Stuck Transaction Chain

[MindlessPandora]

Hi, so i have ended up in a big mess and here are the details. I did a bunch of transactions in february when the network was very quiet, and i was doing some low cost transfers using 1 sat/byte fees and essentially the transactions would confirm over the weekend.
Sadly, the network crossed 300 mb size on the mempool and has not gone down below that ever since.

By the time i was done with all transactions, i ended up with about 23 parent unconfirmed transfers.

The tx id of the last  child transfer is 77dd33f639a0216f39d97e050e3a5739ad32959a84e84ebf30c759d27c5dd51f

The address bc1qn7s0cujdr66rqd05wsc6c5eeezl76qw7h89xsj is available in my wallet with the balance also being shown.

However, when i try to spend this address, the tx does not enter the mempool at all, and shows, 0/unconfirmed, not in mempool status.

Now i understand, there cant be more than 24 parent unconfirmed transfers, so probably thats why this next transfer is not entering the mempool.
However, i went back in the chain to about 6 transfers back and tried spending that unconfirmed tx as well, but that didnt enter the mempool as well.

i have used fees upto 1000 sat/byte but still didnt enter the mempool.
all previous transfers were rbf selected, however, increase fee option is not there anymore and neither is the abandon transaction option available.

If i wait till mempool size goes below 300 mb, will i be able to spend from this address bc1qn7s0cujdr66rqd05wsc6c5eeezl76qw7h89xsj or do i need to wait for the previous transfers to get confirmed in maybe another year from now the way the mempool has balooned. i need a solution where i dont have to cancel the previous 24 transfers.

I am using bitcoin core 0.20.1

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[ranochigo]

What is the first child transaction? Is that in the mempool?

The thing is, with 1 sat/vbyte transactions, they're most likely already evicted from the mempool and thus any transactions that you've made that is in the range of 1-4sat/vbyte is most likely not in the mempool. Check your transactions, for you to create a child transaction, the parent transaction must be at least be in the mempool. While they may be in blockexplorers, they most likely won't be in the mempool of the nodes that you're connected to and that is why your transaction appears to be invalid. I don't think Bitcoin Core considers orphan transactions.

The "realistic" solution is to find the first child transaction and use abandontransaction on that. Your long chain of transactions probably won't be confirmed and any transactions that you're making won't be valid due to the fact that the ~23 transactions are probably not in the mempool of the other nodes. If you don't want to do so, then yes if the mempool goes below 300MB, you can rebroadcast your whole chain of transactions provided that they're not invalid. Note that even if the mempool gets below 300MB, or ~100MB worth of transaction data, it would still mean that there are still a mountain of transactions before you.

[LoyceV]

I did a bunch of transactions
~
i ended up with about 23 parent unconfirmed transfers.

For next time: you should use "send to many" ("Add Recipient" in Bitcoin Core) instead of individual transactions. That makes the total transaction size much smaller (and the fee lower).

i have used fees upto 1000 sat/byte but still didnt enter the mempool.

Most mempools have dropped your 1 sat/byte transactions, so to them, the input you're using doesn't exist. Therefore they reject your transaction.

i need a solution where i dont have to cancel the previous 24 transfers.

That's going to be very difficult, even this paid accelerator doesn't recognize your transactions anymore.

Unless there's a reason you need specifically those transactions to confirm (such as zero-confirmation deposits to an online casino), I suggest to double spend them all at once.
Following your transactions up the chain, I get to bc1qagwctwaftwac8ygd8krjewm3gh6xlurpcy6rcw as the parent of all your transactions.
As an easy solution: Create a list of addresses and amounts you want to send to. Then either abandon the transaction from bc1qagwctwaftwac8ygd8krjewm3gh6xlurpcy6rcw in Bitcoin Core, or export the private key from Bitcoin Core and import it into Electrum. Create one transaction with all destination addresses, and send it.

You're sending many transactions around 0.00025 BTC (~$15). Those amounts are so small, the receiver will have to use most of it for fees to spend it again. If you don't mind me asking: what's the reason you're sending so many small transactions? Maybe there's a better way.

[MindlessPandora]

All past 24 transactions were made when mempool size was less than 300 mb. from january to february 2021.

From what you are suggesting, i gather that once the mempool goes below 300 mb, and i try to create a new transaction with lots of fees in it, it will enter the mempool and i will not get the 0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool message? if that will happen, then i am fine, i can wait till mempool goes below 300 and then i will cover the fees of all the past 24 transfers in a new transfer.

[ranochigo]

From what you are suggesting, i gather that once the mempool goes below 300 mb, and i try to create a new transaction with lots of fees in it, it will enter the mempool and i will not get the 0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool message? if that will happen, then i am fine, i can wait till mempool goes below 300 and then i will cover the fees of all the past 24 transfers in a new transfer.

