Bitref and Electrum balances not matching

[mystics]

After did bitcoin transaction. I've checked my balance in Electrum wallet shows correct but in BitRef its display significantly higher transaction amount.
Is it normal? What is my actual balance?Balance on bitref or balance from Electrum?

[pooya87]

since Bitref is a poorly designed website with sole purpose of putting banner ads on either side of the page, i am going to say BitRef is showing you the wrong balance. you can always double check your balances on other block-explorers that are proper not just any random website you can find (such as BitRef)! try blockchain.info, blockcypher, blockexplorer, smartbit.com.au and lots of other popular ones.

[bob123]

From mainpage of bitref:

Data Source: Blockchain.info

Since blockchain.info mostly(!) shows correct information and electrum too, i think both are showing the correct amount.
Bitcoin transactions are always made of unspent transaction outputs (UTXO) which have been 'assigned to your address' in a prior transactions (technically not correct, but should be easily understandable).

This means:
If you receive 1 BTC and send 0.1 btc to another address the transaction will have 1 input (1 BTC) and 2 outputs (0.1 to your destination address + 0.9 to a new change address of your wallet) (ignoring the fees).
In this case electrum will show you a 0.9 btc balance (which is correct) and some blockchain explorer will show a total amount of 1 btc sent (which also is correct).

For more information and a more insight sight you can look here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

I'd still recommend a better blockchain explorer (e.g. blockcypher, blocktrail, btc.com or blockchain.info (where BitRef is scraping the information from)).

[nc50lc]

After did bitcoin transaction. I've checked my balance in Electrum wallet shows correct but in BitRef its display significantly higher transaction amount.
Is it normal? What is my actual balance?Balance on bitref or balance from Electrum?

The "higher transaction amount" was an address that belongs to your electrum wallet.
Why you're seeing the correct balance in your electrum but not in BitRef is that every blockexplorer only displays the balance of an address, not all the addresses within a wallet.

As explained by bob123, that is called the change address.
It's like: You payed 10bucks for a 2bucks item using your right hand(input address), you received the change 8Bucks using your left hand(change address).

If you want your future transaction's excess btc to return to the same address, disable change address in the settings.
Tools->Preferences->Transactions->Uncheck "Use change addresses"