Bitcoin Core wallet spends BTC 0.07!! USD 4000!! to make two small dust sendings

[tothemoon10]

Please advice.

I found an old wallet.dat file with BTC X.98  (X number of whole bitcoin pluss .98)

I load the entire Bitcoin Core and start it up.
I swap the native created wallet.dat for my old wallet.dat file.
The balance of X.98 comes up.

I then first make one small test sending to my safe Ledger wallet address (legacy wallet) of 0.0001 bitcoin, where transaction fees are to be withdrawn from amount.
The sending is done in the Bitcoin Core wallet (confirmation set to 2 blocks), but it does not arrive at the Ledger wallet.
But I see that the balance of the wallet has gone down from X.98 to X.96. so down BTC 0.02. But I think maybe thats just some kind of rounding error.

So I make another small sending this time of 0.003.
It get sent, but does not get received.

But this time the balance is down to X.91     so balance is down BTC 0.07 by just sending these two very small dust sendings.
That is USD 4000 of bitcoin just to make two very small dust transactions.

How is this even possible.
Do I have some kind of setting that is eating BTC?
Is there something with my old wallet?
(I have tested multiple old wallets like this, can settings from one wallet transfer over to another and mess things up?)
Might I have been hacked somehow (im on a pretty new MacBook Pro)

its just very weird.

Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks.

[1713509059]

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[1713509059]

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[1713509059]

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[PawGo]

So I make another small sending this time of 0.003.
It get sent, but does not get received.

You should check (using for example blockchain.com) the progress of transaction - is the transaction visible? pending? confirmed?
If transaction is waiting in mempool for a long time, it usually means that fee is too low. Do you remember which fee you selected?
You may use page https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,24h,fee to see what is the current fee needed to have transaction accepted (at this moment around 30sat, during weekends it could be 1-2 sat, all depends on number of transactions and number of blocks processed).

Do you have one address loaded or many? Check if you have only one output in transaction or many. Maybe amount which you do not see was transmitted into "change" address (but then should be visible in the wallet) - if this is the case look here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5373169.0

[tothemoon10]

Thank you.
Where do I find my "from" address in my Bitcoin Core wallet.  I have tried to look for it but been unable to find it.

[PawGo]

Thank you.
Where do I find my "from" address in my Bitcoin Core wallet.  I have tried to look for it but been unable to find it.

Do not you see it on recent transactions list?
If you know transaction id, you may always get all the information using console:
https://bitcoincore.org/en/doc/0.16.0/rpc/wallet/gettransaction/

or just use blockchain.com explorer to see details in more 'user-friendly' way.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But this time the balance is down to X.91     so balance is down BTC 0.07 by just sending these two very small dust sendings.
That is USD 4000 of bitcoin just to make two very small dust transactions.

It is, indeed, weird. Select the latest transactions' IDs and search them on a block explorer as PawGo suggests. Unless you don't want to sacrifise your privacy, you can use blockstream via Tor: http://explorerzydxu5ecjrkwceayqybizmpjjznk5izmitf2modhcusuqlid.onion/

Do I have some kind of setting that is eating BTC?

The most logical explanation I can think of is that you simply put a really high fee or confused sat/byte with sat/kilobyte.

[tothemoon10]

I think you might be right there about the fees.

I was twinkling with the fees thing, did not understand what I was doing.

It is even possible to mess it up like I have done here, to be charged BTC 0.07 for two tiny sends?

What is the safe way to do this. Thanks.

[tothemoon10]

So this is what I see in transactions.

Somehow this extracted BTC 0.07 from my account. And I do not understand how that could happen.


Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:47
Til: 1...........
Debet: -0.00026658 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00003342 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00030000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 0...............
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 1


Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:40
Til: 1N............
Debet: -0.00097500 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00002500 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00100000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 8..............
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 0


Status: 428130 bekreftelser
Dato: 04.02.2014 13:44
Fra: ukjent

[BitMaxz]

Thank you.
Where do I find my "from" address in my Bitcoin Core wallet.  I have tried to look for it but been unable to find it.

If you don't know how to get the address that is already generated on Bitcoin core you can go to Window>Receiving addresses and then it will pop all addresses generated.


Copy them all and paste it to any block explorer as suggested above or just go to blockchair.com to check if all addresses have a balance.

If you have lots of addresses you can use this bulk checker here https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-balance-check.html to check all balances.

If all of them show nothing maybe the BTC that you talking about was being sent already long time ago and Bitcoin core just syncs and download newer blocks. It's happening to me before I thought that I have BTC in my Bitcoin core but after it was syncing my BTC was gone and a few transactions were added to my transaction history. I confirm the transaction was sent to my other wallet. So it was sent safely to my other wallet.

So I think what happened to you is the same as mine the only difference is you have still the remaining amount of 0.07BTC.

Why not let it run the Bitcoin core first and wait until the bitcoin core is fully synced but if you want an instant result then better go to any Bitcoin explorer to check your wallet address.

[TheArchaeologist]

I then first make one small test sending to my safe Ledger wallet address (legacy wallet) of 0.0001 bitcoin, where transaction fees are to be withdrawn from amount.

