Help!

[BTCRSMD]

Hey everyone, stupid mistake from a newbie and I just can't figure out what to do. I bought BTC through Swan, then bought a Trezor, downloaded Samourai (this was a while back), moved everything from Swan's custody to the Samourai wallet and then finally to the Trezor generated address for cold storage. Pretty sure I did everything right at the time. The idea was for longer term hodling but now I'm looking to dip into and spend some of it. Samourai has been seized so I downloaded Mycelium but I'm not sure what to do now. At first I entered in the passphrase to restore a backup wallet which was from the Samourai wallet I used, and it shows in the transaction history where I sent BTC to the cold storage address, but now I'm looking at that public key with my money in it wondering how to move it to the Mycelium wallet address. I believe I read that to spend it I would have to send it to a hot wallet and then send what I want to spend to that person and then the remaining balance back to myself at a newly generated Trezor address. I have the twelve word passphrase to the Trezor that I thought is supposed to hold the keys to the address I generated with the device, but it's been so long since I used it I can't figure out how to make it all work again. The Trezor Suite lite when hooked up to the trezor model T shows me nothing in the dashboard although I thought it would show the balance associated with the address the device generated. I'm so confused. Any help please!

[OmegaStarScream]

Restoring Samurai's seedphrase shouldn't do anything if the funds were sent to the address generated by Trezor wallet. From my understanding that's what you did, right? you linked your trezor device to Samurai's wallet?

But since you're saying you tried using Trezor Suite Lite (which is nothing but a watch-only wallet for trezor) is still not showing you any balance, I'm starting to think that the wallet you sent the funds to, may not be the Trezor device. Have you checked the generated addresses?

[BitMaxz]

So the funds you sent end up in your Trezor wallet but you can't able to see your balance with Trezor Suite.

In the first place, how did you generate the Trezor receiving address?
You should use the same software that you generated the Trezor BTC address.

Or try to use Electrum wallet and connect your Trezor and let's see if it shows your balance.

[hd49728]

I believe I read that to spend it I would have to send it to a hot wallet

Either cold or hot wallet, you can send your bitcoin to other people, addresses. If with cold wallet, you can not send your bitcoin, it sucks and nobody use cold wallet.

Your question reveals something wrong in your understanding too. If you can send your bitcoin to a hot wallet, you can send it to any receiver. It's an on chain transaction and it's spending.

and then send what I want to spend to that person and then the remaining balance back to myself at a newly generated Trezor address.

If there is leftover of your bitcoin from UTXOs you choose for a transaction, you will receive it in a same address or in a change address. Change address is recommended because it helps your privacy and anonymity a little bit.

[BTCRSMD]

Thank you all for getting back to me . And you all are 100% correct. OmegaStarScream, Restoring Samourai's wallet did in fact do nothing, as I realized it should not have afterwards. It did however give me the transaction history where I can then see the transaction to the generated address on the Blockchain and that the full amount is still sitting there. So I do believe it to have sent correctly.

Bitmaxz, that could be my problem. originally I did everything through a laptop with the suite and now I've attempted to do everything on my phone. I thought I circumvented that problem by using the web interface through Google Chrome. Previously I didn't have the ability to hook directly to a phone so everything was done on a laptop that is since retired and can't find power cord for. Which led me to plug into my new phone through double sided USB cord. Opening trezor suite lite then told me to update firmware to use app. That led me to the web interface where I was able to update the device, but then upon opening trezor suite lite it was saying looking for Bitcoin or something, but found nothing. Maybe I really need to go back to the proper desktop app to get this straightened out? Assumedly I can download on a new laptop, use recovery phrase and I'm back on track? Hopefully.

Hd48728, I do understand the basic concepts, or did, enough to get things situated initially but now I'm struggling without a user friendly interface that makes sense to me. I don't know how I generated the address lol I believe through the desktop interface, but the specific steps are what's getting me lost. I was originally looking to send leftovers to a separate address as I had heard not to reuse addresses, but then last night as I was reading trying to refresh my memory someone mentioned having to put the whole balance from cold wallet to hot to spend but then it's vulnerable being in a hot wallet, so to move the remainder to a newly generated trezor sddress.  What I read could have been nonsense.

