Bitcoin core wallet - got 0 balance after transaction

I did a test lightning transaction by sending 0.00001 btc to some exchange with using bitcoin core 0.16 (downloaded from bitcoin.org and installed to dedicated pc) and... it took the rest balance of my wallet which was sent to unknown address.

Here is the transaction: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/5d6111094be588c180661cb2f0ee21a7de28a7dea8641cb9921b4aada3175dd5

As you can see there is 0.00001 btc sent to some exchange wallet and also 0.00948723 is sent to unknown address (exchange says it's not belongs to them).

What was the second transaction?

Ariloum

Posted 2018-07-25T11:15:03.070

Reputation: 21

1It should be change. What's the balance of your wallet before and after the transaction? – Abhishek Sinha – 2018-07-25T11:23:03.057

1before it was like 0.0095 btc, and after it was 0 – Ariloum – 2018-07-25T11:45:42.223

So is it possible that bitcoin.org were hacked and their wallet was compromised with ghost second transaction which stole all your rest balance when you do a tx? – Ariloum – 2018-07-25T13:08:35.333

1Unlikely situation. – Penquin – 2018-07-25T14:24:46.693

Answers

The second output is most likely change being returned to your wallet. Just like when you use a $5 banknote to buy a $1 item. You get $4 back in change. You don't try to tear off 1/5th of the $5 banknote.

Unspent Transaction outputs (UTXOs) can't be half spent, you spend the whole UTXO and get change back.

RedGrittyBrick

Posted 2018-07-25T11:15:03.070

Reputation: 4 815

1I didn't see any change back on my wallet. – Ariloum – 2018-07-25T11:44:18.847

Make sure you are using the latest wallet version.

Try re-indexing your block. Run your wallet with reindex option

bitcoin-qt -reindex

Its clearly a change that should return to your wallet in some time.

Here your stat -

Total Input     0.0095 BTC
Total Output    0.00949723 BTC
Fees    0.00000277 BTC

Abhishek Sinha

Posted 2018-07-25T11:15:03.070

Reputation: 171

I'm using different online tracking sites to check the wallet status. So it's definitely not a local database problem. https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/5d6111094be588c180661cb2f0ee21a7de28a7dea8641cb9921b4aada3175dd5 as you can see I did a transaction 0.00001 btc. BUT there is another transaction inside it which sends 0.00948723 to unknown address. And I received at endpoint only 0.00001. And the rest was disappeared to unknown.

– Ariloum – 2018-07-25T12:47:10.320