Where do bitcoins go

[stwenhao]

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?

Of course. The simplest one is called OP_RETURN, which means "this coin will never move anywhere in the future". But there are many other scripts, like OP_FALSE, or even mathematically impossible conditions, like "OP_2 OP_2 OP_ADD OP_5 OP_EQUAL". Then, nobody will prove, that "2+2=5", so nobody will move it.

And there are also standard ones, for example if you use a public key with invalid x-coordinate. Then, such P2PK is standard, but unspendable. And the same with P2TR, for the externally exposed public key.

[Lal_bitcoin]

@nc50lc thanks for the heads up, so that means addresses like the P2PKH and P2SH can be calculated meanwhile the besh32 addresses would likely provide accurate result to validate or invalidate the transaction.

@stwenhao thanks for the clarification.
How did the transaction manage to go through since there are no addresses,
Secondly, what's the purpose of making such transaction since those bitcoin cannot be accessed by anyone or spent?

@LoyceV thanks for bringing up Theymos's analogy. But I have a question.
Theymos said something about private keys that they can never be regenerated for another person to make use of, so my question is, is there any built-in algorithm that ensures this doesn't happen especially since there are several different types of wallets softwares out there?

@Mahiyammahi that's alot of numbers, even if the entire world population makes use of 5 wallet each it's still not close to that value.

[hmbdofficial]

so that means addresses like the P2PKH and P2SH can be calculated meanwhile the besh32 addresses would likely provide accurate result to validate or invalidate the transaction.

Yes to explain it better this way all address actually has the checksum as an error detection mechanism built in them to avoid sending coin to an invalid address or mistyped address regardless of whether it is a legacy P2PKH or P2SH this two type uses the base58check encoding.
As for the newly or Morden bech32/ bech32m addresses that also have the mechanism inbuilt in them as well but in this case it uses a stronger method than the one in the legacy therefore it is safe to say bech32 (Segwit)could detect those errors quickly and invalidates it faster as in the legacy

[nc50lc]

@nc50lc thanks for the heads up, so that means addresses like the P2PKH and P2SH can be calculated meanwhile the besh32 addresses would likely provide accurate result to validate or invalidate the transaction.

"The address", not "the transaction", the checksum only affects the address and it's entirely client-side.
The check is done even before constructing the transaction.
Meanwhile, transactions and the Bitcoin Network don't have the concept of address.
(the wallet/client only shows those scripts as addresses to be human-readable).

Anyways, yes, bech32/bech32m addresses should be 100% accurate as long as there's only 4 or less typo.
Your wallet should be able to detect it and usually prevent you from proceeding to create a transaction.
For base58, the number that I've given is more of an "average" chance.

[m2017]

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.

So, someone could one day become lucky enough to gain access to this wallet simply by creating a new wallet and randomly generating a private key to store these 700 BTCs? Hypothetically, it's possible, right?

It's something like a lottery, but with a very small chance of winning.

[LoyceV]

Theymos said something about private keys that they can never be regenerated for another person to make use of, so my question is, is there any built-in algorithm that ensures this doesn't happen especially since there are several different types of wallets softwares out there?

The built-in algorithm is math: "just pick a very large random number" isn't going to create the same number again.
Try it: pick a number in your head. Pick another one. Try it again.
Here's the one I picked (select to see it): 489707390086684945700108888012971867044041213760433723227017316158245729293
Do you think you'll ever pick the same number?

So, someone could one day become lucky enough to gain access to this wallet simply by creating a new wallet and randomly generating a private key to store these 700 BTCs? Hypothetically, it's possible, right?

If that would be possible, Bitcoin would have been abandoned a long time ago. But feel free to try it to convince yourself, start with the Bitcoin Rich List

[Lal_bitcoin]

@nc50lc thanks for the correction again, it is going to take a while before i get used to these terms, but i understand now thanks for the explanation.

@LoyceV it would be almost impossible to pick same number again, I get you now thanks.