First of all, there is a difference between  your original post where you claim to have send 0.0001 versus the logs:

Code:

Nettobeløp: -0.00100000 BTC

But anyway, based on the logs you posted the two outgoing transactios have a rather small fee attached to them. So fees are not the problem for your "missing BTC". If anything they might be the reason for your transactions still not being confirmed, so not showing up as received on your ledger address.

Might I have been hacked somehow (im on a pretty new MacBook Pro)

Really hard to say based on what you shared this far. Any reason you removed the address and transaction-id from your logs you later posted? The problem for "disapearing" BTC is not in the transactions from your log.

[PawGo]

Is your bitcoin core fully synced?
What shows block explorer? Any other output address?
Is your input addres emptied? Maybe there was a transfer to change address which is (no idea why) not visible/counted by BCore.

[tothemoon10]

Yes I got one 0 wrong from memory, thanks for noticing.

I assumed it was good protocol to anonymize the actual data.
If posting the actual data is advisable I will be happy to do that if maybe we can figure out some more that way.
Also screenshots I can share (I actually too screen photos with my Iphone)
Please advice, is sharing this ok?

[tothemoon10]

Here is the data, any advice much appreicated.
I do not dare to touch this anymore until I have this figured out.



Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:47
Til: 1NSYBUdbgxbaNCwHa2fuT8bMRTLFAVgCp2
Debet: -0.00026658 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00003342 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00030000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 0c43ac893141cc633453834b396b3ed29e6daf04e9c750c75c353a7e3f091100
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 1



Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:40
Til: 1NSYBUdbgxbaNCwHa2fuT8bMRTLFAVgCp2
Debet: -0.00097500 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00002500 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00100000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 87ad3fe5bbb440233868eec26a8b4db9c70c57d9c70ce22e0f1c024929426d20
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 0


Status: 428130 bekreftelser
Dato: 04.02.2014 13:44
Fra: ukjent
Til: 19FH4RoCdD8e9iGY75qu4CSzR55ps7RnJ9 (egen adresse, merkelapp: Internal transaction 1 Bitcoin)
Kreditt: 1.00000000 BTC
Nettobeløp: +1.00000000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 4c7c2b4618517f6ec6d030c3f4d78ae9f9539306b4b357e8a7f02dedec27cc3e
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 438 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 438 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 1

[PawGo]

Here is the data, any advice much appreicated.
I do not dare to touch this anymore until I have this figured out.


Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool

Read this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5287546.0

[NeuroticFish]

At least the transactions from yesterday are neither confirmed, nor in mempool, so from my understanding OP funds are not at risk.
I don't understand why they aren't in the mempool with 9+ / 13+ sat/vbyte and I don't know what is stuck there and made them not get broadcasted.
The tx fees are not extremely big, so I'd expect the missing funds indeed be meant to return to OP's change address if all is good.

The transaction from 2014 is confirmed.

[TheArchaeologist]

Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:47
Til: 1NSYBUdbgxbaNCwHa2fuT8bMRTLFAVgCp2
Debet: -0.00026658 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00003342 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00030000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 0c43ac893141cc633453834b396b3ed29e6daf04e9c750c75c353a7e3f091100
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 1

Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 02.12.2021 14:40
Til: 1NSYBUdbgxbaNCwHa2fuT8bMRTLFAVgCp2
Debet: -0.00097500 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00002500 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.00100000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 87ad3fe5bbb440233868eec26a8b4db9c70c57d9c70ce22e0f1c024929426d20
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 0

Your new transactions haven't been broadcast yet, that's why your transaction don't show up in any blockexplorer. The fact your balance is going down is likely caused by syncing of new blocks in which past transactions were found spending.

If you do:

Code:

bitcoin-cli getblockcount

What is the height reported?

And question 2:
Is this the address from your wallet with the X.98 balance reported:

Code:

1EgTnkiu3xYbFM4i7DaEmmmZDiiiYT6fXM

[tothemoon10]

Your question number 2.
How do I find the information to answer this question. Is that information in my Bitcoin Core client?

[PawGo]

Your question number 2.
How do I find the information to answer this question. Is that information in my Bitcoin Core client?

Shown here http://www.herongyang.com/Bitcoin/Bitcoin-Qt-Overview-and-Receiving-Addresses.html

[TheArchaeologist]

Your question number 2.
How do I find the information to answer this question. Is that information in my Bitcoin Core client?

Code:

bitcoin-cli listreceivedbyaddress

But question 1 is more important

[PawGo]

I do not remember how it works, but maybe Bitcoin Core is not synced, therefore newly created transactions were not transmitted. The question is at which stage of synchronisation it is. And will it publish transactions when become synchronised?

[TheArchaeologist]

I do not remember how it works, but maybe Bitcoin Core is not synced, therefore newly created transactions were not transmitted. The question is at which stage of synchronisation it is. And will it publish transactions when become synchronised?

The transfer won't be submitted to the network until the local client is up to date. Up to this point, the transaction is shown in the local wallet but not in the global network / mempool. So yes it will transmit the transaction after becoming fully synchronized if all inputs needed for the transaction are unspent.