Help with an unverified Transaction

[saturnascends]

I’m going to copy paste what I wrote in Reddit since it’s kind of long and nobody could help me but I need help please!!! 🙏


I need a lot of help please!

So, I'm trying not to write a story here but I will start that I have read the bible about fifty times. I have been using tails for about a year now and haven't had too many issues. Well, now I have a couple of issues.

First, my Electrum wallet is out of date and I can't seem to update it. It won't connect and I've tried to change the server but nothing works. I think I have about $70 worth on there or so, but I just kind of said eff it and I started sending from my coinbase wallet....

Well, my last purchase happened to be to a market that was just seized and even though my order was confirmed, it was never shipped.. So I guess the German Goverment has those bitcoins now. Anyway, I went to try to get the money from my electrum wallet again since money is tight and I'm still not able to connect. The bitcoin I had tried to send from the wallet was also supposed to go to said defunct market so I'm not sure if I should pay double to cancel the initiation of sending my bitcoins first before I try to fix the issue and get everything connected and running smoothly again.

I will say that I have tried to download the new version of electrum and made the file executable but that didn't work. Now, my tails is also telling me that my OS is out of date and I have to do a manual upgrade since I'm so out of date that automatic update isn't an option.

I just don't even know where to start really. I did try to download the new tails version and it kept not being verified and said it was corrupted....

Ugh.. I just need so much help... Thank you in advance and I'm sure I'll get a ton of flack about how I probably shouldn't be using tails if I'm this inept but I already dipped my toes in and I am not opposed to research and learning. I hope to become more fluent in all things darknet related, but I just really need a miracle right now!

Thank you in advance.

Update:

For some reason I can't get Electrum to work on my iPhone.... I ended up somehow getting a connection for a second and I double spent to cancel my old transaction and I went to try to send an amount and realized with the fee I could still send myself a bit more so I didn't pay that transaction and created a new one. Well my electrum is showing that both are paid and the initial transaction that I canceled is still showing unconfirmed but now holds the information for the transfer of the higher amount of BTC I sent to my Coinbase wallet.... So when I click to see the invoice it shows that I have two invoices, which were for the first transaction that I didn't pay or broadcast and the actual one that I hit pay on and broadcasted it. This is the info on mempool and it's just showing unconfirmed... Can you tell me anything off of this?

https://mempool.space/tx/a3b9f0a6f9360bb875a9905f97626e3e7ea4d2c579eb269f39d88e5a767313b4

[matt4054]

Basically, probably because the client was out of date, this transaction has a very low fee (sat/B) so it may take a very long time to confirm

[Abdussamad]

For some reason I can't get Electrum to work on my iPhone....

Electrum does not have an iphone version. There were some reports of a fake electrum version on the apple app store. That is coin stealing malware. Did you install that?

[Charles-Tim]

If tails is not working anymore on your laptop, I think your laptop is getting too old. Or maybe you can try Linux OS like Ubuntu which is also an open source operating system.

Your transaction is supporting RBF. You can bump it on Electrum. If your computer is not working but if you have an Android device, you can do that on the Android device.

You are still using legacy addresses, to save money on fee, be using segwit. Electrum version that are not old are segwit.

[saturnascends]

For some reason I can't get Electrum to work on my iPhone....

Electrum does not have an iphone version. There were some reports of a fake electrum version on the apple app store. That is coin stealing malware. Did you install that?

Uhoh.. yes I did. I deleted it now but I had it for awhile. I can’t even find it on the App Store anymore and I’m sad to say I tried to enter my info. I don’t have any coins in the wallet though aside from the ones that are hung up already on route to my Coinbase wallet so I don’t plan to use that wallet anymore. Should I be concerned?

Basically, probably because the client was out of date, this transaction has a very low fee (sat/B) so it may take a very long time to confirm

I don’t have anymore btc in there and I don’t want to add anymore btc since I just read I may have compromised that wallet… so basically if I just wait forever it will eventually just transfer to my
Coinbase?

[RickDeckard]

I don’t have anymore btc in there and I don’t want to add anymore btc since I just read I may have compromised that wallet… so basically if I just wait forever it will eventually just transfer to my
Coinbase?

If it was me I wouldn't be sure if the app that you installed - that pretended to be Electrum - has implemented more evil intended ramifications in your phone other than their main one (which was to probably steal your private keys). I suppose you entered your seed phrase in that app? Supposedly two days ago someone (hopefully you) increased the fees by using RBF sitting now at 10.2 sat/vB (which is still a long shot from the current +30 sat/vB hitting the mempool).

Assuming that your keys were compromised - and thus the control of your wallet was given to another party - they could double spend the transaction to an address of your wallet and then send the funds to an address that they control. This would mean that they would be able to cancel your current transaction (which isn't going to be confirmed for a while) and divert the funds to another place but will come with a high cost of fees.

The thing is that you said you had that app installed for a while now, and apparently you weren't drained out of your funds, so I really can't comment on the current state of your device honestly.

But yes, if you wait eventually the transaction will be broadcasted to the network. If you plan on still using your mobile device to control your wallet then I recommend that you install BlueWallet[1].
[1]https://github.com/bluewallet/bluewallet

[saturnascends]

I don’t have anymore btc in there and I don’t want to add anymore btc since I just read I may have compromised that wallet… so basically if I just wait forever it will eventually just transfer to my
Coinbase?

