost some of my BTC.

A friend was trying to help me, and he has been working with this for several months longer than I have.  He made a withdrawal from his IR account in Australia and we THOUGHT it was going into my Kraken account.  Somehow however, it appears that the transaction has ended up in Poloniex.  I had been thinking about setting up an account in Poloniex, but I wanted to wait until I had learned a little more.

Neither of us have any idea what has happened to it.

I now have a Poloniex account, but the Poloniex people, Kraken people and others do not seem to want to help.  I am trying to build a network of people who may be available to help me better communicate this new way of doing business, but until I am able to resolve and understand what has happened here, I am not sure how I can report on the positive benefits of Bitcoin if people are able to lose their deposits the way I have. 

If I as a beginner and as a journalist reporting on this can lose something...then others can also.  I want to help them avoid whatever mistake I may have made.

These are the details I have, and I hope that it may be enough for someone to help restore my faith in this.

XBT:  0.95500000
TxID:  50d44110378a552b172f2443dc92d00cfe1fd5e52f36a0d6ae2832b69757714b

Sent to:   1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m

If we can find it, perhaps I can also retrieve it?

Is there someone who may be available, and kindly willing to assist in this resolution and understanding?

With gratitude,
Geoffrey
Cosmic Vision News

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[ranochigo]

Your transaction can't magically change path to go to another address once you have sent it. Which address did you paste it into? If you didn't paste the correct address, no one can help you. It might be a simple mistake of copying the wrong address or malware.

What is IR? If your friend is sure that he pasted the address that he intended to, it is the wallet's fault. Contact the online wallet provider if you want. Neither Kraken nor Poloniex can or will refund your coin. The only thing for you to do now is to move on.

[defined]

I now have a Poloniex account

Have you sent it to your account or to a random account at Poloniex?
If it is your own account, check your account. If it is a random account, you sent your 0.95500000 to somebody else.

https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/50d44110378a552b172f2443dc92d00cfe1fd5e52f36a0d6ae2832b69757714b/
Your transaction was 3 months ago, when did you first take action?

Copying and pasting an address without checking it is a risk. Computer viruses can change the address you paste, or you can accidentally copy the wrong address.

[tiggytomb]

This whole story is rather confusing.  You found out that the bitcoin was sent to Poloniex but you did not have an account at Poloniex until afterwards, how did you know it went to Poloniex?

It looks like you have entered the wrong address when sending your bitcoin, it is essential when sending bitcoin that you double check the address it is going to in the same manner you would double check an account number and sort code that you are sending fiat to.

If somehow you are able to find out who owns that address they might be very nice and return the bitcoin to you but the chance of this happening is slim as it would prove very difficult to find out who owns that address unless you open a thread in here asking who owns the address and hope that they see it and are honest.

Bottom line is it looks like you have lost your bitcoin.

[cr1776]

Where did your friend obtain the 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m address?  It looks like there have been a number of transactions to and from it.

[CosmicVisionNews]

To Ranochigo - IR is 'Independent Reserve', an exchange in Australia.

To CR1776 - My friend received this from his IR exchange in Australia.

To TiggyTomb:

What we think we understand so far is this.  We were intending to send the money to a Kraken account, which was my first verified exchange account. At that time, I did not have a Poloniex account.  Poloniex did not offer help because I did not have an account with them.

During this first attempted deposit, we believed we were sending it to the Kraken account.  However, due to the multi-signature process within the exchange security tools, I do not have access to the previous wallet address.

I have already attempted to ask Kraken, but they are not responding.  This has taken too long, so I am trying to collect as much information.

My friend has an address to which the deposit was sent.

We were advice from an admin at Bitcoin.org within the IRC community forum.  They tracked down, through this link.

http://bitcoinwhoswho.com/address/1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m

As far as I am able to determine at this time, this is linked to Poloniex.

I apologize if I am not wholly clear.  I am still trying to get a grip on the information and the terminology.

Is there anyone at a higher level, who may be able to take on this challenging puzzle?

Thanks everyone for taking a few moments to assist!

[DannyHamilton]

As a journalist, I would have thought you'd be aware of the importance of reporting all the necessary information.

You've given us very little to go on, and the little bit that you have explained doesn't make any sense at all.

EDIT:  I see that you've added new information while I was typing this.

What is an "IR account".
Why did you "THINK" it was going into your Kraken account?
Did you send him the deposit address that Kraken supplied you with?
Why does it "APPEAR" that the transaction ended up in Poloniex?
Did you give your friend a Poloniex address address?
If so, how did you get that address if you don't have a Poloniex account?
If not, then where did your friend get the Poloniex address from, or how did you determine that it was a Poloniex address?
Why did you wait 3 months to ask for help?

My best guess right now from the very limited amount of nonsense that you've shared is that...

• You highlighted the deposit address in Kraken and used the "copy" function of your computer/browser to add the address to your computer's clipboard.
• Some malware on your computer (or a malicious plugin in your browser) modified the address in the clipboard to a thief's address
• You used the "paste" function of your computer to paste the address into a message to your friend
• You failed to notice that the address was not your Kraken address and that malware had changed it
• Your friend sent the bitcoins to the address that you sent to him (The thief's address)
• The thief received and spent the bitcoins that your friend sent to him
• You did not receive any bitcoins since they weren't sent to you, and there is nothing that can be done to recover them

[CosmicVisionNews]

Thank you everyone,

Another friend who is a bit more knowledgeable seems to understand it on a basic level, but he is equally puzzled.  He feels this issue is above all of our heads, based on the responses.

