I have a question - I deposited some clam into my wallet. a few months later, I sent that balance to another address and it said the transaction came from a new address. how is this possible? does my wallet have multiple addresses, or does it change the address regularly? I had one address a few months ago, and now I have a different one. Confusing.
When coins are received, they are received in a single 'output' at the address they were sent to.
That 'output' is a single unit.
When you make a transaction, every 'CLAM' of that output must be accounted for - not just the amount you are sending.
For this reason, even if you send a single 0.00000001 'clamoshi', the entire output must be spent.
So, the remainder, the 'extra', the 'change' is sent to a different address you control.
This is likely what happened in your situation.
Receive 10 CLAM at address 'A'.
Send 1 CLAM to address 'X'.
The other 9 CLAM goes to address 'B', your change address (9 + 1 = 10).
Now, all your CLAM is at address 'B', a different address from the one they were sent, initially, to.
Send another 1 CLAM to address 'Z':
"Why did the CLAM come from address 'B', and not 'A'?"
Edit for clarity:
The entire 'output' doesn't actually have to be sent to an address, though I left this out to keep it simple.
Any amount not accounted for actually goes to fee.
Commendable that you explained it in full instead of linking to
this explanation. bugsywugsy, the link I just posted applies directly to CLAM as well as BTC.