@m2017 I did a little bit of research along side the information in this thread and I discovered that it would be almost impossible because the chances of collision of a 32byte private key is 1 out of 2²⁵⁶ that is a large number man, it would be best dedicating much time and effort trying to hit the jackpot in a casino than trying to get lucky with a collision lol

[Hyphen(-)]

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 exist, then the Bitcoin will go to the wrong address, but if the address doesn’t exist, then the Bitcoin will remain in that same wallet that no one have access to. It can be referred to as abandoned or lost Bitcoin since no one have access to the Bitcoin.

One should try as much as possible to always verify the wallet address manually by looking at the wallet two or three times before sending out Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions have no refund.

[BlackBoss_]

If the address is exist, then the Bitcoin will go to the wrong address, but if the address doesn’t exist, then the Bitcoin will remain in that same wallet that no one have access to. It can be referred to as abandoned or lost Bitcoin since no one have access to the Bitcoin.

One should try as much as possible to always verify the wallet address manually by looking at the wallet two or three times before sending out Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions have no refund.

When you send your bitcoin and your Bitcoin wallet allows you to broadcast your transaction to that address with assumption that it does not detect anything wrong with the receiving address, your transaction will wait in the Bitcoin mempools.

If it is confirmed by Bitcoin miners, it will be on Bitcoin blockchain and at that time you can consider that you lost your coins forever.

If that transaction was not confirmed by any reason like mempools found something wrong in the address or your transaction was broadcasted with too low fee, you have yet lost your bitcoins. You can do double spends for rescue your bitcoin but I don't know it is truly high chance for that rescue action.

It is best to do everything rightly and accurately at the beginning.

[KingsDen]

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.

Wrong address 1 - Sending to another person's existing address
Wrong address 2 - Sending to non existing address because of typo.

For 1: It will go to the other persons address
For 2: It's likely not going through.

If it goes, refer to what nc50lc said about.
I'm just trying to simplify this.

[Cricktor]

For example: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2

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

So, someone could one day become lucky enough to gain access to this wallet simply by creating a new wallet and randomly generating a private key to store these 700 BTCs? Hypothetically, it's possible, right?

It's something like a lottery, but with a very small chance of winning.

In theory, yes, but likelyhood is extremely small, practically non-existant, so small in fact, that it's basically not going to happen in comprehendable lifetimes (people, humanity, earth).

The above legacy public address has the property that the HASH160(public key) is 20 bytes all zero, (HASH160() is RIPEMD160(SHA256())). You can play around with legacy public addresses here: Base58 Address (P2PKH), click on the box there with that name to expand the playground.

You can enter the public address in the entry box there and it will calculate Prefix, HASH160 and Checksum for you, yielding this for above address:

Prefix	HASH160	Checksum
00	0000000000000000000000000000000000000000	94a00911
1 byte	20 bytes	4 bytes

Mathematically there should exist 2⁹⁶ private keys, giving the same number of unique public keys which will be hashed to such an all zero HASH160. Reason for this is that the space of SHA256(public key) has the magnitude of ~2²⁵⁶, 32 bytes, and RIPEMD160 of that reduces the magnitude to "only" 2¹⁶⁰. You have 2⁹⁶ SHA256() hashes that will give you the same RIPEMD160() hash value.

Still safe, no worries. To my knowledge nobody has ever found a published RIPEMD160() collision yet.


Post edit:
This is all assuming that the hash functions SHA256() and RIPEMD160() yield a uniform result space with no blanks in it. I don't know if it can or has been proven that RIPEMD160(something) will ever yield an all 20 bytes zero value.

Where do bitcoins go? --- They "live" in the Bitcoin blockchain and move around there as UTXOs. They are not in your wallets, they are only in the blockchain. Your wallets hold the keys to move coins in the blockchain.

[bournekin]

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.

fair wuestion but they do not go anywhere magical lol.  they just land exactly where you told them to. bitcoin dont check if an address belongs to a real person or active wallet. if you do send to a valid looking address that nobody controls those coins are basically stuck there forever. no refunds no support desk and unfortunately no undo button  that is just how the network works so yea wrong address means coins still exist on the blockchain but they are practically lost unless someone has the private keys which in most cases means they are gone for good. just need to double check everything is correct before pressing send

[Patikno]

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.