I have the generated address public key, as that is what's listed on the Blockchain (correct me if I'm misunderstanding) and I found it from using the empty Samourai wallet and entering in the twelve words and passphrase into Mycelium to then go through the transaction history. I also have the twelve word seed from the Trezor itself that I wrote down. I have the Mycelium wallet (though will use another if necessary) that gives the ability to send and receive from the address the wallet created. That address has no btc in it to start obviously. What I'm not understanding is how do I get the new wallet that's empty to suddenly hold the Bitcoin at the generated address
so that I can use it and send it places? I know this is super basic stuff and maybe it's because I haven't tried the desktop suite again yet?

How am I using the twelve word seed to access the generated address and send Bitcoin again? At the time everything was fairly straightforward, Swan, Samourai, using Authy to help keep things safer.. Now I'm coming back to things with a new phone, new wallet app, my twelve word seed, and thankfully the address where the Bitcoin is sitting (as I wasn't sure what the address even was for a bit and got nervous).

Even with all I've said, and all you've responded with, I'll still likely be back with a few more questions but I'm going to try the desktop suite and see if that makes things make sense. Thank you so much for responding y'all

[Findingnemo]

Lot of questions, and hurting eyes to read, keep it simple so people might read them and assist you in better way.

So far the address where you sent your funds is still there now you need to access it to send the funds right? Now you got 2 12 word seeds right which is nothing but the recovery seed.

Just import both of them into electrum and see which one got balance.

What I'm not understanding is how do I get the new wallet that's empty to suddenly hold the Bitcoin at the generated address
so that I can use it and send it places? I know this is super basic stuff and maybe it's because I haven't tried the desktop suite again yet?

Funds are store in the blockchain and the seeds are like key to access the blocks where those funds were store and whatever wallet you use is just an interface to access the blocks where funds are stored.

[PX-Z]

I also have the twelve word seed from the Trezor itself that I wrote down.

Don't import that trezor's word seed to mycelium or any wallet because it will defeat the purpose of having hardware wallet in the first place, you can do it as your last option, so keep your backup seed safe and untouch.

Instead use your Mycelium wallet to connect your trezor, there's an "add new account" -> "advance & more" -> import using trezor. This will scan your trezors wallet addresses, probably the used ones and will shows it on the screen like "account 1", "account 2" with balance on it, choose then you can use it to send and to receive btc to your trezor's addresses.

[BTCRSMD]

FindingNemo, yes I tried to share where I'm at and what's going on in my head but that was alot to follow. I'll try to be more concise. I thought of importing the recovery seed into Mycelium, or Electrum or any wallet, but then that makes the cold storage useless I thought. However that may be my only option at this point.

PX-Z, I have not yet imported the Trezor word seed into Mycelium, but just tried what you recommended, but to no avai.l  Added an account, chose Import a Trezor HD bitcoin account, let it scan and it returned that there were no active accounts. One other thing I forgot to mention. In trying to figure this all out I realized I had imported the twelve word seed from Samourai into the Trezor (I think) so I did a factory reset, entered in a new pin and the original Trezor recovery seed. So now the device should in fact be importing the correct address into Mycelium when following the steps you mentioned. But it isn't.

I'm now thinking maybe just enter the Trezor twelve word seed into Mycelium to try and gain access and then repopulate a new Trezor twelve word seed, right? If I did it the first time, I should be able to generate a new one.

Also, Is the desktop suite necessary to be using, or can I accomplish what I'm looking to do through the web interface and Mycelium wallet?

[BTCRSMD]

Also, when attempting to import from trezor to mycelium it asked if there was a passphrase and gave the option to skip if there was none. I dont have one written down so I'm thinking there isn't an associated passphrase with the twelve word seed. Should there be?

[PX-Z]

I'm now thinking maybe just enter the Trezor twelve word seed into Mycelium to try and gain access and then repopulate a new Trezor twelve word seed, right? If I did it the first time, I should be able to generate a new one.

Try to check it on trezor suit instead since you mentioned that you imported the samourai wallet seed to your trezor which doesn't work earlier and now you imported back your trezor seed to trezor.

If it does not work, i could only think the worst — that you backup the wrong seed, i hope im wrong though.

Also, when attempting to import from trezor to mycelium it asked if there was a passphrase and gave the option to skip if there was none. I dont have one written down so I'm thinking there isn't an associated passphrase with the twelve word seed. Should there be?

Yes, you can skip that if you don't have added a passphrase to your 12 word seed to make it 13. It's a feature to make it safer and hard to guess.

