Many tiny transactions from faucets

[angros47]

Some time ago, I installed a bitcoin wallet, and I tried receiving bitcoins from many faucets (BitVisitor, cointube and similar ones); now, I have 1 btc and something; I tried spending it, with no success (I got "invalid transaction"). I figured it might have been a problem in my client, so I exported all the keys and build an account on blockchain.info: when I tried spending bitcoin from here, I got the error:

"This wallet contains a very large number of unspent outputs. Please consolidate some outputs"

What should I do? I read about "dusty" transactions, but I cannot discard them, because all of my bitcoin are made of it; blockchain reported an available sum of 1/3rd of the total: I tried sending it to another wallet, but it made things worse, because now the availabe sum is 1/10th of the total.

The "sweep keys" didn't work, too. Is there any solution to use these bitcoins? I.E., is there a way to "force" a transaction with no fees at all (I don't care if it needs days to complete)? Or... is there some service that takes the private keys, "extracts" coins and send them back in a clean transaction?

Sorry if my question is silly, but I haven't found anything useful on the web (I found similar questions, but most answers were useless attempts to guess, like "I never tried, but...", or "I don't know, but I believe that....").

Thanks for your help.

[1715295789]

1715295789

[1715295789]

1715295789

[1715295789]

1715295789

[shorena]

Some time ago, I installed a bitcoin wallet, and I tried receiving bitcoins from many faucets (BitVisitor, cointube and similar ones); now, I have 1 btc and something; I tried spending it, with no success (I got "invalid transaction"). I figured it might have been a problem in my client, so I exported all the keys and build an account on blockchain.info: when I tried spending bitcoin from here, I got the error:

"This wallet contains a very large number of unspent outputs. Please consolidate some outputs"

What should I do? I read about "dusty" transactions, but I cannot discard them, because all of my bitcoin are made of it; blockchain reported an available sum of 1/3rd of the total: I tried sending it to another wallet, but it made things worse, because now the availabe sum is 1/10th of the total.

So you made a transaction? Can post the TX ID?

The "sweep keys" didn't work, too.

didnt work as in...?

Is there any solution to use these bitcoins?

Yes, but its hard to give advice after you tried 500 different approaches and I have no idea what the current state is.

I.E., is there a way to "force" a transaction with no fees at all (I don't care if it needs days to complete)?

Yes, but thats not smart in your case.

Or... is there some service that takes the private keys, "extracts" coins and send them back in a clean transaction?

Sure its possible that someone could do that for you.

Sorry if my question is silly, but I haven't found anything useful on the web (I found similar questions, but most answers were useless attempts to guess, like "I never tried, but...", or "I don't know, but I believe that....").

Thanks for your help.

Thank me (and the others that might chime in) when its over.

The problem with faucets - as you are experiencing now - is that they tend to send you small amounts. The way bitcoin works is that a transaction refers to a formerly received transaction. There is no balance. If you received 10 transactions of 10k satoshi in the past and now want to spend them all your transaction has to refer to every single one of those 10 transactions. This makes the transaction big (in size). An input needs ~180 byte. You also want to send the btc somewhere, thus you need at least one output, which needs ~34 bytes and then there is a bit more than needs ~10 bytes. Thus your 100k satoshi TX needs ~1844 bytes. The "proper" fee for this would be 20k satoshi or ~20% of the amount you spend.

So much for how transactions work and why small inputs are a problem. How do you solve this? You pay a high(!) fee. If you still have bitcoin core:
#1 update to the latest version (0.10.0) and make sure its fully synced.
#2 Enable coin control
Settings -> Options -> Wallet -> check Enabled coin control features -> ok.
#3 check how many inputs you have and their combined balance:
Send -> Inputs -> (un)select all
In the top of the window there will be Quantity, Amount, Bytes and more. Post these information here, this will help us to understand how bad your situation is.

Do not forget to post the TX ID of the transaction you created via other wallet/services (if any).

[angros47]

The TX id is this:
ab9920642c6ab796220fc96f8d69a6d595d81e6a6d5e4a6b2388d2a1550a340b

Others transactions marked as "moved between wallets" are:

73753072895ad1bdfcb05d68255f9fac2ab369edaea03afba143a8903529ba97

f2dbffc9f9a9db567f9fcee9cd0fe595fd55317b72a43edb11c1de4136931dd1

1fa8082f3edc7ba48e3363e39ff58bda298e53ccbadcc2238c36f72602e7a2e9

(at least, I hope this is what you refer as TX id)

Yes, but its hard to give advice after you tried 500 different approaches and I have no idea what the current state is.

