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

[HCP]

Are you using the GUI Bitcoin Core client, or running commands from the command line?  If you are running the Bitcoin Core client... it should show you at the bottom of the GUI window if it is currently syncing.

Alternatively, just look at the "Window -> Information" menu item... and check what the "Current Block Height" listed is... if it isn't at least 712289, then your client likely isn't synced properly:



Until your client is synced, you won't be able to send any transactions, as the client cannot guarantee that your wallet balance is true and correct.

[nc50lc]

Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool

There's something that's causing your transactions to get rejected from your own mempool.
There are a few reasons and the most common in not-yet-synced client is if at least one of the input of the transaction is invalid.

You can also try to manually broadcast it and see what mempool-related error you'll get:

• In the transactions tab, right-click on one of the transactions, then select: "Copy raw transaction"
• Open the console (Window->Console), then type: sendrawtransaction "Your_Copied_RAW_Transaction"
• And it should return with an error which should be the reason why those aren't successfully sent.

If it somehow proceed, then there could be in your setting that's preventing txn broadcast..

[LoyceV]

But I think maybe thats just some kind of rounding error.

For what it's worth: There are not supposed to be any rounding errors in Bitcoin. It's exact, up to the last digit. If it doesn't add up, something is wrong.

That is USD 4000 of bitcoin just to make two very small dust transactions.

How is this even possible.

It's possible, but shouldn't happen unless you have many dust inputs (but that's not the case with a 257 bytes transaction). My advice: always thoroughly check the transaction before sending.

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

You made a transaction from this same address (19FH4RoCdD8e9iGY75qu4CSzR55ps7RnJ9) 11 days ago. What changed since then?

[HCP]

But I think maybe thats just some kind of rounding error.

For what it's worth: There are not supposed to be any rounding errors in Bitcoin. It's exact, up to the last digit. If it doesn't add up, something is wrong.

Given that it appears the OPs wallet is not synced, the changes to the balance were most likely a result of the wallet syncing in the background and adjusting the wallet balance as new transactions were found and processed.

[Pmalek]

Don't make transactions from a full-node client like Bitcoin Core until your wallet is fully synced. You said that you found an old wallet.dat. You opened it and without syncing it you tried to create several transactions didn't you? Let it download the latest blocks and see if those transactions will be broadcasted or not. You haven't lost anything since nothing has been broadcasted yet. Report back what is going on once the synchronization process is completed.   

[LoyceV]

You said that you found an old wallet.dat. You opened it and without syncing it you tried to create several transactions didn't you?

That doesn't explain the transaction made 11 days earlier. Unless he switched to an old backup after making that transaction. It gets even more interesting if the transaction 11 days earlier was made by someone else (which would mean OP somehow got his hands on someone else's old backup).

[tothemoon10]

I very much appreciate your input and help in this matter.
I am now working to read up on this.
I will definitely report back to you with what I found regardless how this goes.

I found my old wallet.dat files (I actually have some 3-4-5 wallets with some small contents in them) on my own old hard drive, so this is my very own old bitcoin this is.
I do not think anyone else has gotten to it. I am pretty sure it is something I have done wrong somehow in the settings of my Bitcoin Core client, somehow paying massively for the transfer. I dont understand what has happened.
I need to investigate this extensively before I dare open the Bitcoin Core client and the wallet file again (Im afraid my funds will be swooped off my account).

One question.
My plan is to transfer the bitcoin to my Ledger Nano account, for security.
But considering this are old wallets from 2010-2014 I think there might be Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold etc to recoup from these accounts. How would you advice to recoup these extra fork coins. Would that be a two step transfer, first to something like Electrum and then step two to the Ledger Account? What is the good intermediary step to recoup these extra forked coins.

Thank you.

[tothemoon10]

These are some of the possible errors I can think of, beyond what you have suggested.

I do think I have downloaded the entire blockchain as every time I open Bitcoin Core it has to do the last 20-48-128 blocks before it starts up, it seems.

The thing that was sent 11 days ago I THOUGHT was from a completely different wallet.dat account, but maybe somehow it is the same??? I dont understand how this is connected.

Maybe I am somehow mixing accounts up. I have found in my old hard drives 10-15 old wallet.dat files. Some are certanly the same, backups of backups.
I have opened them all by exchanging the wallet.dat file on my MacBook. And then restarting the Bitcoin Core client to see the content of the new wallet.dat file.
And then after looking at it giving the old ones other temporary names like from wallet.dat to walletfromoldtoshibalaptopwallet.dat etc after I have tested them.
Maybe somehow the opening of these 10-15 different wallet files has messed up the entire Bitcoin Core client for me.

Or that what I am seeing is different stages of the same accounts somehow...

For me I cant seem to be able to differentiate them by unique addresses...

I have now bough a brand new MacBook that I intend to setup exclusively for crypto purposes. I intend to download Bitcoin Core to this and try to open only the btc X.98 wallet.dat file on that instance of Bitcoin Core, to see if that works better (but I should not try sending anything as it seems it is the sending that is extracting these massive fees).

