Topic: Help needed to spend from paper wallet (Read 421 times)
i suggest to import the private keys on electrum, which is one of the safest wallets, both for mobile and desktop, obviously you cannot save the fee by sending multiple transmissions with a single transaction, many sending (addresses) so many transactions, however afterwards it is worthwhile return the rest to another newly just created paper wallet...
Question: Why do we need to worry about change? Shouldn’t it be enough to send the exact amounts plus fees?
I'll paint a scenario in which people have lost very large amounts of Bitcoins. This is how NOT to do it:1. Import your paper wallet into a wallet
2. Send a small transaction
3. Delete the wallet assuming the remaining balance is still on your paper wallet
4. Realize you've lost thousands of Bitcoins and will never be a crypto millionaire
It depends on the wallet how change is treated, but it's safe to assume change will go to a different address and not back to your own paper wallet, unless you take precautions!
That's why it's better to sweep the funds into a wallet (make sure you create a backup of the wallet before funding it!), make payments from there, and send remaining funds back to a (new!) paper wallet if needed.
Further reading: Five Ways to Lose Money with Bitcoin Change Addresses
Am I able to choose a miner’s fee for the return?
The change is included in the same transaction as the coins you are trying to send. You can't divide them in separate transactions and pay different fees. By the way, that would be more expensive if it was possible. It's better to send a transaction with multiple inputs and outputs rather than a few single payments.
Question: Why do we need to worry about change? Shouldn’t it be enough to send the exact amounts plus fees? That’s what I do with all my transactions at least.
You do it with Bitcoin transactions or are you referring to another currency?If you have 1 BTC at an address and you need to spend 0.2 BTC, imagine that your 1 BTC is in the form of a paper bill. You need to spend the entire bill/1 BTC because you only have that one bill and no smaller bills. 0.2 BTC is going to the destination address and the rest (- the fees) is the change in the form of a new paper bill, worth 0.8 BTC that is now going to a new address/another one of your pockets.
Question: Why do we need to worry about change? Shouldn’t it be enough to send the exact amounts plus fees? That’s what I do with all my transactions at least.
You do it with Bitcoin transactions or are you referring to another currency?If you have 1 BTC at an address and you need to spend 0.2 BTC, imagine that your 1 BTC is in the form of a paper bill. You need to spend the entire bill/1 BTC because you only have that one bill and no smaller bills. 0.2 BTC is going to the destination address and the rest (- the fees) is the change in the form of a new paper bill, worth 0.8 BTC that is now going to a new address/another one of your pockets.
Question: Why do we need to worry about change? Shouldn’t it be enough to send the exact amounts plus fees? That’s what I do with all my transactions at least.
That's not how Bitcoin transactions work. Every time you receive a payment, a new unspent output is created. If you don't want to have any change then you have to spend that whole output (it will be now considered as input in your transaction). The more inputs and outputs you have in your transaction, the higher the fee you will pay. You can find more detailed explanation here. For example, Ethereum does not have inputs/outputs, so there is no change.
Try to think of them as bills. You can't simply tear a 10 dollar bill in half.
Question: Why do we need to worry about change? Shouldn’t it be enough to send the exact amounts plus fees? That’s what I do with all my transactions at least.
As per the example transaction the fees paid is way too much 0.001 BTC. Do i need to pay high transaction fees?
No. 1 sat/byte is enough now. As per the example transaction the fees paid is way too much 0.001 BTC. Do i need to pay high transaction fees?
No, you don't have to pay that much. You can change the fee manually in the Send tab. I have already explained it in this post. Setting the fee to 1 sat/byte should get your transaction confirmed within 24 hours. You will pay way less than 0.001 BTC.
Good tips on doing multiple payments with a single broadcast, but this is still seen as multiple transactions to the blockchain no? Albeit at the same time i reckon.
No.It shows as a single transaction, with a single TXID, with a single transaction fee, with multiple outputs... Something a bit like this: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/2dd1a3f30921eff395d06480727b94dac6d7618084a8272d6a060af110d90789
Payments sent to 2 different addresses, with the "change" being returned to the original address.
Yes this is how i want my transaction to be. I will try using Electrum.
As per the example transaction the fees paid is way too much 0.001 BTC. Do i need to pay high transaction fees?
In addition to what bob123 said already, I would recommend to keep your private key offline.