You don't have to make any new transactions. You'll just have to push all your transactions (rebroadcast) them again.

If you want them to be confirmed, do that first and then spend a transaction with a huge fee, you'll have to do your own calculation; I don't think Core has a CPFP estimation for you.

[MindlessPandora]

Yes, i am aware of the send to many option and have used it lots of times. I dont want to cancel the tx as i have this nightmare that i will mess something up and go in a bigger mess than i already am in. i have the patience to wait, thats not an issue. as long as the next tx will enter the mempool once mempool goes below 300 mb i am ok. i just need that reassurance. The other thing is apparently there cant be more than 24 child tx, so i am not sure if thats also an issue over here.

I am hodl'ing @ 15usd per day. mempool used to go down to 500 tx in mempool on sunday late night/monday mornings, so i was doing daily transfers and it was not hurting one bit at that time. 1 sat transfers were more than enough. then the mempool just balooned.

Now i wait 10-15 days and then add up all of them and then do the tx.

[LoyceV]

From what you are suggesting, i gather that once the mempool goes below 300 mb, and i try to create a new transaction with lots of fees in it, it will enter the mempool and i will not get the 0/unconfirmed, not in memory pool message? if that will happen, then i am fine, i can wait till mempool goes below 300 and then i will cover the fees of all the past 24 transfers in a new transfer.

It can take weeks or months, but that could work. At current fee (170 sat/byte), you're looking at almost 0.006 BTC to use CPFP on your chain of transactions. If you abandon those transactions and create one new transaction with 24 outputs, 0.0016 BTC is enough. Of course you can go lower than 170 sat/byte too, it's not as if you're in a hurry after 3 months.

Yes, i am aware of the send to many option and have used it lots of times. I dont want to cancel the tx as i have this nightmare that i will mess something up and go in a bigger mess than i already am in.

I'm intrigued

i have the patience to wait, thats not an issue. as long as the next tx will enter the mempool once mempool goes below 300 mb i am ok. i just need that reassurance. The other thing is apparently there cant be more than 24 child tx, so i am not sure if thats also an issue over here.

I've never heard of a 24 child limit, my guess it mempool dropped them.

I am hodl'ing @ 15usd per day. mempool used to go down to 500 tx in mempool on sunday late night/monday mornings, so i was doing daily transfers and it was not hurting one bit at that time. 1 sat transfers were more than enough. then the mempool just balooned.

I'm still intrigued: hodling as in buying $15 Bitcoin per day, and transferring it?

I only now notice your transactions have the same receiving address: bc1q9dt9v3yxell4y39zqhxvaslzrdkes3ea8d03kc. That would make it much easier to replace your 24 transactions by one new transaction.
If you own the receiving address, you're basically creating Bitcoin dust (the opposite of consolidating) for yourself. If you have to consolidate them like here at current fees, that means your 24 transactions partially evaporate due to fees.

[ranochigo]

I've never heard of a 24 child limit, my guess it mempool dropped them.

Neither have I. I did a little research of my own and found out that it was introduced in 0.12.0 and the limit is actually 25[1].

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/4a540683ec40393d6369da1a9e02e45614db936d/test/functional/mempool_packages.py#L18

[khaled0111]

All your unconfirmed transactions are paying 1 sat/vbyte. With the current network condition, I am surprised they haven't been evicted from the mempool already!
It looks like bitcoin core keeps rebroadcasting them to the network.

Since those transactions are unlikely to confirm any time soon and you can't accelerate them (neither with rbf not with cpfp), your best option is to figure out a way to stop core from rebroadcasting them and just wait for the network to forget about them.

[ranochigo]

All your unconfirmed transactions are paying 1 sat/vbyte. With the current network condition, I am surprised they haven't been evicted from the mempool already!
It looks like bitcoin core keeps rebroadcasting them to the network.

Since those transactions are unlikely to confirm any time soon and you can't accelerate them (neither with rbf not with cpfp), your best option is to figure out a way to stop core from rebroadcasting them and just wait for the network to forget about them.

They are, I don't see any of the transactions in my node. The blockexplorers are not indicative of the default client's behavior. Bitcoin Core cannot rebroadcast it because the nodes are not accepting it.

Abandon transaction would do what you describe but if OP wants to preserve all of them then this won't be an option.

[MindlessPandora]

Neither have I. I did a little research of my own and found out that it was introduced in 0.12.0 and the limit is actually 25[1].

so i have one more tx left to add in the chain , once the mempool goes below 300 mb.

It can take weeks or months, but that could work. At current fee (170 sat/byte), you're looking at almost 0.006 BTC to use CPFP on your chain of transactions. If you abandon those transactions and create one new transaction with 24 outputs, 0.0016 BTC is enough. Of course you can go lower than 170 sat/byte too, it's not as if you're in a hurry after 3 months.

