Help with stuck transaction [Newb mistake]

[rabbitfairferry]

So I tried to cheap out and choose the lowest fee option on Trezor. Transaction has been stuck for more than a week. Unfortunately, I can't go by the RBF option and transaction accelerators are too expensive.

However, what I realized is that Electrum still reflects my original balance before I posted the transaction. Can I then do the following to unstuck the transaction?
(1) Go to Electrum and by coin control (https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-spend-specific-utxos-in-electrum/) send the same transaction but with a higher fee.
(2) I would be spending from the same address as my stuck transaction ie. address starting with 3L1Y (https://i.imgur.com/f8oWW2O.png)

Question 1: Does this work?
Question 2: Do I have to send the exact same amount as my previous transaction?
Question 3: Anything I should be aware of prior to doing this?

Thanks fam!

[jackg]

It'll cost you nothing to try and might be the cheapest option.  Your funds aren't at risk.

Once done and it works
Do you control any of the receiving addresses (eg a change address) ? As you could spend the funds sent to that address at a higher rate but if electrum has already forgotten about the transaction it might be harder it set up (unless electrum says "+x btc unconfirmed".

[rabbitfairferry]

It'll cost you nothing to try and might be the cheapest option.  Your funds aren't at risk.

Thanks my concern here is that I could end up double spending?

Meaning instead of sending x BTC to the intended address, I could end up sending 2x?

Is there a way to confirm (after doing it) that I have overwritten the old transaction?

Once done and it works
Do you control any of the receiving addresses (eg a change address) ? As you could spend the funds sent to that address at a higher rate but if electrum has already forgotten about the transaction it might be harder it set up (unless electrum says "+x btc unconfirmed".

How do I know whether I control a receiving address?

Also, what do you mean by "you could spend the funds sent to that address at a higher rate"?

Thanks!

[witcher_sense]

Thanks my concern here is that I could end up double spending?

Meaning instead of sending x BTC to the intended address, I could end up sending 2x?

Is there a way to confirm (after doing it) that I have overwritten the old transaction?

Part of the reason bitcoin is a valuable digital currency is that you can't spend the same UTXOs twice. If there are two conflicting transactions that are trying to spend the same coins, only one of them will be included in a block. The other will get dropped and become invalid. Most likely the second transaction with a higher fee will be included first thereby making the lower fee transaction invalid. Please note, both transactions cannot be included in the same block either because it would make the whole block invalid and rejected by the network. Please also note, if you decide to do nothing about your transaction and leave it alone, if it is not confirmed after 14 days it will be dropped out of the mempool, which means you can construct another transaction with a higher fee.

How do I know whether I control a receiving address?

Also, what do you mean by "you could spend the funds sent to that address at a higher rate"?

In simple terms, if you can spend coins attached to an address, you control that address. In other words, you have a private key corresponding to the address that gives you a right to move coins to another address.

[rabbitfairferry]

Part of the reason bitcoin is a valuable digital currency is that you can't spend the same UTXOs twice. If there are two conflicting transactions that are trying to spend the same coins, only one of them will be included in a block. The other will get dropped and become invalid. Most likely the second transaction with a higher fee will be included first thereby making the lower fee transaction invalid.

Thanks so just to confirm. If I do the following transaction (from the same UTXO)

Earlier transaction: Send 1 btc @ lower fee
Later transaction: Send 2 btc @ higher fee.

(1) Would it be correct to say that the 2 btc transaction will replace the 1 btc transaction?

(2) How does the bitcoin network distinguish this from there being 2 separate transactions eg. to send a total of 3 btc? Assumption here is that the UTXO has more than 3 btc.

Thanks.

[witcher_sense]

Earlier transaction: Send 1 btc @ lower fee
Later transaction: Send 2 btc @ higher fee.

(1) Would it be correct to say that the 2 btc transaction will replace the 1 btc transaction?

(2) How does the bitcoin network distinguish this from there being 2 separate transactions eg. to send a total of 3 btc? Assumption here is that the UTXO has more than 3 btc.

Thanks.

1) The second transaction doesn't replace the first one since they both are in the pool of unconfirmed transaction. Both are valid until one of them gets confirmed. The reason the higher fee transaction may be confirmed faster than the previous low fee one is that miners are usually incentivized to maximize their profits and strive to include transactions with a higher fee.  