That means you can import your address into Electrum on an online computer, then create the transaction you want. Keep the raw transaction, and sign it on an offline computer, ideally running from a Linux LIVE DVD that runs from memory (unplug ethernet and don't enable Wifi), so you can just turn off afterwards without ever going online.
Before signing the transaction, you can use for instance https://coinb.in/#verify to check the transaction and make absolutely sure your change is returned to your own paper wallet.
Note: once your private key has touched an online computer, your paper wallet can no longer be considered cold storage!
I can also recommend to send a small amount (say 0.01 BTC) to a normal Electrum wallet, installed on an online PC, so that in the future you can make small payments without touching your paper wallet.
Note that you also own many different Bitcoin Forkcoins, currently worth a couple hundred dollars. Your current paper wallet can be used to access them later, but before doing anything, make sure to know what you're up against. You wouldn't be the first to lose his Bitcoins while trying to recover a much lower valued Forkcoin.
That means you can import your address into Electrum on an online computer, then create the transaction you want. Keep the raw transaction, and sign it on an offline computer, ideally running from a Linux LIVE DVD that runs from memory (unplug ethernet and don't enable Wifi), so you can just turn off afterwards without ever going online.
Before signing the transaction, you can use for instance https://coinb.in/#verify to check the transaction and make absolutely sure your change is returned to your own paper wallet.
Note: once your private key has touched an online computer, your paper wallet can no longer be considered cold storage!
I can also recommend to send a small amount (say 0.01 BTC) to a normal Electrum wallet, installed on an online PC, so that in the future you can make small payments without touching your paper wallet.
Note that you also own many different Bitcoin Forkcoins, currently worth a couple hundred dollars. Your current paper wallet can be used to access them later, but before doing anything, make sure to know what you're up against. You wouldn't be the first to lose his Bitcoins while trying to recover a much lower valued Forkcoin.
Quote from: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet
A paper wallet is the name given to an obsolete and unsafe method of storing bitcoin which was popular between 2011 and 2016. It works by having a single private key and bitcoin address, usually generated by a website, being printed out onto paper.
This method has a large number of downsides and should not be used.
For storage of bitcoins, a much better way accomplish what paper wallets do is to use seed phrases instead, where the user writes down 12 or 24 random words generated by their wallet.
This method has a large number of downsides and should not be used.
For storage of bitcoins, a much better way accomplish what paper wallets do is to use seed phrases instead, where the user writes down 12 or 24 random words generated by their wallet.
I know the op doesn't want to bother securing it again, but think about it. What is that security worth when it could be already compromised? Ideally, a private key should never ever be seen by an electronic device.
~snip~
Wow.. i do absolutely not agree with the wiki article.
Yes, paper wallets are inconvenient.
Yes, you have to be careful when using paper wallets.
But calling them unsafe and obsolete per se is wrong IMO.
However, i agree with you that one shouldn't continue using the same private key after entering it into an electronic device.
@OP, paper wallets are meant to be cold storage (i.e. never touching online device).
A better alternative would be to create a second paper wallet (if you still want to use them; of course in a safe and secure way) and send the change from your first, to your second one.
Good tips on doing multiple payments with a single broadcast, but this is still seen as multiple transactions to the blockchain no? Albeit at the same time i reckon.
No.It shows as a single transaction, with a single TXID, with a single transaction fee, with multiple outputs... Something a bit like this: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/2dd1a3f30921eff395d06480727b94dac6d7618084a8272d6a060af110d90789
Payments sent to 2 different addresses, with the "change" being returned to the original address.
You can use 20 sats/byte (as you are sending small amounts) and then use via accelerator to get the transaction confirmed soon.
Instead of recommending a fixed fee, you should explain him how to choose a proper one. @timybonk before sending a transaction in Electrum as others have explained, take a look at this website. Look at the sat/byte parameter. The lower it is, the lower the fee you will pay. If you want to save as much money as possible then you can send a transaction with a 1 sat/byte fee. It should be confirmed within 24 hours.
Will i have to pay for multiple transactions fees.
If you use Electrum, you need to pay only one-time fee (https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-do-bulk-payments-with-electrum)
You can use 20 sats/byte (as you are sending small amounts) and then use via accelerator to get the transaction confirmed soon.
My paper wallet was created back in 2014 i forgot about it after the major crash.
