Where do bitcoins go

[Lal_bitcoin]

Hello guy

Something has been bordering me for a long time and it's a good thing i found about this forum to learn and understand somethings about bitcoin and cryptocurrency better.

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

[stwenhao]

a wrong address

It depends, what do you mean. If that "wrong address" is non-standard, then you probably won't get it accepted, without having support from some mining pools. But if it is standard, then they will just land on that address, even if nobody can access these coins.

For example: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2

As you can see, nobody knows the private key, but there are around 700 BTCs.

[nc50lc]

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

Firstly, you're not actually sending from - to; it's actually spending UTXO and creating new UTXO "Unspent Transaction Output". (DYOR about "UTXO Model")
Secondly, that address is just a human-encoding of a locking script that's used to create new UTXO.
Thirdly, that human-encoding has a built-in checksum that quite reliably ensures that a typo would invalidate the mistyped address.

So the first part of the question is invalidated since a wrong address will most likely be invalid and most well-written bitcoin client will not accept it.
But if it ever passed the checksum since it's not 100% reliable (I said "quite"), the UTXO that's created with it can only be spent if the conditions stated on it is satisfied.
For example: if it's a P2PKH script and the mistyped character corresponds to the hash of the public key, it can be spend if another public key ended up producing that same hash, not the intended recipient.
It's a case-to-case basis.

[CryptSafe]

Hello guy

Something has been bordering me for a long time and it's a good thing i found about this forum to learn and understand somethings about bitcoin and cryptocurrency better.

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

OP I will just give you a simple and short explanation here.
One thing you should know is that the crypto space is filled with different block chain so each of them have their own wallets with different formats. It is not possible to send  eth to Bitcoin because the both of them are not of the same blockchain but rather different wallet patterns so it would not go even if you click on send as a prompt would notify you of your actions to provide the appropriate wallet for the transaction but however, for instance eth blockchain has other side chain or fork's if you may like and it simply means that if you send any token on eth blockchain to any eth fork wallet, it would go which means you are likely sending the your rewards to the wrong wallet and only the owner of that wallet or one who owns the key's to that wallet can be able to access the token and send it back to you. This is why you are advised to always cross check wallet address before sending because if sent to the wrong address can not be recovered.

[NeuroticFish]

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

It doesn't matter the address has no owner, the coins will be there, on that address (but untouchable, probably forever). Bitcoins are being sent to addresses, not to recipients.

Some notes:
* If one can send coins to an address, that address must be already special, to increase chances it has an owner that can get those coins. Wallets ensure that.
* Keep in mind that it's better to consider that a wallet consider "received coins" instead of just coins. It's more complicated than just that number you see.
* Keep in mind that even if a valid address has no owner, it's still an address. Sometimes it even has coins on it, tough luck.


I hope it's simple enough

[Franctoshi]

Hello guy

Something has been bordering me for a long time and it's a good thing i found about this forum to learn and understand somethings about bitcoin and cryptocurrency better.

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

This threads reminds me of my TWT token ( a token for Trust wallet) that I lost when the coin was newly launched.
What lead to the lost; I was supposed to send the token to the trust wallet instead, but went and sent it to a wallet called myeth wallet that I was using then to store my cryptos, I didn't recover that token uptil today, even it didn't reflect on that particular wallet, this is exactly what you can experience or face Op when you send out coin to a wrong wallet too, it's gone forever.

[nakamura12]

This threads reminds me of my TWT token ( a token for Trust wallet) that I lost when the coin was newly launched.
What lead to the lost; I was supposed to send the token to the trust wallet instead, but went and sent it to a wallet called myeth wallet that I was using then to store my cryptos, I didn't recover that token uptil today, even it didn't reflect on that particular wallet, this is exactly what you can experience or face Op when you send out coin to a wrong wallet too, it's gone forever.

It's really what happened to OP since it was sent to a different address either it is non-existent or an address with no owner. It's simply lost in the network and cannot be recovered unless as others have explained that if the address can be accessed then there's a possibility that it will be recovered. About your token, I think it can be recovered as long as you have the wallet credentials to ask for support from the network.

[Jewan420]

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

If the address is invalid, the transaction will not be approved by the network and the transaction will not be completed. As a result, your bitcoins will remain with you.

If the address is valid and the transaction is confirmed on the blockchain after sending bitcoins to a real wallet, it becomes the owner's property, and if he is unwilling to return it, it is not possible to recover those bitcoins.

