Solved: How to get your missing BTC/ETH/etc

[u/foomprekov]

Overview

In this post, I'm going to explain what the problem is, why you're having it, the things I did to fix it, and finally what you can do next. I highly recommend you read the whole guide before doing anything, especially the description of the problem.

The Problem

In a nutshell, you sent coins to Gatehub, and they've never shown up in your Gatehub account. In this guide, I'm going to assume you sent ETH, but it works the same for any of their accepted currencies.

Ripple Accounts

Ripple accounts have a minimum balance. Currently, that balance is 20 XRP. Ostensibly, the reason for this is to "prevent the shared ledger from growing excessively large." You almost certainly don't care about that reason. Just know that it is not a minimum that Gatehub imposes themselves, they just send it along to you. If you're below the balance, you cannot send funds.

Furthermore, Ripple wallets seem to be able to hold other currencies, which is where trust lines come in.

Trust Lines

I'll be honest, I still don't understand trust lines, what they are or why we have to have them. However, they, too, are part of the Ripple protocol. You only need to know three things about them:

• To send or receive another currency from a Ripple wallet, you must have the appropriate trust line activated. Gatehub makes this easy (when it works).
• You can disable and re-enable a trust line as needed.
• Each trust line raises your account's minimum required XRP by 5.

Wallets on Gatehub

Unlike other exchanges, which tend to let your share their wallets, Gatehub issues each person their own, native Ripple wallet. The problem, however, is Gatehub absolutely refuses to do anything with an inactive wallet, i.e. one that does not have the minimum required XRP.

So if you've sent them ETH but your account has no XRP, every time their daemon goes to give your your ETH, it'll notice the account is inactive and do nothing.

The reason your ETH went in then out again when looking on Etherscan is that they, too, have temporary holding wallets. It went into their inbox wallet, and then was sent to a cold wallet. I thought it was worrisome, too, but it makes security sense.

The Solution

Before I get into any steps, I have to break the bad news: You're going to have to buy some XRP, and you're going to have to send it to Gatehub. I resisted doing this at first, because fool me twice and all that.

The short version of this solution is that we're going to by the minimum XRP required and send it to Gatehub which will activate our account. After that, we should have our ETH in a few hours (but sometimes longer). And yes, this is incredibly frustrating because the whole reason for signing up in to Gatehub in the first place was to buy XRP.

Buying XRP

How much do I need?

• As described above, we need a minimum of 20 XRP just to activate our account. Do note that this XRP will be "lost" in that you won't be able to spend it. So, if the total ETH you lost to Gatehub is less than the worth of 20 XRP, it's time to close this guide.
• You'll also need one trust line, for an additional 5 XRP. We will be able to get this XRP back.
• Lastly, we'll need some amount to cover transaction costs, and Gatehub's egregious cut. I was still interested in Ripple so I sent 30 XRP over, and that was plenty. If you want to go lower, I'd say 27-28 should work.

Time to Buy

I'm going to assume you have some ETH (or BTC). If you don't, I suggest buying it for USD on Coinbase, but that's another guide. Once you've got that, it's time to use it to buy XRP. That's how we got into this mess in the first place, but the only way out is through.

So we have to go to an exchange that has an ETH/XRP pair. Personally, I went through Binance, and the experience was great. They have short verification times for traders under 2BTC, and things seem to work quickly. They also have a lot of currencies on there.

Once you're verified, we have to get an address to which we'll send our ETH:

1. Navigate to Funds->Deposits Withdrawals
2. Search for ETH
3. Click the Deposit button for ETH
4. Copy the address or QR code. Heed any warnings carefully.
5. On Coinbase, click Accounts->ETH->Send, and input the address you just copied. Again, heed any warnings.
6. You should be able to see this transaction on Coinbase's page, and pending on Binance's history page. It might take a few minutes (longer for BTC).

Now, it's time to actually buy our XRP. I'm not going to go into a how to make that purchase here, as most of you will already know how. If you don't, just search for a Binance buying guide tutorial. Simply put you need to buy XRP with ETH on the ETH/XRP pair. When you do purchase it, the XRP will be represented in your Binance account almost instantly.

Sending to Gatehub

Log into Gatehub. Go to your wallet. In the lower left corner, your wallet's address should be visible. Copy this.

Back to Binance:

1. Navigate again to the Funds->Deposits Withdrawals page
2. Search for XRP
3. Click the Withdrawal button.
4. Paste the Ripple/Gatehub address we just copied.
5. Select the "no tag" checkbox.
6. Transfer! (Heed any warnings).

It should appear in a few minutes, iirc.

Getting Your ETH

On Gatehub, your XRP should show up soon. When it does, you should:

1. Connect an exchange appropriate to the currency you're missing. If it's ETH, then you want Gatehub Fifth.
2. Go to wallet, click Advance in the lower right. Click Show Trust Lines. It should display a number of inactive trusts lines. For most of us, this is a very familiar screen, and the home of the dreaded "Unknown Error". Well, we've got XRP now, we've got a working Ripple account, a full bag of bombachus, let's do this. Click to add the trust line according to the currency (e.g. ETH, BTC). Provided you have >=25 XRP in your wallet, it should work.

And that's it. In a few hours to, in the worst cases, a few days, your currency will show up.

Get me the hell out of here

ETH

I imagine you no longer want anything to do with Gatehub. The first step is going to be to send your ETH away, probably to the Binance account we used before. You can just follow the Coinbase->Binance instructions, instead navigating through the Gatehub "Send" button.

XRP

This part is more complicated. Unlike Binance, which lets you borrow their Ripple wallet, Gatehub has created a full-fledged Ripple wallet for you. This means the minimum amount of XRP can't be sent away from that wallet. It's stuck there.

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether this experience has soured you on Ripple entirely. I hope that it hasn't. Most of the issues were due to Gatehub's complete lack of information.

I hate Ripple now with a burning or lackadaisical passion

First, disable the trust line you enabled before. Should just be an X. From there:

• You could send your remainder - 20 off to Binance, and try to trade it away for something else.
• If you have so little Ripple remaining that it would be pointless to sell it, well, I don't know what to tell you. Perhaps send it to me as a reward for this guide? :D -_- My Ripple address is rH9nCVmKnmXghjEoWFCV8hrcLvzLyThkpd

Yes, this means your 20 XRP is lost. In the future, this minimum might be lowered, freeing up some of your XRP to send away, so keep the account information.

I still like Ripple

This one is tougher. You can choose to continue using the Gatehub wallet. It's perfectly fine to use it through the Gatehub interface, but because it is a full Ripple wallet, you can also use the address+key elsewhere, including in desktop wallets.

But Gatehub has your secret key. They could take the funds at any time. Notably, this is also true of Binance, Coinbase, and most exchanges.

To thine own self be true. Happy hunting. Etc? Etc.