Good tips on doing multiple payments with a single broadcast, but this is still seen as multiple transactions to the blockchain no? Albeit at the same time i reckon.
Will i have to pay for multiple transactions fees.
Good tips on doing multiple payments with a single broadcast, but this is still seen as multiple transactions to the blockchain no? Albeit at the same time i reckon.
Will i have to pay for multiple transactions fees.
What you don't spend remains in there, i don't see the point of this "returning part".
He is referring to the change.
You can't just send as much as you want. You can only consume complete UTXO's.
A standard transactions has 1 input and 2 outputs.
And in OP's case it would be 1/2/3 inputs (depending on the UTXO's) and 3 outputs (0.002, 0.0005 and the change).
I stand corrected, very good information. I normally don't re-use paper wallets so i didn't think about the change going elsewhere...
Personally i don't like them (paper wallets), I'd rather switch to seed phrases, as explained in the Bitcoin wiki. Besides its unsafe to reuse the same address.
Quote from: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet
A paper wallet is the name given to an obsolete and unsafe method of storing bitcoin which was popular between 2011 and 2016. It works by having a single private key and bitcoin address, usually generated by a website, being printed out onto paper.
This method has a large number of downsides and should not be used.
For storage of bitcoins, a much better way accomplish what paper wallets do is to use seed phrases instead, where the user writes down 12 or 24 random words generated by their wallet.
This method has a large number of downsides and should not be used.
For storage of bitcoins, a much better way accomplish what paper wallets do is to use seed phrases instead, where the user writes down 12 or 24 random words generated by their wallet.
I know the op doesn't want to bother securing it again, but think about it. What is that security worth when it could be already compromised? Ideally, a private key should never ever be seen by an electronic device.
After importing that paper wallet into Electrum, i would make a new wallet, write down the seed words in the paper that needs to be secured (also manually copied by hand again to store at two physically different places) and transfer all the remaining funds there. (All done from a proper secured os/pc, ie. Tails).
Good tips on doing multiple payments with a single broadcast, but this is still seen as multiple transactions to the blockchain no? Albeit at the same time i reckon.
What you don't spend remains in there, i don't see the point of this "returning part".
He is referring to the change.
You can't just send as much as you want. You can only consume complete UTXO's.
A standard transactions has 1 input and 2 outputs.
And in OP's case it would be 1/2/3 inputs (depending on the UTXO's) and 3 outputs (0.002, 0.0005 and the change).
@OP
The easiest way would probably to use electrum.
Make sure to download it ONLY from https://electrum.org/. And preferably verify the signature, there is a small guide on electrum.org.
Afterwards create a new wallet by importing the private key.
Then in the menu, click 'Tools -> Pay to many'.
Enter the two addresses you want to send the funds to, with the proper amount as mentioned in the pop-up, adjust the fee.
-> Click on 'Preview' and check the outputs.
You should have 3 outputs (The 2 you want to send funds to, and one should be the same address as the one you are sending from with the amount of [BalanceOfInput - output1 - output2 - fee]).
If everything is correct -> sign -> broadcast.
How to send to multiple address in one transaction.
Bitcoin core wallet.
in your "Send" tab where you are filling the information of the "recipient" there is a little button at the bottom called "Add Recipient", when you click it, it adds a new set of fields to be filled for the other "recipients". click it as many times as you want and fill them with the required information.
to send the change to the same address you can click that button one more time and set the remaining coins minus the fees to go to that address.
This is pretty easy if your paper wallet is just the private key to a single BTC address that has all your BTC in it. Here are some steps.
1. Download Electrum (this is the wallet I use to send multiple transactions, but other ones work as well).
2. Import your private key when you are making a new wallet.
3. When sending a transaction, after the first address, add a comma and the amount you'd like to send, and then add the second line with the same features (below is an example of the formatting)
[first address], 0.002
[second address], 0.0005
When you click send, it should add up the total amount, and then it'll be sent.
1. Download Electrum (this is the wallet I use to send multiple transactions, but other ones work as well).
2. Import your private key when you are making a new wallet.
3. When sending a transaction, after the first address, add a comma and the amount you'd like to send, and then add the second line with the same features (below is an example of the formatting)
[first address], 0.002
[second address], 0.0005
When you click send, it should add up the total amount, and then it'll be sent.
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