Topic: Can't access my money because of the derivation path (Read 726 times)

Problem is "Coinbase" isn't "Coinbase Wallet"; although both are products by the same company, those aren't the same.
OP's wallet is the latter which isn't custodial, so Coinbase doesn't have anything give him since they don't have the funds.

BTW, if you've read the previous replies, you'll see that in various users' attempts, they can restore their address in Electrum,
but for some reason, OP can't (and it's for you to judge what went wrong).

I'm shocked that you still haven't received your bitcoins, at least if I were you, I would, in these two years, force coinbase tech support to tell me to fuck off (give me back the coins).

They never replied to me. Do you have the BTC derivation path of Coinbase? 200 $ for you if yours work.

We already tried with many derivation paths.

Looks good.
However, the previously suggested "fixes" should work in his case if his seed phrase is correct because it's reproducible.
(Seed phrase to Electrum->select the correct address type, and the 1st address should be the same as Coinbase Wallet's)

Overall, it comes down to the possibility that he backed-up the wrong seed phrase.

I'm not sure if it helps, and I realize it's been a while, but I ran into a similar issue with the Coinbase Wallet app recently. My issue was specific to ETC, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the same type of issue exists on other coins/wallets. I'm sharing in the hopes that perhaps it might provide you with some ideas on what might have gone wrong, and how you can potentially recover the funds.

A co-worker who's pretty new to crypto purchased a few thousand dollars worth of ETC and transferred it from Coinbase to his Coinbase Wallet. Whenever he tried to send the funds back to Coinbase it would error out and basically prevent him from doing anything. Coinbase support just told him to setup another wallet using his seed key (meaning another software app wallet) and he would be able to transfer his ETC. However, when he setup his wallet on another application all of his coins showed up except for the ETC.

THE FIX
I had him install Coinomi on his iPhone and restore his wallet. When setting up wallets in Coinomi you can change the derivation key for the coin you are setting up. According to Coinomi's own support articles ETH has a derivation path of M/44H/60H/0H/0 while ETC has a derivation path of M/44H/61H/0H/0. For some reason neither his ETH or ETC wallets restored by default. To get his ETH to show up, I had to add the /0 at the end of the derivation path. To finally get his ETC to show up, I had to use the ETH derivation path on his ETC wallet (M/44H/60H/0H/0). This made little  sense to me, but it worked and allowed him to send the coins back to Coinbase.

Anyway, good luck. I wish I could be of more help. Losing funds because Coinbase apparently can't code a decent wallet is bad for the crypto in general.

Not as far as I can see... there are no "import" options within the wallet app. When you first setup the wallet, your options are to create a new wallet (gives new HD based wallet with 12 word seed mnemonic)... or you can restore your wallet from a 12 word seed mnemonic (or a coinbase backup stored on google drive??!? )

Is it possible to import (watch only) addresses into the wallet?
Or does coinbase allow to import private keys to be used in the same "account", basically creasting a HW wallet + single keys/addresses?

If so, he might have imported an address from the standard "i send you bitcoin, here import that addresss" type of scam.

I mean.. i wouldn't be surprised if the coinbase wallet would allow to add addresses/keys to the HD wallet..

And your friend is 100% sure that they saw this address and the balance within their Coinbase wallet app?

It honestly seems like either:
- This address was not generated from their coinbase wallet app at all and they actually got it from somewhere else
or
- They have the wrong seed


It's incredibly strange that you have a seed mnemonic that is generating transaction history etc... but is missing one particular address. The only other explanation would be some random bug in the wallet app that generated an address using some unknown derivation path.

It's not impossible, given that their app seems to be not showing me some of my transaction history

Nothing, I just tried with bip141 and P2WPKH these derivation paths

m/44'/0'/0'/0
m/44'/0'/0'/1
m/44'/0'/1'/0
m/44'/0'/1'/1
m/44'/0'/2'/0
m/44'/0'/2'/1

and this one too

m/44'/0'

but the desired address doesn't appear.

You should check m/44'/0' this is a hard key.

If the last number in the paths I have given is 0, you are on the external addresses. If the last number in the paths I have given is 1, you are on the change addresses. Therefore, I would check:

m/44'/0'/0'/0
m/44'/0'/0'/1
m/44'/0'/1'/0
m/44'/0'/1'/1
m/44'/0'/2'/0
m/44'/0'/2'/1

Using the BIP141 box as I described above means you have to add this additional number at the end of the derivation paths to find the change addresses, but the addresses you generate should still have the "normal" derivation paths of m/ followed by 5 numbers.

Just tried, the address with the money does not appear in the list.
When you say to check the change addresses, have I already searched them by inserting those settings you just told me or do I have to do something else in order to check them?
I tried all the combinations you've listed and the address did not appear in the list.

Running with this idea, it is at least theoretically possible since Coinbase so easily switches between Legacy and Segwit addresses, that it has derived a Segwit address from a Legacy derivation path. You could try using Ian Coleman's site (offline, of course), enter the seed phrase, scroll down to "Derivation Path" and click on "BIP141", enter m/44'/0'/0'/0 in the box titled "BIP32 Derivation Path", and select "P2WPKH" in the drop down menu titled "Script Semantics". This will generate Segwit addresses at the standard Legacy derivation path.

It would also be worth checking change addresses of that account using m/44'/0'/0'/1, and checking further accounts using m/44'/0'/1'/0 and m/44'/0'/2'/0, and checking the change addresses of those accounts too.

Yeah it could indeed be number 2, although I am not 100% sure because it had already happened to me personally not to access my funds even though I had the exact seed. After a while I found the funds (with that seed), it was a derivation path issue, because for whatever reason (no idea to this day), it was different from the other ones created by electrum. Instead of m/84/0/0 it was m/0 and that's it.

RIP

To me it seems that these 2 options are the most likely ones:

1)
There is a weird and really rare bug inside of the coinbase wallet application which derived the one single address wrong only that one time.
While this definitely is not impossible, it is rather rare.

2)
Your friend has the wrong mnemonic code.
This happens more often than you would assume. People tend to "know for sure" which mnemonic code they have used. But in the end it always was their mistake (wrong wallet file, different mnemonic code, used a BIP39 passphrase, etc...).

Done. It shows the same transactions from the legacy and segwit wallet.

Transactions are incoming and outgoing and they can do so from and to different address types.
A public point can have multiple address types.
But if that address with funds belonged to that wallet it would show up as positive funds given that the transactions were done with a standardized wallet that uses standard protocols.
Maybe you are using the wrong wallet in that case it would not be able to detect the transaction.
You have to be sure about the wallet app that was used and the one you are using now, these will have to use the same protocols.
If you still think that there is something wrong you will have to calculate some addresses manually and check the results.

Can you try something for me... can you try installing the Mycelium wallet app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.wallet and then restoring the seed in that application and check to see what transactions you can see?

I've just restored an old Mycelium seed into Coinbase... and it's missing the first couple of transactions from the wallet history. So, it seems that perhaps the Coinbase app might be "broken"?


Yes, that is exactly what the Coinbase wallet does... Like I said, you can swap between SegWit and Legacy simply by tapping on the "Segwit" and "Legacy" tabs on the "Receive" screen... it swaps from one to the other. On the main screen it simply shows all the transactions from both the SegWit and Legacy "wallets"...

at least, it should, but like I said, it seems to be missing a transaction or two?

Will do. Can you read my last post again? I edited it.

No the seed is right.
The address with the balance belongs to a different seed.
You have a seed... not the seed.
Maybe it's time to talk to your friend.