I will try to send something TO that account before I try to send anything more off from it.

That somehow the BitcoinCore client is processing things from one wallet.dat file on another wallet.dat file.

That I have somehow done the settings wrong, so that I have changed to 2 blocks and this for some reason comes with massive fees. Or some other error I have made.

The last thing is that I somehow do not understand this Bitcoin, address, account, wallet,  Bitcoin Core,  thing properly. I think I understand it, but I could be misunderstanding the whole account address wallet thing. I see from my ledger that there must be something I do not understand.
I find it hard to understand how to find on Blockchain the content of my Bitcoin account as I see them in my Bitcoin Core client and my Ledger client. It seems to work different from Ethereum. I am quite confused. Can one account have more than one account address???

My apologies for unclear language.

[Pmalek]

Just make sure that you allow your Bitcoin Core to fully sync before you do anything else with it. Once your new Mac is up and running and you start downloading the blockchain, leave it and let it do its work.

When we are on the subject of Bitcoin forks and how to claim them, I suggest you take a look at this thread that LoyceV wrote > LoyceV's Bitcoin Fork claiming guide (and service). It will help you with anything you need.

One Bitcoin wallet consists of multiple addresses. Each address can have multiple inputs. You can think of each input as an individual bill. You can have only one bill or you can have 10 different ones. So if your entire balance is scattered around on multiple addresses, you will have to look up all of them on a block explorer to know what you have where. Or just let your Core client fully sync, and you will find out from there.

[LoyceV]

I find it hard to understand how to find on Blockchain the content of my Bitcoin account as I see them in my Bitcoin Core client and my Ledger client. It seems to work different from Ethereum. I am quite confused. Can one account have more than one account address???

My advice: In Bitcoin Core, click Settings > Options > Wallet > Enable coin control features > OK.
Then, click Send > Inputs. This shows all addresses with a balance in that wallet.

[nc50lc]

Maybe somehow the opening of these 10-15 different wallet files has messed up the entire Bitcoin Core client for me.
-snip-

Maybe.
There's a chance that Bitcoin Core failed to scan the correct balance and kept the spent inputs in your wallet.
I've seen a couple of topics regarding that, usually those who replaced the wallet.dat file.

BTW, what error did you get when you tried to broadcast the transaction(s) via console?

In case you missed it:

You can also try to manually broadcast it and see what mempool-related error you'll get:

• In the transactions tab, right-click on one of the transactions, then select: "Copy raw transaction"
• Open the console (Window->Console), then type: sendrawtransaction "Your_Copied_RAW_Transaction"
• And it should return with an error which should be the reason why those aren't successfully sent.

If it somehow proceed, then there could be in your setting that's preventing txn broadcast..

Alternatively, if you want to send them no more: use testmempoolaccept instead.
e.g.:

Code:

testmempoolaccept '["Your_Copied_RAW_Transaction"]'

Lastly, if it's just because of the "frequent wallet replacement", rescan might do the trick; open console, select the correct wallet: rescanblockchain

[HCP]

The last thing is that I somehow do not understand this Bitcoin, address, account, wallet,  Bitcoin Core,  thing properly. I think I understand it, but I could be misunderstanding the whole account address wallet thing. I see from my ledger that there must be something I do not understand.

Bitcoin doesn't really have "accounts" per se... they're more of an abstract concept that some wallet applications (like Ledger Live and other BIP44 compatible wallets) use... for the wallets that do implement "Accounts", because they are generally HD (hierarchical deterministic) wallets constructed from seeds, they will indeed have multiple keys/addresses for the "accounts".

Bitcoin Core, whilst it is an HD wallet, doesn't use the concept of accounts anymore (that functionality was deprecated a while back). So, with Bitcoin Core, you have your wallet.dat and it holds many keys/addresses. Like other HD wallets, this is generally because it is trying to provide unique addresses for all your receive (and change) activity in an attempt to prevent "address re-use".

I find it hard to understand how to find on Blockchain the content of my Bitcoin account as I see them in my Bitcoin Core client and my Ledger client. It seems to work different from Ethereum. I am quite confused. Can one account have more than one account address???

This can indeed be somewhat problem to go to an explorer and work out what your wallet balance should be as you could be looking at 10s or 100s of different addresses with UTXOs etc (depending on how you have been using the wallet).

It's essentially why wallet applications are used... they hold all your keys (and therefore know all your addresses) and are able to track everything for you. The issue you're running into is that your Bitcoin Coin wallet.dat files, being old, are not currently synced and therefore, potentially not giving the correct balances.


This is generally very much unlike ETH, which tends to use the one single key/address for your entire "account"... so it's a simple lookup on the explorer.

[tothemoon10]

Update:

I bought a brand new MacBook Air.
Set up Bitcoin Core.
This took about 8-10 days.

Tried replacing the wallet.dat file with the 3 old wallet.dat files I have.
And now ALL THE BICOIN WAS THERE. Very good.
So this is great news, nothing is lost.

So next step.
I did not make any changes to the default Bitcoin Core options.

