Unable to access BTC from change address on Blockchain.com wallet

[snapper1010]

Good news - I followed this advice and have successfully recovered the bitcoin from the change address and it is now safely transferred to my trezor wallet!

So, were the coins sent to a change address on the same account or on a different account?

The change address holding the bitcoins was not recognised by the Blockchain.com OR Bluewallet web wallets but was still retrievable using the BIP39 tool using my Blockchain.com account recovery phrase.
Using nc50lc's instructions, I was able to retrieve the private key for the change address under "derived addresses" after changing the account index to 1.

Apologies if this doesn't make sense, it's a bit too technical to me to get my head around.

[logfiles]

Good news - I followed this advice and have successfully recovered the bitcoin from the change address and it is now safely transferred to my trezor wallet!
Feeling very relieved, and grateful to you nc50lc for your excellent clear advice on this. I would have had no idea how to do it without your help. Some BTC coming your way, by way of thanks.

BTW I've still had no response from Blockchain.com "support" and I am baffled at how they can allow this to happen to multiple users without any acknowledgement. I've now removed all my funds and won't be back to that website. No wonder their reputation has tanked in the time since I first registered with them in 2013!

It's great to know that you were able to recover you Bitcoins. Hopeful @krav  also follows the same instructions and gets access to his Bitcoins.
Blockchain.com "support" just like most support of this big exchanges and other services is sometimes so useless. Some of them are even probably less technically gifted and have no clue on how to help a user in need.

This is why it's very important to avoid such wallets, especially when you see a lot of complaints about them in different forums and subreddits.

[nc50lc]

Using nc50lc's instructions, I was able to retrieve the private key for the change address under "derived addresses" after changing the account index to 1.

Based from this, I think the bug is: Blockchain somehow cannot scan for the change sent to its second 'Defi Wallet' (account_index '1') despite using it to receive the user's change.
Usually, it's sent to the first account index's -> internal chain.

Their new "Beta" wallet seems filled with quite dangerous bugs that may mislead their users that they've lost their BTC.
Bugs that I've seen so far:

• This, it fails to recognize the change leading to zero balance.
• Restored old Bitcoins that are moved to imported keys shows compressed WIF prvKey despite using uncompressed pubKey for generating the address. (reference)
• Not key-related related, Log-in will fail if the user's password previously doesn't contain any "special character", restoring the recovery phrase to set a new password solves this or import it to other wallet.

[redkork]

A few days I had the same situation happen to me with my old Blockchain account (originally created before 2016).  I've only used my wallet a couple times.   A few years ago Blockchain had me change (or convert) my wallet from I think a 16 word to a 12 word seed phrase.  Everything went fine and I was able to sell some BTC.  A few days ago I tried to sell part of my BTC again, but this time the whole DeFi wallet went to zero after the transaction was completed.  After some research I found that the remainder of my BTC went to a "change address" of this converted wallet.  Luckily I found this forum and I've followed nc50lc instructions (Thanks nc50lc !!) and I've been able to retrieve the private key of the "change address".  I don't have a whole lot of BTC but it's enough that I don't want to throw away.  I'm following snapper1010's lead, so I have a Trezor coming so I can move away from Blockchain but I had a question before it gets here.

snapper1010:  Did you setup a new wallet on the Trezor and then use Electrum to send the funds to this new wallet?  I've googled restoring wallets with address and private key and Electrum software seems to be about the only way to go.  But I'm just not clear if a new wallet has to be created on the Trezor or if the "change address" can somehow be put back into the original wallet.  I agree with you, the Blockchain website is not the same as it was several years ago. 

I think nc50lc's instructions needs to be made into it's own website or something so other people like us know what to do when this happens.  I highly doubt the Blockchain website will be fixed anytime soon.

[snapper1010]

Did you setup a new wallet on the Trezor and then use Electrum to send the funds to this new wallet?  I've googled restoring wallets with address and private key and Electrum software seems to be about the only way to go.  But I'm just not clear if a new wallet has to be created on the Trezor or if the "change address" can somehow be put back into the original wallet.  I agree with you, the Blockchain website is not the same as it was several years ago. 

I'd recommend creating a new wallet with a new recovery phrase when you install the Trezor - it's very easy to follow the instructions when you first plug it in. Then send your BTC to your new Trezor wallet from Electrum.

[redkork]

Did you setup a new wallet on the Trezor and then use Electrum to send the funds to this new wallet?  I've googled restoring wallets with address and private key and Electrum software seems to be about the only way to go.  But I'm just not clear if a new wallet has to be created on the Trezor or if the "change address" can somehow be put back into the original wallet.  I agree with you, the Blockchain website is not the same as it was several years ago. 

I'd recommend creating a new wallet with a new recovery phrase when you install the Trezor - it's very easy to follow the instructions when you first plug it in. Then send your BTC to your new Trezor wallet from Electrum.

10-4 thanks for the confirmation.  I'll report back in a few days on my move to Trezor.