Would have done it at about 10 sat.

I'm still intrigued: hodling as in buying $15 Bitcoin per day, and transferring it?

i am an active trader, just moving 15$ worth into a personal wallet and waiting for next bitcoin halving. From 1 bitcoin halving to the next. 4 year plan.

I only now notice your transactions have the same receiving address: bc1q9dt9v3yxell4y39zqhxvaslzrdkes3ea8d03kc. That would make it much easier to replace your 24 transactions by one new transaction.
If you own the receiving address, you're basically creating Bitcoin dust (the opposite of consolidating) for yourself. If you have to consolidate them like here at current fees, that means your 24 transactions partially evaporate due to fees.

Yes essentially in the chain ,there are 2 recipients. i am considering this now to replace by a single tx.

Abandon transaction would do what you describe but if OP wants to preserve all of them then this won't be an option.

After seeing the state of the mempool, and the fact the other recipient has been getting irritated, i am considering to consolidate all of them into a single tx.


I am terrified to do it, as i feel i will do something wrong, but if you all are able to guide me, i might just as well go ahead and do it. So i am all ears, as to how to abandon all the past 24 transfers and create a new one without messing up all the btc. While i wait, i am going to make the list of recipients and amount.

[LoyceV]

i am an active trader, just moving 15$ worth into a personal wallet and waiting for next bitcoin halving. From 1 bitcoin halving to the next. 4 year plan.

I like the idea of daily savings, but you wouldn't be the first to end up with hundreds of virtually worthless dust-inputs, so be careful there. Also: please tell me you use a cold wallet somewhere in your plan, and don't keep everything in an (online) Bitcoin Core installation.

I am terrified to do it, as i feel i will do something wrong, but if you all are able to guide me, i might just as well go ahead and do it. So i am all ears, as to how to abandon all the past 24 transfers and create a new one without messing up all the btc. While i wait, i am going to make the list of recipients and amount.

You only need to replace the first (parent) transaction, that will invalidate all other (child) transactions once the new transaction gets confirmed.

As for how to do it: I'm actually not sure what's the best to use for your Bitcoin Core version. I know how to do it on Electrum though.

[MindlessPandora]

I like the idea of daily savings, but you wouldn't be the first to end up with hundreds of virtually worthless dust-inputs, so be careful there. Also: please tell me you use a cold wallet somewhere in your plan, and don't keep everything in an (online) Bitcoin Core installation.

This was corrected mid february.

[ranochigo]

so i have one more tx left to add in the chain , once the mempool goes below 300 mb.

Yup. Though for your use case, would probably not be recommended.

After seeing the state of the mempool, and the fact the other recipient has been getting irritated, i am considering to consolidate all of them into a single tx.


I am terrified to do it, as i feel i will do something wrong, but if you all are able to guide me, i might just as well go ahead and do it. So i am all ears, as to how to abandon all the past 24 transfers and create a new one without messing up all the btc. While i wait, i am going to make the list of recipients and amount.

Go to the transaction tab in Bitcoin Core and starting from the latest transaction, right click it and click on abandon transaction. Do so for all of the transactions till the first parent transaction. The function merely marks the transaction as abandoned so it'll be spendable again. It does not cause any changes in the network, for your case. After which, you should be able to spend the funds again.

[MindlessPandora]

Go to the transaction tab in Bitcoin Core and starting from the latest transaction, right click it and click on abandon transaction. Do so for all of the transactions till the first parent transaction. The function merely marks the transaction as abandoned so it'll be spendable again. It does not cause any changes in the network, for your case. After which, you should be able to spend the funds again.

So thats the thing, i am not getting the option. its not clickable.

[MindlessPandora]

So thats the thing, i am not getting the option. its not clickable.

I had mempool size set at 2 gb in my config, changed it to 300 mb restarted core, and then got the option to abandon
Have abandoned all the tx,

Now will send them all

However, for some very weird reason, i am seeing a lot of dust transactions, that i cant understand why.

[LoyceV]

i am seeing a lot of dust transactions, that i cant understand why.

Transactions with 0.0000546 BTC? That's a dusting attack. Don't waste fees on those, if you enable Coin Control, you can manually select your Inputs and right-mouse click "Lock unspent" on them.

[MindlessPandora]

Transactions with 0.0000546 BTC? That's a dusting attack. Don't waste fees on those, if you enable Coin Control, you can manually select your Inputs and right-mouse click "Lock unspent" on them.

yes, 0.00000547 btc, they werent there till now, when i abandoned the tx, suddenly 10 of them showed up confirmed since 14th January apparently.

Yes i have locked them up for good.

[MindlessPandora]

and to close this thread, transactions abandoned, and those transactions have been sent in single tx. stuck btc recovered. Thank you everyone for your inputs.