Current state is that I have all my wallets on an account on blockchain.info.

I.E., is there a way to "force" a transaction with no fees at all (I don't care if it needs days to complete)?

Yes, but thats not smart in your case.

Why not?

So much for how transactions work and why small inputs are a problem. How do you solve this? You pay a high(!) fee. If you still have bitcoin core:

I still have a bitcoin software, but it's an old version (bitcoin QT 0.8.1); I started with an even older version (0.3.24). Since I already messed it a lot I'll wait for your reply before attempting an upgrade.

[shorena]

The TX id is this:
ab9920642c6ab796220fc96f8d69a6d595d81e6a6d5e4a6b2388d2a1550a340b

Thats confirmed and made 1 input out of 200. Thats good.

Others transactions marked as "moved between wallets" are:

73753072895ad1bdfcb05d68255f9fac2ab369edaea03afba143a8903529ba97

Confirmed 200 -> 1.

f2dbffc9f9a9db567f9fcee9cd0fe595fd55317b72a43edb11c1de4136931dd1

1fa8082f3edc7ba48e3363e39ff58bda298e53ccbadcc2238c36f72602e7a2e9

All confirmed and (assuming you control 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh) greatly reduced the number of inputs.

(at least, I hope this is what you refer as TX id)

Yes, perfect.

Current state is that I have all my wallets on an account on blockchain.info.

Is the address 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh under your control?

I still have a bitcoin software, but it's an old version (bitcoin QT 0.8.1); I started with an even older version (0.3.24)

Hmm the older version does not have coin control AFAIK. Can you sync it to see if it still has a balance? You could also check the addresses manually via a blockchain explorer.

[shorena]

Looks like you edited the post.

-snip-

I.E., is there a way to "force" a transaction with no fees at all (I don't care if it needs days to complete)?

Yes, but thats not smart in your case.

Why not?

The way to spend bitcoin without paying a fee is to have a high priority. High priority comes from old inputs (yours probably are) and high value (yours are not). Due to the low value of the inputs a transaction without or with low fee is unlikely to confirm. You would basically trade your current problem for another problem ("stuck TX"), which is usually harder to solve ("double spend").

-snip-
Since I already messed it a lot I'll wait for your reply before attempting an upgrade.

I dont think you messed anything up. As I said above, the question is: does it still have a balance or did the "sweep coins" from bc.i work or maybe it only worked partially.

Edit: I know you have to wait a few minutes between posts, dont worry.

[angros47]

Is the address 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh under your control?

Yes, it is: it's the address thet blockchain.info provided me when I created the account. I have the private key.

Hmm the older version does not have coin control AFAIK. Can you sync it to see if it still has a balance? You could also check the addresses manually via a blockchain explorer.

Version 0.3 dodn't work any more; version 0.8 some days ago still had a partial balance (not complete, since I didn't put the private key for 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh)

[shorena]

Is the address 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh under your control?

Yes, it is: it's the address thet blockchain.info provided me when I created the account. I have the private key.

Hmm the older version does not have coin control AFAIK. Can you sync it to see if it still has a balance? You could also check the addresses manually via a blockchain explorer.

Version 0.3 dodn't work any more; version 0.8 some days ago still had a partial balance (not complete, since I didn't put the private key for 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh)

Can you check? Without the priv. key for your bc.i wallet. If you want to go back to using bitcoin core its best to use a new wallet once this is sorted out.

[angros47]

I started the bitcoin client... 2000 blocks to sync yet...

[shorena]

I started the bitcoin client... 2000 blocks to sync yet...

That should not take too long, a couple of hours depending on your internet connection.

[carlosiness]

i was also familiar with this situation, so I sent as much as i could btc to another wallet for big fee, left some dust..

[angros47]

Ok, sync complete: I still have 0.497 btc (the rest is on the new address)

[sho_road_warrior]

Ok, sync complete: I still have 0.497 btc (the rest is on the new address)

Can you create a transaction? You might have to reduce the amount to send in 10k satoshi steps in order to have enough left for the fee.