I have presented the information I have, and I'm sorry it is confusing to some.  It is confusing to me, so maybe I am not explaining it in layman's terms.

I may have to take this challenge in another direction.

I hope you all have great success.

[DannyHamilton]

Another friend who is a bit more knowledgeable seems to understand it on a basic level, but he is equally puzzled.  He feels this issue is above all of our heads, based on the responses.

The way bitcoin works is:

• The intended recipient has an account with a service or runs their own wallet software
• The intended recipient requests a bitcoin address from their account or wallet
• The intended recipent gives that address to the sender
• The sender has an account with a service or runs their own wallet software
• The sender has access to some amount of bitcoins at the service or in their wallet software
• The sender requests the service or wallet to create a transaction that pays an amount of bitcoins less than or equal to the amount the sender can access to the address that they received from the intended recipient
• The service or wallet to creates the requested transaction and broadcasts it to the network
• The transaction is eventually included in a block in the blockchain (confirmed) by a miner
• The intended recipient's service or wallet then has access to the bitcoins that were transferred with the transaction

So, there are only a few places where this could have gone wrong.

• 1. You (as intended recipient) didn't get the address from Kraken.
• 2. You (as intended recipient) did get the address from Kraken, but it became modified by malware after Kraken supplied it and before you gave it to the sender.
• 3. The sender didn't use the address that you gave him.
• 4. The sender thought he used the address that you gave him, but it became modified by malware after he received it and before he used it.
• 5. The sender's service (IR) failed to create and send the transaction that the sender requested.

That's it.

One of those things happened. All you need to do to understand what happened is figure out which one.

I suggest you go back through your communications with the sender and see what was requested.
I also suggest you and the sender both carefully check your computers for malware and malicious browser plug-ins.

[cr1776]

To Ranochigo - IR is 'Independent Reserve', an exchange in Australia.

To CR1776 - My friend received this from his IR exchange in Australia.
...

If your friend received that address from "his IR exchange in Australia", one would think it would be one of their addresses.  It doesn't make any sense that IR would be providing anyone an address for a different service such as Kraken.  If so, have you contacted IR support to see if it is one of their own addresses?   Of course, if he didn't really "receive it" from "his IR exchange" and instead used an address that he had previously sent bitcoin to from IR in error he would probably know who that was based on his transaction history at IR who that address belonged to.

As DannyHamilton said above, something got messed up in one of the listed steps. It seems prudent to verify that the address "1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m" actually was provided by IR *or* whether it was something your friend had sent to previously, *or* if that address was changed by malware on either of your machines.  

If it was provided by IR, why are they providing addresses for different services?

[DannyHamilton]

If your friend received that address from "his IR exchange in Australia", one would think it would be one of their addresses.  It doesn't make any sense that IR would be providing anyone an address for a different service such as Kraken.

I suspect that he means:

"My friend looked at his transaction history on IR to see where the bitcoins were sent to."

Not:

"My friend got an address from IR and then used that address to send the bitcoins to me."

When you asked "Where did your friend obtain the 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m address", I think the OP didn't realize that you meant:

"How did your friend choose an address to send the bitcoins to?"

And instead accidentally thought that you meant:

"How did you determine that the address 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m was the one you had used?"

If so, have you contacted IR support to see if it is one of their own addresses?   Of course, if he didn't really "receive it" from "his IR exchange" and instead used an address that he had previously sent bitcoin to from IR in error he would probably know who that was based on his transaction history at IR who that address belonged to.

These are possibilities, but I suspect that the more likely scenario is a mis-communiation between yourself and OP.

As DannyHamilton said above, something got messed up in one of the listed steps. It seems prudent to verify that the address "1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m" actually was provided by IR *or* whether it was something your friend had sent to previously, *or* if that address was changed by malware on either of your machines.

Yes.  The important question that ONLY the OP and his friend can answer is:

"What was communicated when you were getting ready to send the transaction, and where did that information come from?"

If it was provided by IR, why are they providing addresses for different services?

I doubt that they are.

[cr1776]

I agree with what you said.  I wanted to make sure he was being precise in what he said as that could help to eliminate the possibilities where the error was made.  ;-)

I will be interested to see if he returns.

If your friend received that address from "his IR exchange in Australia", one would think it would be one of their addresses.  It doesn't make any sense that IR would be providing anyone an address for a different service such as Kraken.

I suspect that he means:

"My friend looked at his transaction history on IR to see where the bitcoins were sent to."

Not:

"My friend got an address from IR and then used that address to send the bitcoins to me."

When you asked "Where did your friend obtain the 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m address", I think the OP didn't realize that you meant:

"How did your friend choose an address to send the bitcoins to?"

And instead accidentally thought that you meant:

"How did you determine that the address 1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m was the one you had used?"

If so, have you contacted IR support to see if it is one of their own addresses?   Of course, if he didn't really "receive it" from "his IR exchange" and instead used an address that he had previously sent bitcoin to from IR in error he would probably know who that was based on his transaction history at IR who that address belonged to.

These are possibilities, but I suspect that the more likely scenario is a mis-communiation between yourself and OP.

As DannyHamilton said above, something got messed up in one of the listed steps. It seems prudent to verify that the address "1NxR3TLr1AXYYodX7EC2PVYqWL1XuQcC8m" actually was provided by IR *or* whether it was something your friend had sent to previously, *or* if that address was changed by malware on either of your machines.

Yes.  The important question that ONLY the OP and his friend can answer is:

"What was communicated when you were getting ready to send the transaction, and where did that information come from?"

If it was provided by IR, why are they providing addresses for different services?

I doubt that they are.