After reading the OP question, I immediately researched it and found another thread discussing the same issue. I found that a user had stated that there are two possible outcomes. First, if you send to a "Valid" Bitcoin wallet, you can send it, but it will disappear (since we don't know who owns it, or maybe no one does). Second, if you send to an "Invalid" address, you won't be able to send Bitcoin there.

Reference : Bitcointalk.org - Re: What happens to Bitcoins that are sent to a non-existent address?

I also saw the mathematical explanation from the user, but I don't really understand it. I think it is need a technical understanding. Cmiiw.

Reference : Bitcointalk.org - Re: What happens to Bitcoins that are sent to a non-existent address?

By the way, if you accidentally send Bitcoin to the wrong (but valid) address, you can cancel the transaction while the network hasn't confirmed it. I found this in another thread, in a reply from a forum user.

Reference : Bitcointalk.org - Re: Wrong Btc address

[Asuspawer09]

The quick answer here was that your Bitcoin was lost forever, or burned if you successfully sent it to the wrong address; it doesn't matter if the address exists or not, it is still going to be sent to that address. The address doesn't need to have a seed phrase, so the crypto is still sent, but no one can spend it, so it is considered burned because it will never move ever. There are a lot of lost address or wallets out there, there are also address that private keys or seed phrases are already forgotten, or, like when the owner dies, and they are never able to pass down the seed phrase, the address will never be opened again, so they are considered burned.

So if you're able to sent it means it is a valid address, because you cannot send it to an invalid address or a wrong format address; it will not go through, your Bitcoin wallet is probably not going to allow that.

[PX-Z]

After reading the OP question, I immediately researched it and found another thread discussing the same issue. I found that a user had stated that there are two possible outcomes. First, if you send to a "Valid" Bitcoin wallet, you can send it, but it will disappear (since we don't know who owns it, or maybe no one does). Second, if you send to an "Invalid" address, you won't be able to send Bitcoin there.

It does not disappear, it stays on the network and its just no one can access it. Second, that didn't happen before, some cases happened way way back before when bitcoin is at very early staged, but with todays modern wallets and way of verification, it's impossible to send to invalid address.

And thanks to those who sends bitcoin to inaccessible wallets, they are out of circulation and thus help the scarcity of bitcoin, which can (theoretically) pump the value of the remaining supply in circulation.

[Smartvirus]

Basically at OP, transactions being initiated for a supposedly wrong address (being nonexistent) usually don’t go through, it gets flagged right away and this is made possible due to the checksum validation of address which generally analyzes for typos within an address by comparing certain characters in the address base strings with a corresponding hash greatly reducing the margin for errors by invalidating the transaction.
Should any transaction ever gets through successfully, then the address isn’t entirely nonexistent as the checksum have drawn some relativism between its base characters to the hash with matches thereby, allowing such transactions to be proceed. It doesn’t mean the Bitcoin varnishes into thin air, no but, it has being sent to an address not of your original intent.

[adultcrypto]

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.

How did you know that no one know the private keys of that address? I ask the question for learning purpose and not because I'm doubting you. There have been lots of arguments about lost coins and I have not understood how some wallets made it to the list of lost coins. Some people even add the coins in Satoshi's wallet to be lost. If you can help with a better explanation on this, it will be greatly appreciated.

[Taricoins]

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.

Hmm 🤔 this is an interesting question because I just came to realize also myself that I actually don't know how the whole things goes but I have read some explanations and replies here that have gave me a heads up in the whole process.

That's why the community is interesting as alot of folks educated and share positive information always.

[fortelen]

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.

the simple answer is no where once you send money to a bitcoin even if its the wrong address it still goes there even when there is no actually access to the address. bitcoin platform does not have the ability to check address before sent or even when sent that why you have to make sure you double check every thing before pressing send