<p>generally speaking the answer is no: you should generate every public address to check it's balance and the possible addresses are too many to be checked all.</p>
<p>in your case, if you remember the wallets where you imported the keys, you can only check the derivation paths used by them.</p>
<p>even the addresses that can be generated from the first branch of the derivation path are too many to check them all, the wallets usually stop generating public keys to be checked when they find a certain number (which varies depending on the wallet, usually a few thousand) of unused addresses in a row.</p>
<p>so in case you have large blocks of unused addresses among the addresses used, you can't even trust the automatic wallet balance check for it's specific derivation path, but you should generate other addresses on your own to verify their balance.<br>
this is a very rare case that hardly occurs in real life, but it is good to know anyway.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-04-04T20:07:03.250Z
2021-04-04T23:28:41.360Z
2021-04-04T23:28:41.360Z
leevancleef
<p>Is it possible to retrieve all Unspend Output transaction given the private key?</p>
<p>I have noticed that different wallet give me different balance for the same Private Key. For instance, Atom and BitPay give the same result but they use BIP44. Exodus and Defi Wallet give the same result and they use BIP84. On these wallets I have given the same Private Key but every wallet sees part of the Unspend Output. Hence my question.</p>
<p>Thanks
<a href="https://bip39.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://bip39.org/</a></p>

<private-key><bitcoin-wallet-app><output><listunspent>
Retrieve all Unspend Output given a priv key
Samir Sadek
# Retrieve all Unspend Output given a priv key

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-04-04)

Is it possible to retrieve all Unspend Output transaction given the private key?

I have noticed that different wallet give me different balance for the same Private Key. For instance, Atom and BitPay give the same result but they use BIP44. Exodus and Defi Wallet give the same result and they use BIP84. On these wallets I have given the same Private Key but every wallet sees part of the Unspend Output. Hence my question.

Thanks
<https://bip39.org/>

**Tags:** private-key, bitcoin-wallet-app, output, listunspent


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-04-04. Score: 1

generally speaking the answer is no: you should generate every public address to check it's balance and the possible addresses are too many to be checked all.

in your case, if you remember the wallets where you imported the keys, you can only check the derivation paths used by them.

even the addresses that can be generated from the first branch of the derivation path are too many to check them all, the wallets usually stop generating public keys to be checked when they find a certain number (which varies depending on the wallet, usually a few thousand) of unused addresses in a row.

so in case you have large blocks of unused addresses among the addresses used, you can't even trust the automatic wallet balance check for it's specific derivation path, but you should generate other addresses on your own to verify their balance.  
this is a very rare case that hardly occurs in real life, but it is good to know anyway.


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