If it was me I wouldn't be sure if the app that you installed - that pretended to be Electrum - has implemented more evil intended ramifications in your phone other than their main one (which was to probably steal your private keys). I suppose you entered your seed phrase in that app? Supposedly two days ago someone (hopefully you) increased the fees by using RBF sitting now at 10.2 sat/vB (which is still a long shot from the current +30 sat/vB hitting the mempool).

Assuming that your keys were compromised - and thus the control of your wallet was given to another party - they could double spend the transaction to an address of your wallet and then send the funds to an address that they control. This would mean that they would be able to cancel your current transaction (which isn't going to be confirmed for a while) and divert the funds to another place but will come with a high cost of fees.

The thing is that you said you had that app installed for a while now, and apparently you weren't drained out of your funds, so I really can't comment on the current state of your device honestly.

But yes, if you wait eventually the transaction will be broadcasted to the network. If you plan on still using your mobile device to control your wallet then I recommend that you install BlueWallet[1].
[1]https://github.com/bluewallet/bluewallet

I was scared of that. Yes that double spend was me… I just put in my seed like late last night… what do I have to do to prevent this? Electrum is acting up and not connecting right so should I deposit a little more to cancel it and then do a higher fee? Or should I deposit enough to just increase the fee to like 50 sat/vb?

Update: so I didn’t realize i didn’t have to deposit more btc to increase the fee, so thank god I didn’t do that. I increased the fee to 40 SAT/VB and checked off the “final box” now the tx report on mempool shows the updated fee and also has RBF scratched out so I’m assuming nobody can mess with it now and it should hit my account sooner… I hope. I have virus protection on my phone but I’m going to do some damage control anyway!

[RickDeckard]

I was scared of that. Yes that double spend was me… I just put in my seed like late last night… what do I have to do to prevent this? Electrum is acting up and not connecting right so should I deposit a little more to cancel it and then do a higher fee? Or should I deposit enough to just increase the fee to like 50 sat/vb?

You made Replace by Fee, which is different than the concept of "double spend". Replace By Fee simply increases the fee of the transaction, but doesn't cancel it. Sadly even with 40 sat/vB you won't see your transaction being broadcasted as there is an massive inscription effort currently going on within the blockchain[1].

Update: so I didn’t realize i didn’t have to deposit more btc to increase the fee, so thank god I didn’t do that. I increased the fee to 40 SAT/VB and checked off the “final box” now the tx report on mempool shows the updated fee and also has RBF scratched out so I’m assuming nobody can mess with it now and it should hit my account sooner… I hope. I have virus protection on my phone but I’m going to do some damage control anyway!

I don't know what "Final box" you are talking about but indeed to bumped the fee to 40 sat/vB. In a normal situation you would get your transaction confirmed quickly, but considering the ongoing fees that will take a while to happen.
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.msg63947888#msg63947888

[saturnascends]

I was scared of that. Yes that double spend was me… I just put in my seed like late last night… what do I have to do to prevent this? Electrum is acting up and not connecting right so should I deposit a little more to cancel it and then do a higher fee? Or should I deposit enough to just increase the fee to like 50 sat/vb?

You made Replace by Fee, which is different than the concept of "double spend". Replace By Fee simply increases the fee of the transaction, but doesn't cancel it. Sadly even with 40 sat/vB you won't see your transaction being broadcasted as there is an massive inscription effort currently going on within the blockchain[1].

Update: so I didn’t realize i didn’t have to deposit more btc to increase the fee, so thank god I didn’t do that. I increased the fee to 40 SAT/VB and checked off the “final box” now the tx report on mempool shows the updated fee and also has RBF scratched out so I’m assuming nobody can mess with it now and it should hit my account sooner… I hope. I have virus protection on my phone but I’m going to do some damage control anyway!

I don't know what "Final box" you are talking about but indeed to bumped the fee to 40 sat/vB. In a normal situation you would get your transaction confirmed quickly, but considering the ongoing fees that will take a while to happen.
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.msg63947888#msg63947888

When you go to increase the fee you can check a box labeled “final”. I researched it and found out that it made it impossible for anyone to cancel the transaction in process. When I checked the tx report it did show the increased fee and showed that RBF was no longer an option. I completely forgot I read about the inscription notices. I’m crossing my fingers that it will land in my account soon but just as long as it ends up there and can’t be cancelled, I’m okay with that. Thank you for your help!

[RickDeckard]

When you go to increase the fee you can check a box labeled “final”. I researched it and found out that it made it impossible for anyone to cancel the transaction in process. When I checked the tx report it did show the increased fee and showed that RBF was no longer an option. I completely forgot I read about the inscription notices. I’m crossing my fingers that it will land in my account soon but just as long as it ends up there and can’t be cancelled, I’m okay with that. Thank you for your help!

Ah now I understand what option you were talking about, thank you. I suppose that you just have to wait now considering that you won't be able to RBF the transaction anymore. At most I suspect that, in worst case, until end of weekend your transaction will be confirmed.