Topic: Lost bitcoins - page 2. (Read 809 times)

You don't know what you are doing with raw transactions; you should not be attempting to create a raw transaction manually.

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The following assumes that you don't want to have your private key exposed to a machine that is on the internet, if it is, let me know and I will give you modified instructions.

On a machine connected to the internet, install Bitcoin Core, start it up and then use the importaddress command to import your address. This will import just the address, not the private key, so your coins are still safe. Do this as soon as possible so that you don't have to wait for it to rescan the blockchain later.

Once the address is imported, let Bitcoin Core sync. If you don't have the disk space for the blockchain (~180 GB), then you can use pruning. There should be an option for pruning in the settings somewhere.

Once Bitcoin Core has synced, make sure that it has the balance that you expect.

Now using createrawtransaction, create a raw transaction with no inputs and the output you want. So your command will look something like this:
Note that using the full value of your coins (~50) there is okay, the fee will be handled later. Additionally any change outputs will be handled later.

Take the output of that and pass it into the fundrawtransaction command with the options I will specify in the example:
What this command does it lets Bitcoin Core fill in the inputs and the transaction fee necessary. The includeWatching parameter lets it choose the inputs from your watching-only address and subtractFeeFromOutputs will subtract the fee from your outputs so you can send the maximum amount possible.

Take the result of the above command and pass it into signrawtransaction. Then broadcast that result with sendrawtransaction.

So you were able to retrieve them?

Holy shit.. Did you mine a 50BTC block back in 2010 and HODL all this time... Well done for you if you did.. Not many people would announce that in public.

Thanks, but it seemed to me that I might as well just send the whole lot at once. If I get the 'change address' wrong, then I lose the bitcoins. If I get this wrong, then I lose the bitcoins. May as well try to send them all at once, at which point they will be safe. And as that is simpler to do, I figure I am less likely to make a mistake this way.

But that is a nice well presented video. Thanks for posting it.

this video might help you it explains how to make a raw transaction using btc. But most importantly it shows you how to use a "change" address with your transaction to avoid the super high miner fee.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWKuqP-zTFk

I find this all very stressful. I've now downloaded BitcoinCore and the blockchain, and created a raw transaction that looks something like this:

{
  "txid": "FirstLongNumber",
  "hash": "FirstLongNumberagain",
  "version": 2,
  "size": 158,
  "vsize": 158,
  "locktime": 509839,
  "vin": [
    {
      "txid": "PublicKeyForMyMinedBitcoins",
      "vout": 0,
      "scriptSig": {
        "asm": "SecondLongNumber[ALL]",
        "hex": "ThirdLongNumber"
      },
      "sequence": 4294967294
    }
  ],
  "vout": [
    {
      "value": 49.99943486,
      "n": 0,
      "scriptPubKey": {
        "asm": "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 FourthLongNumber OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
        "hex": "FifthLongNumber",
        "reqSigs": 1,
        "type": "pubkeyhash",
        "addresses": [
          "MyLedgerAddress"
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

I've redacted all the long numbers just in case there's anything sensitive there. The big 'gotcha' it seems is that if you're not careful and don't either spend the lot in one transaction or create a second output going back to yourself, then any change will go to the miners. The intuitively sensible thing to do is to send one bitcoin just to test and see whether it works, with the intention of sending the rest later. This would be a very bad idea as you would be donating a mining fee of 49 bitcoins!

So there ends the limits of my understanding of raw transactions. I'd be very grateful if anybody knowledgeable could look over the redacted transaction and tell me whether there's anything else I might have gotten wrong?

ok, good luck

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm afraid my private key isn't going anywhere near the internet though, btcspot.

I'm going to try the bitcoin-core method - had just hoped there might be something simpler. It's a lot of money to lose if I screw up! I'm also going to need a clean computer. Anything with the key on it isn't going back on the intermet!

Were you able to fix it? Did you try what the poster said above me?

Someone with the same problem tried the latest Bitcoin Core and worked.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/error-16-mandatory-script-verify-flag-failed-1455675 worth a try for that amount.

 I sent you a message. Check your mail.

Hi all. I downloaded bitcoin 0.3.2 a while ago, and as I only ran it on an anaemic EEPC, I only generated 50 bitcoins. That doesn't mean to say I wouldn't like to get control of them again.

My public address is:

18jRv4R1i1MSXNYfmCL1dYvSaXaZBb7Cb1. The blockchain explorer seems to show that the funds exist i.e. there are 50 bitcoins there + a fraction of a coin I sent on the 'hit it to make it work' principle.

However when I imported my private key to Electrum it initially showed 50 coins present but couldn't make a transaction to sweep the coins to my new wallet and it gave me an error message "16: mandatory-script-verify-flag-failed (Non-canonical DER signature)". Now for some reason Electrum only shows 1 microbitcoin, but blockchain info shows 50.001 bitcoins and so does my wallet with Mycelium. However, when I try to make a payment with Mycelium or sweep the coins to my TREZOR, it shows that I have 0.00 bitcoins.

I just made one test payment from the address (a fraction of a microbitcoin) which seemed to work, but aside from this blockchain.info shows no record of transactions from this address.

Have I had my bitcoins stolen? Were they never there in the first place? Is this just some bug which can be fixed somehow? I'd be glad of any explanations/pointers as to what to do next.