So I tried one more time to send some Bitcoin out of the wallet.
And the same strange thing happened again.

I had Btc 0.07 in the wallet at the start.
Tried sending 0.014 bitcoin to my Ledger address. This transaction comes up in the log. I set the transaction fee to be drawn from the amount to send.
BUT NOW, then booo, now suddenly the balance shows Bitcoin 0.02
So for some reason, by sending 0.014 another 0.036 is eaten up mysteriously on the balance. And it does not show in the log where this 0.036 has gone.
This Btc 0.036 that is eaten up does not appear in log.

Strange.

Any advice much appreciated.
I will post some screen shots (If I can figure out how to upload photos here)

http://


This is the transaction.
As we can see the fee is taken from the amount.
So the mystery remains why does BitcoinCore draw another 0.036 and where does that go.




Status: 0/ubekreftet, ikke i minnepool
Dato: 13.12.2021 12:51
Til: 12Hek4zrVixeiUbzMiHSwkHyKSyZm24S6v
Debet: -0.01399570 BTC
Transaksjonsgebyr: -0.00000430 BTC
Nettobeløp: -0.01400000 BTC
Transaksjons-ID: 1dd833175a20c8883ee12a904332172f8924665bb6cfb899a1d4a21fcca75b47
Total transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Virtuell transaksjonsstørrelse: 257 bytes
Utdatainndeks: 0

[LoyceV]

I will post some screen shots (If I can figure out how to upload photos here)

Newbies can't post images, only links. You can use for instance imgur.com.

[tothemoon10]

Ok thanks.
Not needed really to post them.

One photo shows Btc balance 0.07
The next photo shows Btc balance 0.02

With the small transaction above as the only thing that has been done on a clean new wallet.
Strange.


4 photos here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ajBmPHLSc2myK__XRoWk6PMqVfc4fGXy8WUbfPUnY0o/edit?usp=sharing

[nc50lc]

-snip-
4 photos here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ajBmPHLSc2myK__XRoWk6PMqVfc4fGXy8WUbfPUnY0o/edit?usp=sharing

(I've made some edits to your image)
Looks like only those four inbound transactions are successfully verified, the others had issues (indicated by the '?' logo).
If those are all invalid, then your final balance will be 0.5 BTC.

You can try to abandon those invalid transactions before creating a new transaction but make sure that the wallet was scanned properly when you loaded it.
Or else, it might try to spend a already spent input(s), and also to display to correct balance and transactions.

Make sure that your wallet has a backup before doing this:

• Use "Right-click->Abandon Transaction" to those boxed transactions.
• Then make a new transaction.

[tothemoon10]

Wow. That worked! I just now abandoned those transactions and now new account balance is now Btc 0.5   

As you see these were very old attempted transactions from 2013 that I was able to abandon. I was not aware of this, and this could very well easily have been missed.
So I just "earned" Btc 0.5 (minus 0.07 from before) = Btc 0.43. Nice. A sincere thank you for that.


But, this still does not solve the original problem in this thread.
I think these are two totally unrelated issues.

[nc50lc]

I think the underlying issue is, your transactions failed to broadcast due to some invalid input(s) or other reasons why a transaction can get rejected by the default relay settings.

And you haven't responded to my previous replies about 'test to manually broadcast the newly created "not in mempool" transaction to your mempool':

You can also try to manually broadcast it and see what mempool-related error you'll get.
Quoting myself:

• In the transactions tab, right-click on one of the transactions, then select: "Copy raw transaction"
• Open the console (Window->Console), then type: sendrawtransaction "Your_Copied_RAW_Transaction"
• And it should return with an error which should be the reason why those aren't successfully sent.

Alternatively, if you want to send them no more: use testmempoolaccept instead.
e.g.:

Code:

testmempoolaccept '["Your_Copied_RAW_Transaction"]'

The "raw transaction" that you need to copy is the recently created "not in mempool" transaction.
I'd recommend testmempoolaccept this time.
The error message should be the best indicator of the issue.

BTW, none of your screenshots show the sync status (the check at the lower-right corner of Bitcoin Core).
The wallet may not be scanned correctly and those "send transactions" may reappear after a rescan.

[tothemoon10]

Thanks.
I will try to understand what you ask for and respond.


I have tried to make one more transaction.
Here are the screenshots of every stage of this transaction.

The same strange thing happens again.

Wallet had Btc 0.5
I am sending Btc 0.0019 with transaction fee included.
This should bring wallet down to Btc 0.4981
Wallet now goes down to Btc 0.48. 
So an extra Btc 0.0181 has been deducted on top of the correct amount to send (USD 848 at current price)



Advice greatly appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TRBQt7_ZIvYbvLXA-cgOqPE33l9uUn_TVcD0iu-BF3o/edit?usp=sharing

[tothemoon10]

Followed your advice.
The error message I get when I try to do a raw transaction is this:

17:32:00

bad-txns-inputs-missingorspent (code -25)


(Was I supposed to put the data inside " " or just plain?)