2) The thing is you can't spend part of the UTXO. So if your UTXO contains 3BTC, and you need to buy a cup of coffee worth 1BTC, you end up sending 1BTC to the coffee shop owner and 2BTC back to yourself. That transaction will destroy the old 3 BTC UTXO and create two new ones 1BTC for coffee 2BTC as change. For simplicity, I didn't include transaction fee.


EDIT: Okay, you bought your cup of coffee and now you have one UTXO with 2BTC. But the transaction is still shown as unconfirmed. What can you do to make it confirmed faster? You can send your 2BTC to your another address and set higher fees. By doing this, you will create a chain of unconfirmed transactions. Miners will notice that your last transaction is paying high fees and therefore will include the whole chain in the block.

[rabbitfairferry]

1) The second transaction doesn't replace the first one since they both are in the pool of unconfirmed transaction. Both are valid until one of them gets confirmed. The reason the higher fee transaction may be confirmed faster than the previous low fee one is that miners are usually incentivized to maximize their profits and strive to include transactions with a higher fee. 

2) The thing is you can't spend part of the UTXO. So if your UTXO contains 3BTC, and you need to buy a cup of coffee worth 1BTC, you end up sending 1BTC to the coffee shop owner and 2BTC back to yourself. That transaction will destroy the old 3 BTC UTXO and create two new ones 1BTC for coffee 2BTC as change. For simplicity, I didn't include transaction fee.

Thanks bud. Will try this later and report back

[Charles-Tim]

Thanks bud. Will try this later and report back

There is nothing to try, you can not double spend in that regard, witcher_sense has made this clear and well explained. Coin control is only used for privacy, in a way you do not want your transaction to be linked to many of your bitcoin addresses, not for double spending.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yeah, you have to send exactly the same amount and the second transaction has to be marked as RBF, include the same UTXO and the same destination address

The only part of that which is accurate is the bolded part.

An RBF transaction must include at least one of the same inputs as the transaction it is replacing. It does not need to send the same amount, it does not need to marked as RBF (only the transaction being replaced needs to marked as RBF, not the transaction doing the replacing (unless you also want to be able to replace your replacement transaction)), and it does not need to send coins to the same destination.

If I have a transaction marked as RBF with inputs A, B, and C, sending a total of 5 BTC to addresses D, E, and F, I can replace that by sending any one of my inputs to address G, for example input B sending 2 BTC to address G. As long as my second transaction pays a higher fee, then it is highly likely to confirm first and therefore make the first transaction invalid.

[zasad@]

Thanks fam!

If you only have 1 transaction and next time you will take into account all the nuances, then I advise you to ask for help in this topic
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034315.2320
Spider703 helps many users to solve their problems with stuck transactions for free.
I don't know how he does it, but his topic has been relevant for more than 2 years.

[khaled0111]

However, what I realized is that Electrum still reflects my original balance before I posted the transaction.

This is a bit weird! When you send a transaction, Electrum will immediately deduct the sent amount from your main balance. So either you sent the coins to one of your wallet's addresses or you didn't broadcast the transaction in first place (unless am missing something here)
Anyway, if the stuck transaction hasn't been marked as replaceable (rbf) then, most likely, you won't be able to broadcast a new one which consumes the same inputs (even if it was a single input).

[o_e_l_e_o]

It doesn't necessarily have to be marked as RBF but miners  prefer  RBF transactions, they love them.

I'm not aware of any miner which prioritizes transactions flagged as RBF. They simply prioritize transactions which pay the higher fee rate.

Satoshi has the different view on this matter

Satoshi is not talking about RBF here, since the RBF BIP was not published until 2015: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki

The RBF rules are pretty clear that the replacing transaction does not need to contain the same inputs and outputs and it does not need to send the same amount. It only needs to include at least one of the same outputs, and it makes no stipulation whatsoever regarding the outputs or amount.

In OP's case, then sure, he needs to include the same amount to the same address if he still wants to pay that address that amount, but in terms of RBF transaction on the whole, then that is not the case. Apologies I have misunderstood your previous post.

[khaled0111]

...

Any valid transaction which meets the minimum mempool fee requirement will be added to the mempool. It doesn't matter whether it's flagged as rbf or not.
Miners do not prioritize rbf transactions because once he includes a transaction in the block he is working on, it won't matter anymore if that transaction gets replaced.

[xenodata]

I watched a video on how to unstick transactions and thought it was pretty good.  I tried to free one of mine but it ended up clearing before I fixed it.  Maybe I'll try again when I have time.  It's good to know how this works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycq7O48aPvQ