[BTCRSMD]

If the twelve word seed that was used to backup my trezor is also where the Bitcoin address was generated from that I sent btc to, that addresses private keys should be tied to the backup. That's the whole point I had thought. Now, it seems that the Trezor after having the backup seed entered into it, has nothing to show. I think I lost this money and I really thought I had followed all steps correctly at the time I transferred it into cold storage.

What are my options? Potentially I wrote down the private key somewhere, and that would grant me access again? I finally just tried putting my trezor twelve word into mycelium out of desperation. It shows three private keys with 0 btc. I really don't get it. It's as if I generated an address with the Trezor wallet, sent Bitcoin to it, it's still at that address, but the wallet backup seed shows no relationship to the address. Guess I moved it to an address not generated through my trezor wallet and that I didn't have the keys stored except maybe on paper. Did this a few years back and can only guess that's where things went wrong

[khaled0111]

As other members have suggested: do not import your Trezor seed into any online wallet. If there are any coins in your Trezor then all you have to do is to connect it to the online wallet. This way you will be able to see your balance (if there are any) and you can spend it too.

What you need to do now is to check if if the address you sent the coins to (from Samourai) does actually belong to your Trezor wallet.
Try not to panic and overcomplicate things. Check this first then we can go from there.

[BTCRSMD]

That ship has sailed. I already tried entering the Trezor seed into an online wallet, although I otherwise would have never, because I don't think the generated address even came from the device now. I'm not sure how to check if the address belongs to the wallet. In mycelium it says three private keys and 0 btc but I'm not sure how to verify the addresses in the wallet. As in read them. The only option is to export keys, which shows a long string starting with xpub but not the bc1 address where the Bitcoin is. It says there are no active accounts on the Trezor and doesn't show the addresses for those three keys

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

That ship has sailed. I already tried entering the Trezor seed into an online wallet, although I otherwise would have never, because I don't think the generated address even came from the device now. I'm not sure how to check if the address belongs to the wallet. In mycelium it says three private keys and 0 btc but I'm not sure how to verify the addresses in the wallet.

When you created your wallet, and actually sent your bitcoin from purchase, to store it in that wallet, you must know that address or addresses.

Simplifying the checking process by copy and paste the address or addresses to block explorers and see whether your bitcoin is still in those addresses.

If you don't see it, balance is zero, it's not matter that it's you did transactions to move your bitcoins or hackers did it, the matter is different and it is: You lost your bitcoins.

You can check address connections with
https://walletexplorer.com/
https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/

If your bitcoins moved, these websites and their tools can help you to trace where it moved to.

[BTCRSMD]

SquirrelJulietGarden, thank you, and when I enter in the last address that I moved the btc to, it is still there. Using WalletExplorer I can enter in the address and verify it's still there. The problem is that I seem to not have the private keys stored in my trezor wallet for the address where the btc is. Am I able to generate a private key using the public key and twelve word seed phrase? I didn't think that was possible.

[Cricktor]

Your description is a bit messy. When you moved your coins from Samourai to Trezor wallet, which wallet software did you use together with your Trezor hardware? Do you remember how you requested a receiving address for your Trezor wallet?

I assume you have a valid recovery words backup of your Trezor wallet. Do you remember if you used the optional mnemonic passphrase option (an optional passphrase that extends the recovery words)? At first I would assume you didn't use it, but only you know.

On what kind of public address are your coins, starting with 1... (unlikely), with 3... or bc1q...?

The problem is that I seem to not have the private keys stored in my trezor wallet for the address where the btc is.

What makes you think so? Let's say you use Trezor Suite together with your Trezor hardware wallet, then Trezor Suite holds a wallet without the private keys of your Trezor wallet. It's primarily a wath-only wallet. The private keys of your Trezor wallet are safely stored in your Trezor hardware.

To spend from Trezor Suite, the software part will ask the Trezor hardware to sign a transaction with the necessary private keys in the Trezor hardware.

Am I able to generate a private key using the public key and twelve word seed phrase? I didn't think that was possible.

You can't go from a public key back to its private key, that door is basically closed by math under normal circumstances. You can only go from a private key to its public key and from there to its public address.

The twelve mnemonic recovery words define a wallet with a deterministically generated multitude of private keys, a particular derivation path will give you easily more than two billion private keys (you don't need them all at once).