If bitcoins are sent to a valid address that is not used, then the bitcoins will remain stuck on the blockchain forever. Recovering bitcoins is very difficult because there is no intermediary, if you send bitcoins to an exchange address, there is a small chance of getting it back, even that chance is very small and there is no guarantee.

[sunsilk]

It's simply lost in the network and cannot be recovered unless as others have explained that if the address can be accessed then there's a possibility that it will be recovered.

Coins sent to a wrong address won't be lost in the network, it's still there but in the wrong address. The network doesn't break coins that are wrongly sent and it remains there but inaccessible provided that the address is existing and out of nowhere, the sender copied it from somewhere and pasted it without checking the address(receiver).

Although this rarely happens but has a chance of happening. And as for the question of OP, good explanations were provided so wrong address can't be wrong if it's not even existing.

[nakamura12]

Coins sent to a wrong address won't be lost in the network, it's still there but in the wrong address. The network doesn't break coins that are wrongly sent and it remains there but inaccessible provided that the address is existing and out of nowhere, the sender copied it from somewhere and pasted it without checking the address(receiver).

Although this rarely happens but has a chance of happening. And as for the question of OP, good explanations were provided so wrong address can't be wrong if it's not even existing.

What I mean is that it stays on Bitcoin network no matter what address it was sent and isn't bitcoin run on bitcoin network?. One more thing, I never said that the coins will be broken by the network and I only said it will be lost in bitcoin network which is the blockchain. I only explained that the coins that are sent to wrong address with no access will remain there so, people can't no longer access it. You might have misunderstood what I mean and I may used the wrong words to use since I am not good in writing in english.

[hd49728]

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

2026 is no longer as earliest years of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market, so Bitcoin wallets and exchanges grew up a lot. A good Bitcoin wallet software and a good centralized exchange in 2026 would automatically notify users about a wrong address.

On centralized exchanges, if you type or paste a wrong address (in format, I mean), you will not be able to finalize your withdrawal request.
In your Bitcoin non custodial wallet, if you type/ paste a wrong formatted address, you can not click on Next and Broadcast your Bitcoin transaction.

If you are using a non custodial walelt, you can test it.

[tech30338]

Hello guy

Something has been bordering me for a long time and it's a good thing i found about this forum to learn and understand somethings about bitcoin and cryptocurrency better.

My question is: where do bitcoins go when we send them to a wrong address? Probably the recipient address is non existing.

If you have sent the bitcoin to a wrong address they will have the bitcoin for themselves, since you don't know who he is, unless he returned it to you in good faith, but when you send it to a wrong address that is not existing, that might be lost forever since you can't reverse it, there is nothing you can do, about it.
This is why sending any crypto assets to a person or to someone you know, should be check multiple times, also avoid copying address on transactions, because you might get address poisoning, so be very careful because someone lost millions by doing it or large some of assets.

[nc50lc]

This threads reminds me of my TWT token ( a token for Trust wallet) that I lost when the coin was newly launched.
What lead to the lost; I was supposed to send the token to the trust wallet instead, but went and sent it to a wallet called myeth wallet

This is a good real-world example of those "not sending from - to" and "address is just a human-encoding of a locking script" that I've mentioned.

Reason is, it's not actually account-based balance deducted from walletA (Sender) and added to walletB (Trust Wallet),
But a transaction known by the nodes of that particular network, a transaction that spent a UTXO and created new UTXO with the locking script represented by the address.
So, as long as the script is supported by both networks, the owner's private key can unlock it.
The hurdle is how to get that private key to the correct wallet that can scan that particular transaction.

Given that, have you tried to import the said address' private key to a wallet that supports that token?
Because that could be recoverable depending on the circumstances (highly-likely).
If you want to give it a try, since it'll be off-topic, open a new topic regarding it in the correct board with enough details. (in "Web Wallets" board since it's MEW)
Or DYOR about "cross-chain recovery" but ignore results about scam services with that name.

[pooya87]

Imagine bitcoin's blockchain and the way coins are sent to "addresses" as a series of lockboxes in space that seem endless due to how massive their total count is. Imagine for example 2²⁵⁶ of these floating in endless space:

That's what a bitcoin address is. It's like a lockbox that can only be unlocked with a "special" key. There is a slit on top that allows anybody to put money into the lockbox but only the one who owns the key can unlock it and spend the money inside.

When you want to send someone bitcoins, they give you the location of their "lockbox" amongst all those other boxes (which means they'll give you their receiving address) and you unlock your own lockbox to take out your own coins and then put them into their box.