[krav]

All, right before I wanted to follow the instructions given in this forum (thanks alot for your replies) I got a reaction from the blockchain.com support. They managed to help me to retrieve my bitcoins back. I will post the reaction(s) below, maybe this helps others aswell. I got my lost bitcoins back!

Reaction 1:

Hello,
 
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
 
Some of our users have reported that bitcoin sent to a change address (an address generated by one's own wallet) do not immediately reflect in their wallet balances. (Click here to learn more about change addresses.)
 
Don't worry; these funds are completely safe and should be shown in your Blockchain.com Wallet in 2-3 hours. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this issue.
 
If the funds still do not reflect in your balance at that time, please reply to this message with the Segwit xPub associated with your wallet. You can find this by clicking “Settings” > “Wallets & Addresses.” To the right of "Private Key Wallet,” click “Manage”. While on the Segwit tab, press "Manage" again > "Show xPub". Read the important warning about sharing an xPub with an untrusted source, then copy the xPub text (not the QR code) and include it in your reply to us.
 
Kind regards,

Reaction 2 (after following the instructions in reaction 1):

Hello,
 
Thank you for circling back.
 
To explain what happened, the way Bitcoin transactions work is that the full amount from a Bitcoin wallet address in your DeFi wallet is sent to the mempool. The amount you want to send is directed to the wallet address you specified, while the remaining funds are sent to another wallet address within your DeFi wallet, known as the "change address." The change amount usually reflects in your account immediately, though sometimes it may take 2 to 3 hours.

In this case, the amount did not reflect due to what is called a gap limit. An HD wallet allows for billions of public and private key wallets to be generated from your seed phrase. However, our DeFi wallet only scans the first 20 unused addresses to comply with the BIP44 spec, which states that addresses of an xPub beyond this limit should not be checked for funds.

This means you have different addresses under your seed phrase where the change could be sent. Unfortunately, in this instance, when you sent the funds, the change was sent to the 22nd unused address in your Segwit xPub.

To address the gap limit, kindly send "dust funds" 0.000001 BTC to the wallet address below. Please be assured that the dust funds you send will also appear in your wallet:
<bitcoin wallet address removed>
 

You may refer to this xPub explorer link to view the wallet addresses under your Blockchain.com DeFi wallet:
<link removed>

This link was taken from your Segwit xPub, which we converted into a zpub so that the explorer could read the string of characters. Sending dust funds to it will bring down the unused addresses, addressing the gap limit and allowing your wallet to scan the wallet address where the missing funds went.

Kindly send dust funds to the bolded address above and let us know if this works or otherwise.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this issue.
 
Regards,

[nc50lc]

In this case, the amount did not reflect due to what is called a gap limit. An HD wallet allows for billions of public and private key wallets to be generated from your seed phrase. However, our DeFi wallet only scans the first 20 unused addresses to comply with the BIP44 spec, which states that addresses of an xPub beyond this limit should not be checked for funds.

This means you have different addresses under your seed phrase where the change could be sent. Unfortunately, in this instance, when you sent the funds, the change was sent to the 22nd unused address in your Segwit xPub.

Good, that explains the issue very well. (probably, you luckily got directed to their technical team)

That "Gap Limit" if working correctly, should pre-generate the specified number of keys/addresses after the last used one.
So in this particular case, instead of sending the change to the first unused change address index, it's sent to the 22nd.
A simple bug which should be solved after they receive multiple similar support tickets. (fingers crossed)

What they did is basically use another change address (2nd ~ 20th, 1-19 index should work) so that the "missing" 22nd change address will be pre-generated in your wallet according to the gap limit.

You already solved the issue but for reference, following my instructions should also work in that case plus it doesn't require you to create a dust output that could be more expensive to spend that its worth.

[PX-Z]

All, right before I wanted to follow the instructions given in this forum (thanks alot for your replies) I got a reaction from the blockchain.com support. They managed to help me to retrieve my bitcoins back. I will post the reaction(s) below, maybe this helps others aswell. I got my lost bitcoins back!
...

At least a good outcome after several days of contacting their so called support, it's so rare for them to solve an issue actually for the past years when they integrated to broader platform (as an exchange, well, even before that too) this board is the living witness of those unsolved issues in the past.

[delfastTions]

All, right before I wanted to follow the instructions given in this forum (thanks alot for your replies) I got a reaction from the blockchain.com support. They managed to help me to retrieve my bitcoins back. I will post the reaction(s) below, maybe this helps others aswell. I got my lost bitcoins back!
...

At least a good outcome after several days of contacting their so called support, it's so rare for them to solve an issue actually for the past years when they integrated to broader platform (as an exchange, well, even before that too) this board is the living witness of those unsolved issues in the past.

Definitely, this service should not be recommended to anyone.
It is too unreliable, and their support is extremely indifferent and formal to user requests in case of problems. It is not for nothing that there is such a crazy number of complaints about this service on the forum, I think none of their competitors have such a number of outraged users. And this is of course a characteristic indicator that you need to think very carefully before using this service. It is also worth considering their invention with the establishment of some fines for users who violated something there. This is simply impudence and lawlessness.