You may want to learn a bit about wallets in general and HD wallets in particular (and more about Bitcoin if you wish):
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/wallets/
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/guide/keys-addresses/
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/keys/
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/keys/hd-wallets/

[BTCRSMD]

Cricktor, thank you for your input. I absolutely need to learn more and only after I heard about Samourai did I even think to check into my btc. I bought it from Swan, bought a Trezor, moved it to Samourai and THOUGHT I moved it into cold storage. Then forgot about it and have let it sit. To be honest, I'm trying to trace back my steps from when I did this a few years ago, and things haven't been adding up. My only logical conclusion is that I generated an address not from my trezor wallet and that's why it's not in there. I've been trying to answer the question: Where is the btc that I thought I moved into cold storage? Going through the steps that I SHOULD have taken, would mean that when I attach my device to the suite, it should show what's in the wallet. Unfortunately it only shows three private keys with 0 btc total. I did a factory reset on the trezor device and then put in my wallet seed, and still nothing showed up. It recovered an empty wallet . When I connect the device it always asks for a passphrase, but I don't have one written down so I'm thinking that one wasn't set.  The address starts with bc1q. I do not remember how I requested a receiving address. Potentially in Samourai. I've since recovered the Samourai wallet and there's nothing in there, as there shouldn't be if I had done things correctly. I'm thinking now that I SHOULD HAVE generated a receiving address in the suite, right?  I very well may have done it on a random key generator website and wrote down the private key. Not sure what else to think. It's still there at the address I sent it to three years ago. Just sitting inaccessible

[khaled0111]

Going through the steps that I SHOULD have taken, would mean that when I attach my device to the suite, it should show what's in the wallet. Unfortunately it only shows three private keys with 0 btc total. I

When you connect your Trezor to Live Suite, you are not supposed to see any private keys or seeds. You can only see the wallet addresses and the transactions history as your private keys never leave the hw device.

When I connect the device it always asks for a passphrase, but I don't have one written down so I'm thinking that one wasn't set.

Are you sure you didn't add a passphrase when you created your wallet? Adding a passphrase will create a totally different wallet.

I'm thinking now that I SHOULD HAVE generated a receiving address in the suite, right?  I very well may have done it on a random key generator website and wrote down the private key. Not sure what else to think. It's still there at the address I sent it to three years ago. Just sitting inaccessible

If you have sent the coins to Trezor, then you most likely used Trezor Suite to generate the receiving address.
Since the coins haven't been moved for years then there is still a chance to recover them. Just try to remember which wallet you used to generate the address.

[Cricktor]

Could you try to avoid such "walls of text", it's painful to read. Please, space out your thoughts. You want to make it as easy and pleasant as possible for those willing to help you. Just a friendly hint...

I bought it from Swan, bought a Trezor, moved it to Samourai and THOUGHT I moved it into cold storage. Then forgot about it and have let it sit. To be honest, I'm trying to trace back my steps from when I did this a few years ago, and things haven't been adding up.

Could you explain, why you moved your coins to Samourai when you already had a Trezor hardware wallet? Not sure if it's important but frankly I don't understand this intermediate step.

I'm not going to discuss semantics but what do you think is "cold storage"?

I would suggest to you that you document steps thoroughly, especially if you're not sure if you understand everything properly what you do with wallets and coins.

My only logical conclusion is that I generated an address not from my trezor wallet and that's why it's not in there. I've been trying to answer the question: Where is the btc that I thought I moved into cold storage?

How exactly did you check that your coins aren't in your Trezor wallet? (I will come to this later again.)

I assume now that with "cold storage" you mean your Trezor wallet. Is this assumption correct?

Going through the steps that I SHOULD have taken, would mean that when I attach my device to the suite, it should show what's in the wallet.

I haven't used my PiTrezor (behaves like a Trezor One) with Trezor Suite for quite some time, so frankly I forgot if it's actually necessary to connect the Trezor hardware to view a balance of the wallet. I would need to test this when I find the time.

As Trezor Suite already knows the Master Public Key of the Trezor wallet, it's technically not needed to have the hardware wallet connected to get the wallet's balance, but as said above, I forgot how Trezor Suite actually behaves.

Maybe more current Trezor users can chime in?

By the way, which Trezor hardware wallet do you have, if I may ask? It should be safe for you to answer this question.

Unfortunately it only shows three private keys with 0 btc total.

As khaled0111 said, I don't think you can display private keys of your Trezor hardware wallet, because private keys are not supposed to leave the device (Ledger, are you listening?).