So what happens if you insert your money into a lockbox that nobody has the key to? It's simple, your money will be locked inside of it forever.

[Lal_bitcoin]

@stwenhao, are you saying non-standard address can still be used even till date?

@nc50lc, I quite understand the concept about the checksum, but is there any percentaged value of how reliable the checksum is? Or is it functioning in a floating value based on the wallet type or it's just an algorithm in the blockchain?
Secondly, so you mean every mistyped address that is non existing results as invalidated and would not be accepted by bitcoin client except the mistyped address ends up becoming a hash of another public key. This makes sense thanks.

@hd49728, is wallet invalidation a new featured development in blockchain technology? or both new and early transactions have this checksum to validate or invalidate transactions errors like address typo-error?

@pooya87 thanks for the pictures and  explanation, this answered my question in a more basic level.
So that means if there is no lockbox or a non-existing lockbox you certainly cannot move your money there. The whole concept of invalidation of transactions becomes more clearer, thanks.

I want to appreciate everyone for their contributions, even though I couldn't mention all your names i did learn something from you though.

Thanks guys.

[nc50lc]

@nc50lc, I quite understand the concept about the checksum, but is there any percentaged value of how reliable the checksum is? Or is it functioning in a floating value based on the wallet type or it's just an algorithm in the blockchain?

Depends on the "address type" (not "wallet type" BTW), for Base58check-based addresses, it's easily calculated based by size of the checksum.
Since it's 4Bytes (32bits), it has a very low collision chance of 1 out of 2^32 (1/4,294,967,296).

For bech32-based addresses, there's zero chance that it'll be valid if it's just 4 or less mistyped characters.
For more typos, it's more complicated than Base58check but there's a graph readily available in BIP173.
Check it here: github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0173.mediawiki
For the actual addresses' checksum, refer to 39 and 59 lengths.

[stwenhao]

are you saying non-standard address can still be used even till date?

If some mining pool will accept it, then sure: https://mempool.space/tx/57cb9ce462f11c6dac11be280ad104182feed8ac109f0c33c0e8b950fbb36bab

As you can see, coins are sent to just OP_TRUE, and nothing else. Some block explorers like mempool.space will mark it as UNKNOWN, because there is no address at all. It is non-standard, but it is valid, and if some mining pool accept it, then it can be included.

[LoyceV]

Imagine bitcoin's blockchain and the way coins are sent to "addresses" as a series of lockboxes in space that seem endless due to how massive their total count is.

I like theymos' description better: there isn't even a lock on it! All you need to do is find the locker:

I like this analogy:

Imagine a massive wall of lockers. Each locker is 1mm by 1mm, and the entire wall of lockers is a square 2 light years on each side. When you choose a private key, you pick one of these lockers at random. When someone sends you bitcoins, there's some magical inbox which puts the bitcoins into your locker without telling the sender anything about the location of your locker.

The lockers don't have locks. If someone knew the location of your locker (ie. your private key), then they could just go take what's in it. Similarly, it's possible to choose a locker at random and find that someone has used it already at some point in the past. But there are just so many lockers that in reality it's never going to happen, even if humanity devotes all of its efforts to searching through all of the lockers.

As you can see, coins are sent to just OP_TRUE, and nothing else. Some block explorers like mempool.space will mark it as UNKNOWN, because there is no address at all. It is non-standard, but it is valid, and if some mining pool accept it, then it can be included.

Those are the things that Blockchair calls s-031b4af5197ec30a926f48cf40e11a7d.

[stwenhao]

Interesting. They just use SHA-256 on a Script in "ASCII hex" mode, and take only the first 128 bits out of it:

Code:

            s-031b4af5197ec30a926f48cf40e11a7d
SHA-256("51")=031b4af5197ec30a926f48cf40e11a7dbc470048a21e4003b7a3c07c5dab1baa

Which means, that by doing around 2^64 SHA-256 computations, it may be possible to game their system, and make something, which wouldn't collide on-chain, but which would specifically break their system alone. And then, their explorer could potentially put two or more unrelated scripts under the same label.

[Mahiyammahi]

So what happens if you insert your money into a lockbox that nobody has the key to? It's simple, your money will be locked inside of it forever.

Since there are 2¹⁶⁰ possible Bitcoin addresses, I’m assuming that, even if someone randomly generates an address far in the future, they could theoretically generate the same address I once used and gain access to any funds sent there.

But is it possible that I could send Bitcoin to an address that has no corresponding private key, or to an address for which no key can ever be generated in the future  like a locker that can never be opened by any key?