[shorena]

Ok, sync complete: I still have 0.497 btc (the rest is on the new address)

Can you create a transaction? You might have to reduce the amount to send in 10k satoshi steps in order to have enough left for the fee.

You could also update to 0.10.0 first as it would allow a better approximation of the proper fee. To update just close bitcoin core/qt and install the new version. It will not remove your wallet.dat (a backup should be done anyway) and it will not remove the blockchain data.

[angros47]

Should I create a transaction toward which address?
Should I use 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh, or another one?

[shorena]

Should I create a transaction toward which address?
Should I use 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh, or another one?

Any other wallet would do. Since you have most of your funds on the above bc.i address you might as well use it.

[angros47]

Tried to create a transaction of .495. It didn't work.

Tried upgrading bitcoin client: it crashes with

EXCEPTION: N5boost10filesystem16filesystem_errorE       
boost::filesystem::file_size: Operation not permitted:

[shorena]

Tried to create a transaction of .495. It didn't work.

Tried upgrading bitcoin client: it crashes with

EXCEPTION: N5boost10filesystem16filesystem_errorE      
boost::filesystem::file_size: Operation not permitted:

Hmm, not sure how to solve this. If you want I can take a look at the wallet.dat. My mail address is: shor3na@gmail.com PGP key is available here[1]. Not sure if you want to trust me with this though. If you want to use an escrow that holds .5 BTC first thats fine with me. Edit:Ill be fully available in ~2 hours.

Another option IMHO would be to dump the private keys with dumpwallet[2], sync a newly installed bitcoin core and import the keys there. This might take another night to sync even though 0.10.0 syncs way faster than older versions.


[1] https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=shor3na%40gmail.com&op=index&fingerprint=on
[2] https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-reference#dumpwallet

[angros47]

I think I'll have to trust you (after all, at the moment I can't use my bitcoins, so, I do not have much to lose)

[shorena]

I think I'll have to trust you (after all, at the moment I can't use my bitcoins, so, I do not have much to lose)

I confirm that I have received a wallet.dat.7z ~7.6 MB protected with a password.

[angros47]

password sent

[shorena]

password sent

Loaded, this is what it looks like with coin control (I removed the addresses):



2016 inputs left, suggested fee is 0.09704408 for a fast TX and 0.01080163 for a slow (~ estimated 19 blocks)

which do you prefer?

[angros47]

I'm not sure... I suppose the slow TX should be good.

By the way, as I've already told, I'm not even sure about how to spend bitcoins that are in the address 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh (from blockchain I can't)

[shorena]

I'm not sure... I suppose the slow TX should be good.

Allright.

By the way, as I've already told, I'm not even sure about how to spend bitcoins that are in the address 1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh (from blockchain I can't)

Hmm, so I wont send there. Any other address I could use? Maybe from a new slim wallet like electrum or multibit you use?

[angros47]

I was thinking about creating an online wallet (so I won't have to mess with upgrades, at least): do you recommend some online wallet in particular?

[shorena]

I was thinking about creating an online wallet (so I won't have to mess with upgrades, at least): do you recommend some online wallet in particular?

No, sorry never used any. Take a look here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

[angros47]

I created one on coinbase

Here is the address: 16F2eDs9SBvjRry42YNufSWzhevQbBsLQe

[shorena]

I created one on coinbase

Here is the address: 16F2eDs9SBvjRry42YNufSWzhevQbBsLQe

Allright, Ill send the BTC there. Looks like I have to create several TX though. Bitcoin core is complaining about the size. Ill try combining them 200 at a time.

[shorena]

Fit them into 9 TX, all confirmed, 559 satoshi left.

[angros47]

Received, thank you!

[shorena]

Received, thank you!

Sure, was interesting to see such a huge wallet

[angros47]

The other address (1CSn6sPyhxjJ2pk1oiVHgMWzBA7vomq9qh) seems to work, too!

I just placed an order on coinsfortech ... I'll see if it works.

Thank you again!

[Enzyme]

What happened to your BTC?

Anyway, I wish you luck. What I really want to know is, when did you receive the payments from these faucets?
Because, 1 BTC from faucets would take forever now.

[angros47]

I started collecting payments in 2012...