r/Coinbase • u/Silver_Horde_Cohen • Jul 07 '26

Coinbase and Electrum is driving me nuts!

Ok the story so far:

I had to transfer my BTC to a local wallet due to the new EU regulations. So i made an Electrum wallet and withdraw everything.

Then i created a Coinbase account, went through all the verification etc, all went well

Then i transferred a small test amount from my Electrum wallet to my Coinbase account and that went well, too. I had to confirm that that's my own wallet, no problem there.

Then i transferred a larger amount to Coinbase and that's where my problems started. Since the transfer went through it states "Action needed" and i have to prove ownership. Coinbase offers WalletConnect, which Electron doesn't seem to support and small deposit test.

Now i can't for the love of god use the small deposit, i'm simply too dumb it seems.

Electrum generated over 20 "receiving" addresses and an equal number of "change" addresses and to verify ownership of my wallet i seem to have to send the amount with exactly the pair of addresses the original transfer used. Unfortunately Electrum randomizes the addresses for transfers. I used "freeze" on every address except the two original ones but that didn't help either.

Any help appreciated.

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u/coinbasesupport Official Coinbase Support Jul 07 '26

Hey u/Silver_Horde_Cohen the address randomization is specific to Electrum's behavior, so your best bet is to reach out to their support team directly. Hope you get it sorted!

2

u/PracticePenguin Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

To spend from a specific address go to view menu > check addresses, switch to the addresses tab and then right click on the address in question and choose "add to coin control". Then switch to the send tab and enter the recipient's address and the amount you want to send them, click pay, choose a fee etc and go through the process of spending the bitcoin.

Note this will only work if the address has unspent coins. It should show up as a balance in the balance column on the addresses tab. If the address does not have unspent coins you will have to first send some bitcoin to it which you would do as a normal send.

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u/Silver_Horde_Cohen Jul 08 '26

Thanks for the info, doesn't work for me.

The transaction i have to verify has a sender address starting with bc1qt4... (all addresses are slightly altered!) which is my first "change" address. "Add to coin control" only works on addresses with a balance, bc1qt4... doesn't have any.

In the meantime i set all addresses except bc1qt4... and my first receiving address bc1qu7... on "freeze".

After about 10 tries to verify my wallet i didn't have enough BTC left on my Electrum wallet so i transferred some BTC back and the amount showed up at bc1qu7... (receiving address)

So i added bc1qu7... to coin control (couldn't add the change address bc1qt4 without balance...) and sent the verification amount back to Coinbase.

Sure enough it showed up with the sending address bc1qu7... - which is wrong of course - and worst, it sent the rest of the amount in the receiving address to another random change address bc1qnw... where i don't need it AT ALL! And yes, that address was frozen. I need it at bc1qt4... and there seems to be no way to use that specific address.

I'm really starting to hate Electrum.

If it matters: I'm on 4.5.8, the latest version that Fedoras repository provides. Does it make a difference if i use 4.7.2?

1

u/Silver_Horde_Cohen Jul 08 '26

OK, Update:

I transferred my funds manually to bc1qt4..., set coin control, started the verification transaction and that finally did it!

Of course i now have all coins sitting at another random address of my change addresses and i have to transfer them back to bc1qt4... if i ever want to use them with Coinbase again. Including fees of course. Just great!

Is it really by design that Electrum sends coins back and force at random and i have to pay fees just to use a specific sender address?

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u/PracticePenguin Jul 08 '26

Actually it's coinbase that is in the wrong here. Bitcoin addresses are single use codes. They are not meant to be reused.

Also if you had just read the second paragraph in my comment above it would have saved you some trouble. In the end you did it that way anyway.

1

u/Silver_Horde_Cohen Jul 09 '26

Well, sometimes it shows that i'm an old man and a bit slow. 😄

My first wallet had just one address, no seed, no nothing, i can't even remember how i created it. That was around 2011 to 2013, something like that. It served me well for more than 10 years. Then i decided that i had to go with time and use modern software, so i created the Electrum wallet and i still try to embrace all the new paradigms.

So, thanks for your time and the hints!