I did a factory reset on the trezor device and then put in my wallet seed, and still nothing showed up. It recovered an empty wallet . When I connect the device it always asks for a passphrase, but I don't have one written down so I'm thinking that one wasn't set.

Don't get me wrong if I'm nitpicking but with some steps we have to be as accurate as possible.

Why did you do a factory reset of the Trezor device? It doesn't hurt, as long as you're sure you can recover your device wallet properly, but I'd like to understand what you wanted to achieve with this step. I have a feeling that many new wallet users aren't really experienced with wallet recovery, I guess very few practise this extensively before they load their wallet with valuable coins.

Can I assume that with "wallet seed" you mean the mnemonic recovery words of your Trezor wallet? Just to be sure, we're still on the same page...

You didn't change anything with your Trezor Suite, did you? This is important, please answer!

I assume you didn't change the wallet in Trezor Suite which is for the software part a watch-only wallet, the private keys to sign transactions are in the Trezor device.

Normally you set a protective access PIN or password/passphrase to unlock your Trezor device. Are you talking of this unlock secret?
Or does Trezor Suite asks you for the mnemonic passphrase which is an extension of the mnemonic recovery words?

Don't delete your Trezor Suite wallet as long this isn't sorted out. Make backups to be safe.

I would need to verify this with my PiTrezor, but it could take quite some time until I can actually do it. So maybe other current Trezor users can chime in again here.

IF Trezor Suite wallet has some sort of flag that an optional mnemonic passphrase extension has been used, then it knows it should ask for it. If none has been used, it makes no sense to ask the user to provide one (unless it's an option in Trezor Suite's settings).

You should know that any unique optional mnemonic passphrase generates a completely unique wallet. IF you have used a mnemonic passphrase and can't enter it exactly as you may have in the past, you will always get an empty wallet with any false mnemonic passphrase. BIG mistake to not write such an optional mnemonic passphrase physically on paper (multiple backups recommended, safe storage imperative).

The address starts with bc1q. I do not remember how I requested a receiving address. Potentially in Samourai. I've since recovered the Samourai wallet and there's nothing in there,

OK, so that's native Segwit addresses which also gives us the standard derivation path for this address type that Trezor uses.

If you wanted your coins to go to "cold storage" in your thinking (equals Trezor device wallet likely), why then potentially in Samourai, that makes no sense. Not judging...

I'm thinking now that I SHOULD HAVE generated a receiving address in the suite, right?

If you wanted your coins to be controlled by your Trezor device wallet, then YES.

I very well may have done it on a random key generator website and wrote down the private key. Not sure what else to think. It's still there at the address I sent it to three years ago. Just sitting inaccessible

Now that's a plot twist. When I read this part, some shivers went up and down my spine. If this were true, I'm a bit surprised your coins are still where they are.

If you ask yourself, why: never generate private keys on an online website! NEVER, period! You can't know how truely random those keys are, you don't know what this website logs. In any case, big no-go, again: never do this for real coins with value!

Are you potentially speakting of some online website that generates random Bitcoin private keys along with their public address (the intermediate public key is rarely needed). Why do you think this could've happened? Do you remember having thought about such steps? Well, you would've written down one or more private keys. Can you find that written evidence?

I'm sorry to be frank, but this is all quite messy. It's going to be tough to come close to some solution. Let's hope for the best.

Anyway, there could still be other reasons why your so far recovered wallets are empty. Sorry, but this post got really long with a lot of questions and I believe some important ones. Please, try your best to answer as many as possible, if not all.

[nc50lc]

-snip- but it's been so long since I used it I can't figure out how to make it all work again.

Is there any possibility that you've used Samurai's "Whirlpool" CoinJoin and didn't actually sent it to your Trezor?

If it rings a bell, it's worth testing the derivation paths m/84'/0'/2147483646', m/84'/0'/2147483645' and m/84'/0'/2147483644' when restoring your Samurai wallet's seed phrase.
Each derivation path should be restored as separate wallets with P2WPKH (Native SegWit) script type.

Alternatively, use Electrum, tick: "BIP39 seed" in the options when restoring the seed phrase, then click "Detect Existing Accounts" in the script type selection screen.
(simpler but can't be done offline)

I dont have one written down so I'm thinking there isn't an associated passphrase with the twelve word seed.

It's not meant to be written together with the seed phrase so if that's your only basis, you might have used a passphrase if you're following security advices back then.