Bitcoin Tool

Your Bitcoin might be
hiding in plain sight

Bitcoin wallets stop scanning after 20 empty addresses in a row. If funds land beyond that gap, they vanish from your balance — but they're not lost. GapFix finds them and tells you exactly how to get them back.

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Scan for Gap Issues

Paste your account-level xpub (legacy), ypub (segwit-wrapped), or zpub (native segwit). This is a public key — no private keys, no seed phrases, nothing sensitive is required or transmitted.

🔒 100% client-side. Your key is never sent to any server. All address derivation and scanning happens in your browser. Only public addresses are queried against Blockstream's public API.
Scanning… 0%
Deriving addresses… Up to 2 000 addresses (external + change)
Checking —
0 checked

How the Gap Limit Problem Works

And how GapFix solves it in four steps

1

Wallets use a "gap limit" of 20

Bitcoin HD wallets generate addresses sequentially from your seed or xpub. To find all your funds, they scan address 0, then 1, 2, 3… but stop after they see 20 addresses in a row with no transactions. This is the "gap limit."

2

Funds land beyond the gap

Sometimes Bitcoin is sent to an address beyond index 20 — for example if you generated many receive addresses in one wallet and then imported the seed into a different wallet, or if an exchange or app used a non-standard derivation path. The wallet stops scanning before it ever reaches those addresses.

3

GapFix scans 1 000 addresses deep

Paste your xpub, ypub, or zpub (a public key — no seed phrase needed). GapFix derives and checks up to 1 000 external and 1 000 change addresses against the blockchain, identifying any funds sitting beyond a gap of 20.

4

Dust the gap — your wallet finds everything

The fix is simple: send a tiny "dust" amount (as low as 294–546 sats, roughly pennies) to each empty address inside the gap. Once those addresses have a transaction, your wallet's scanner will continue past them and discover the hidden funds automatically on the next rescan.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Bitcoin address gap limit? +
The Bitcoin address gap limit is a scanning rule built into HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) wallets. When scanning for your funds, the wallet checks addresses 0, 1, 2, 3… in sequence and stops after it sees 20 consecutive addresses with no transaction history. This default of 20 is defined in BIP-44. The limit exists for performance — checking every possible address forever is impractical, and 20 empty-in-a-row is normally a safe stopping point. The problem arises when your funds legitimately sit beyond that gap.
How do I recover Bitcoin stuck beyond the gap limit? +
The standard recovery method is the dust fix:
  1. Paste your xpub into GapFix. It scans up to 1,000 external + 1,000 change addresses and identifies which empty addresses are blocking the scanner and which addresses beyond the gap hold your funds.
  2. Send a tiny "dust" amount — as low as 294 satoshis for bech32 addresses — to each empty gap address. This gives each one a transaction, which the wallet scanner accepts as a signal to keep going.
  3. Rescan your wallet. It will now continue past the filled gap and discover the hidden UTXOs automatically.
No private keys needed — only your xpub (extended public key) from wallet settings. See also: Bitcoin Stack Exchange — gap limit discussions.
Is it safe to paste my xpub here? +
Yes. An xpub (extended public key) lets anyone derive your Bitcoin receive addresses — but nothing more. It cannot spend funds, cannot reveal your private keys, and cannot sign anything. GapFix also runs entirely in your browser; your key is never transmitted to any server. Even so, for maximum privacy you can run GapFix locally from the source code with no internet access after loading dependencies.
Where do I find my xpub / ypub / zpub? +
Most hardware and software wallets expose the account-level extended public key somewhere in their settings. Common locations:
  • Electrum: Wallet → Information → Master Public Key
  • Ledger Live: Account → Edit → Advanced → Extended public key
  • Trezor Suite: Account → Details → Public key (XPUB)
  • Sparrow: Settings → Keystore → Master Public Key
Paste the key that starts with xpub, ypub, or zpub (or testnet equivalents tpub, upub, vpub).
How much should I send as dust? +
GapFix recommends the minimum non-dust amount for each address type:
  • Legacy (P2PKH, starts with 1): 546 sats
  • Segwit-wrapped (P2SH-P2WPKH, starts with 3): 546 sats
  • Native segwit (P2WPKH / bech32, starts with bc1q): 294 sats
At typical fee rates, sending a batch of dust transactions costs a few hundred sats in fees — far less than any funds you'd recover.
Can I send dust to all the gap addresses in one transaction? +
Yes — this is the most efficient approach. Most wallets and tools support "batch send" or "send to many" functionality. GapFix's "Copy addresses" button exports the list in a tab-separated format (address + amount) that many wallets accept directly. You can also use a PSBT tool or the Bitcoin command line if you prefer.
Will this work for all wallets? +
GapFix works for any standard BIP32/BIP44/BIP49/BIP84 HD wallet. It supports xpub (legacy P2PKH), ypub (segwit-wrapped P2SH), and zpub (native segwit bech32) keys. Hardware wallets like Ledger, Trezor, Coldcard, and BitBox, as well as software wallets like Electrum, Sparrow, and Wasabi are all compatible.
The scan is slow — why? +
GapFix checks up to 2 000 addresses (1 000 external + 1 000 change) by querying Blockstream's public API for each address. To avoid rate-limiting, it checks in batches with a short delay between them. Most scans complete in 2–5 minutes depending on your internet speed and Blockstream's response time. If you know your funds are on external addresses only, you can also check the source code and adjust the chain limit.

Further reading