Electrum funds are "frozen"

[joshdomusmk2]

I sent £28 worth of BTC to my Electrum wallet (5.7mBTC) the other day. In that same session I went to send it to another wallet on my other computer, and had an error when I went to send it (something to do with the network.) Soon after, when I tried to send my bitcoin after changing servers to see if that'd work, my funds have become "frozen". I am not too familiar at all with how bitcoin works, but when I try to type in the amount I want to send, the message comes up on the bottom of my screen, then if I do try to send it it says "Insufficient funds". I went to check the addresses to see if any of them were frozen, in case that had something to do with is, they were all fine. I checked on blocktrail to try to figure out what was going on and I saw a transaction made between one of the addresses and another address that isn't in my list, with the transaction of 5.7mBTC going to it. That wallet has more bitcoin in it now, more than I had to start off with. Could my bitcoin be compromised? I've looked quite a bit but have no answers.

https://gyazo.com/ad0bae8ac7a8b5508cc2e5f5f2f1ff97

https://gyazo.com/b2f2b6657473d8c663be93d46510f59d

https://gyazo.com/f6ef0e4d5860c495df842e8347423d4a

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[aleksej996]

Could you share your Bitcoin addresses involving this, please?

There is no such thing as frozen bitcoins, this isn't a banking system. Your bitcoins are always somewhere and can always be spent.
Don't panic if you see your bitcoins in an address that you don't recognize, most wallets generate new addresses automatically called "change addresses".

PS: Seems like you are using Windows on a computer where you have your bitcoins, so it is completely possible that you were compromised.
Please consider using Linux when dealing with money on your computer, Windows security is bad enough when there is no money involved.

[cissrawk]

Looks like you need to unfreeze the address that have bitcoin balance, go to "Address" tab and select address that contain your bitcoin or address that get blue highlight(at least in my pc), right click and click unfreeze.

In-case if image doesn't show

Hope this solved your problem.

[Kakmakr]

What does it mean to “freeze” an address in Electrum?

When you freeze an address, the funds in that address will not be used for sending bitcoins. You cannot send bitcoins if you don’t have enough funds in the non-frozen addresses.

Sourced from : http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html

It was also discussed here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1821975.0  <If you want to know, why people want that option.>

[joshdomusmk2]

The address in the screenshot seems to be gaining more money every day... and my funds are slowly decreasing. None of the addresses are frozen, I've already checked, I just can't find anywhere on the internet what "5.7mBTC are frozen" means in Electrum.

[buwaytress]

First, you need to confirm the funds are actually still in your wallet. When your Electrum is fully synced and connected to the network (green button bottom right corner), look on the left bottom corner for the total balance available. Do you still have 5.7 mBTC?

When you try to spend, use the exclamation mark "!" in the total and press enter, that's the max amount you can spend after fees (you might try reducing fees to the min first).

Hard to say without full details but from what it looks like (you don't recall spending anything, yet the funds moved), your wallet has indeed been compromised.

[joshdomusmk2]

my funds have remained mostly the same, says my 5.7mBTC is still there. However it has been slowly decreasing day by day, it was £28, now it's around £26
https://gyazo.com/32d011935eb49472437b473ea958e60e

[LoyceV]

my funds have remained mostly the same, says my 5.7mBTC is still there. However it has been slowly decreasing day by day, it was £28, now it's around £26

That's normal: the exchange rate varies. See the graph: https://bitcoinaverage.com/en/bitcoin-price/btc-to-gbp

[HCP]

my funds have remained mostly the same, says my 5.7mBTC is still there. However it has been slowly decreasing day by day, it was £28, now it's around £26
https://gyazo.com/32d011935eb49472437b473ea958e60e

If you are dealing with Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency)... my advice is to stick with using the crypto units. Cryptocurrencies are so volatile that the fiat value is constantly changing... As Loyce pointed out, BTC dropped a fair bit this last week, so it's no real surprise your "fiat" value has decreased from £28 to £26

As for you inability to move the BTC... if you still see "x.x mBTC are frozen" when you try to send, then this usually means that you have frozen the addresses and will need to unfreeze them as per cissrawk's post above.


However, after checking out the address that you showed... I can see 0.0057 BTC is transferred to it FROM this address - 1PSW94E6hS9hX1MhuJCPbytzpekrJpgmQi

Is that actually your address shown in Electrum? If so, it would indeed appear to indicate that your wallet/seed may have been compromised... as the 0.0057 (5.7mBTC) was originally transferred into that "1PSW94" address... and then ~2 minutes later was transferred out to the "1GoFrX" address (with a really high fee)!!?!

Where did you download your copy of Electrum from? and did you check the digital signatures to ensure it was legit?

[joshdomusmk2]

The Electrum is definitely legit, downloaded it directly from the site. The value of my bitcoin decreasing makes sense now, thank you for pointing it out. As for my wallet address, it is not 1PSW94E6hS9hX1MhuJCPbytzpekrJpgmQi. That is one of the addresses in the list, the only one that appears to have made some sort of transaction. When I sent the bitcoin over to my wallet, I tried to send it to my other wallet immediately. I was going to buy something online, and after receiving a network error when trying to send, I changed the server, then they became "frozen"... if my coins are truly compromised, it didn't take long at all for them to be taken, a couple of hours maybe

[HCP]

As for my wallet address, it is not 1PSW94E6hS9hX1MhuJCPbytzpekrJpgmQi. That is one of the addresses in the list, the only one that appears to have made some sort of transaction.

You don't have A wallet address... you have multiple (technically an infinite number!)

If you are clicking the "receive" tab and wondering why the address displayed is NOT the same as this "1PSW94" address, it is because Electrum likes to give you a new address every time the previous one is used to try and prevent "address re-use"

When I sent the bitcoin over to my wallet, I tried to send it to my other wallet immediately. I was going to buy something online, and after receiving a network error when trying to send, I changed the server, then they became "frozen"... if my coins are truly compromised, it didn't take long at all for them to be taken, a couple of hours maybe

So you tried to send the funds FROM your Electrum wallet to the "1GoFrXCswWYPbqQGZUFqgqj12YxREULLJQ" address immediately? In that case, whatever that "network error" was, it didn't prevent you from sending the coins. They have gone.

What wallet is that "1GoFrX" address from? As that is currently where your coins are. They are no longer in your Electrum wallet. If Electrum is not reflecting this, then it's likely not synced properly... what colour is the dot in the bottom right corner? Is it Green or Red?

[Abdussamad]

We can't see the whole picture looking at addresses on block explorers. Did you look for frozen addresses  on the addresses tab? Wallet menu > addresses > filter will let you filter the list. You can also search for individual addresses using ctrl+f.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

When you freeze an address, the funds in that address will not be used for sending bitcoins. You cannot send bitcoins if you don’t have enough funds in the non-frozen addresses.

That helps tremendously--I didn't know addresses could be frozen on Electrum at all.  I have an Electrum wallet for Android, and it's one of my least favorite ones, but I also have the PC version and I like it a hell of a lot better.  I haven't read much about the workings of it since most of the technical stuff I'll never use and is probably over my head anyway.  Very good explanation. 

This is why bitcointalk is great.  There are some seriously brainy folks here who spread a lot of knowledge.