Did I just totally somehow screw up with ColdStorage?! Please advise....

[martinw79]

I decided to move my BTC into a few different paper wallets after my main laptop couldn't launch bit coin-qt anymore with corrupt database errors. I moved the wallet.dat to a new bitcoin-qt install on another pc, the wallet was password protected.

I generated 8 paper wallets on an offline PC, send very small payments to make sure they reach the address OK. They all did. My main wallet (bitcoin-qt) shows the correct balance of ~ 80BTC, but blockchain.info for this address shows 0! [1Nbm6SWWa7R8XYmyNxJ6yUPFfZEeVf8gNa]

This was the original address from the wallet.dat I moved over: 1Nbm6SWWa7R8XYmyNxJ6yUPFfZEeVf8gNa
This appears to be a new address in the new bitcoin-qt install (no label) - this is where I placed my original wallet.dat: 1LAPQo2RxY3tsAMQn1JoU4hCGiZtc2nuAD

I see large transaction of 70BTC and 7.9 BTC that I did not make?
https://blockchain.info/address/1Nbm6SWWa7R8XYmyNxJ6yUPFfZEeVf8gNa

Can someone explain please what's going on? I'm freaking out since Blockchain.info shows a balance of 2BTC, I was using this site for Watch Only addresses, I never imported anything substantial there.

 

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[Newar]

This looks like 6 test payments and the change went to internally generated address in Bitcoin Core. Blockchain.info only knows about 1Nbm... and can not know about the change addresses in Bitcoin Core.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

[martinw79]

So I'm good?  This is the last stress I needed while trying to be safe and go paper / cold storage......

[Newar]

Looks good to me 

Not need to stress out. Bitcoin Core shows the amount you expect? The coins you expected to send to your cold storage have arrived?

From now on just monitor your paper wallets. Unless you expect any more payments to previously used addresses you can forget about them.

[Ashbite]

I think you dont have to worry.

Just hold your eye on those paper wallets and monitor if nothing is gone at some time
I think you are good mate

[Rannasha]

As was mentioned before, Bitcoin Core has sent your coins to a change address, which is contained in the wallet.dat file and is managed by the software.

Blockchain.info and other block explorers can be deceptive tools if you don't know about change addresses and how most regular Bitcoin clients move coins around. If Bitcoin Core is synchronized with the network then whatever balance it shows is the balance you control with your wallet-file. But these coins may be spread over multiple addresses.

[DannyHamilton]

While the information isn't too useful unless you are building raw transactions, you can see which hidden change addresses your Bitcoin Core wallet most recently used to receive the change from transactions.  This might put your mind at ease a bit since you can then look up those addresses in a blockchain explorer such as blockchain.info

Under the Help menu, choose the Debug Window, then choose "Console".

Enter the following command:

Code:

listunspent

It will provide you a list of all the unspent inputs that your wallet can currently spend.

The "amount" is the number of bitcoins that output has, and the "address" is the address in your wallet that the output was sent to.