HELP!! Accidentally gave bitcoin cash address instead of bitcoin address

[qlqmarley]

I am fairly new to the bitcoin thing, I have my bitcoin wallets with coinbase and I had to use bitcoin to cashout my winnings from the online sportsbook. I accidentally gave my bitcoin cash address instead of my bitcoin account. The transaction went through but I do not see my bitcoin in my bitcoin cash wallet or the bitcoin wallet, Is this transaction basically lost? is there anyway i can recover this transaction?
Thanks.

[nandibear]

I am fairly new to the bitcoin thing, I have my bitcoin wallets with coinbase and I had to use bitcoin to cashout my winnings from the online sportsbook. I accidentally gave my bitcoin cash address instead of my bitcoin account. The transaction went through but I do not see my bitcoin in my bitcoin cash wallet or the bitcoin wallet, Is this transaction basically lost? is there anyway i can recover this transaction?
Thanks.

Hi qlqmarley,

Please contact support at Coinbase as soon as possible (immediately) and ask them about their cross chain recovery policy.

Please explain to them the situation (i.e., that you used your your Coinbase BCH wallet to receive BTC).

At this point Coinbase are the ones in a position to help you.

[qlqmarley]

Thank you so much, I will try to contact them, I did fair amount of reserach and it looks like other places such as btc.com, bitcoin.com, exodus, and etc allows cross chain recovery and it seems like you can do it fairly easily. Is coinbase not the best option for wallets? I am basically using it because it is the most popular one but I am surprised that coinbase doesn't even help with the cross chain recovery. I have emailed them this morning and they said the transaction is basically at a loss. I think I have to call their phone line immediately tomorrow..

[arnoudk]

Coinbase is like a Bitcoin (Cash) "Bank". You have an account with them, and they manage your money for you. You don't manage your money yourself.

This means that they, and only they, have access to the Private Key needed to recover the Bitcoin sent to your Bitcoin Cash address. No one else can be of material help (other than offering some advise).

Technically, what they need to do is very easy. All that needs to be done, is for the Private Key to be exported from the Bitcoin Cash area, and imported into the Bitcoin area.

However, Coinbase has a very complex setup, and what is easy on a small scale can become terribly complex at the scale they are operating on. Also, I don't believe any one Coinbase employee is able to access Private Keys. They are in a securely sealed environment, if you will. This is great for reducing the risk of thefts (even inside jobs), but not great if you actually WANT to have access to it.

There isn't any reason they couldn't do it. It may just be prohibitively expensive for them to do it.

I'd recommend holding your own Bitcoin Cash in your own wallet. Ie, you control your private keys. If you have anything from $1000+ consider getting a dedicated hardware wallet such as a Trezor or Ledger.

For Bitcoin, I used to recommend the same. But with the network fees as high as they are, I'm more inclined to leave funds on an exchange if you want to be able to sell them in the semi-near future. This has lots of risks (ie, exchange getting hacked, going insolvent or committing theft themselves). But transferring also has high costs (2x high miner fees), and risk (ie, time lost when trying to send a transaction - are you even able to spend the coins in the future?).

[qlqmarley]

This is the reply igot from coinbase. Safe to say my money is lost?


Unfortunately, due to the irreversible nature of most digital currencies, transactions cannot be cancelled or reversed once sent. You will need to contact the party you sent to and seek their cooperation in this matter. If you do not know the owner of the address in question, I’m afraid there are no available actions to take to retrieve your funds.

I hope that helps and I’m sorry there isn’t more we can do to assist.

[arnoudk]

Wait, did you send TO coinbase, or FROM coinbase?

From your story, I gathered you were sending TO coinbase.

From Coinbase's response, I gather that you were sending FROM coinbase.

They are right that the receiving party must assist. If that's them, then please make sure they understand that!

[qlqmarley]

So i have my bitcoin wallet with coinbase and i accidentally sent my bitcoin cash wallet address to sportsbook instead of providng them bitcoin wallet address and payout was approved. Sportsbook sent BITCOIN to the bitcoin cash wallet address that i provided them and for some reason the transaction was completed. i am fairly new to this whole bitcoin thing and i didnt even know i provided them the bitcoin cash wallet address until the whole transaction was completed and when i found out that my money is not in my wallet. thats when i found out that bitcoin cash and bitcoin are two different currencies. I am just trying to recover this transaction. Thanks for your help i really appreciate it

[arnoudk]

OK, so Sportsbook sent the bitcoin TO coinbase (to your bitcoin cash address).

Then it is Coinbase that is the only party in the world able to help you out.

I'd make sure that they are aware that they are the receiving party, from their support response they seem to think the transaction is the other way around.

Good luck.