Explain how unused addresses in wallet.dat have no balance when mining occurred for many months I have a wallet.dat file with many zero transaction/(unused) addresses in it with keys assigned to each address.  I’ve done research and there’s quite a bit of info about mining back in the day (2013-2015) say but what people don’t explain is when someone solved a block and thus got rewarded 12.5 bitcoins, and when the bitcoins are saved in a wallet, how can the unused addresses in a wallet.dat file have no balance when checked with blockchain.info?  Where are the bitcoins that were mined and why do the addresses have no balances? Why were all these addresses created in the wallet.dat file?
There is a disconnect between a miner’s reward of bitcoin he earned while mining and what is in his wallet and unused addresses showing zero balances. I am having trouble understanding the relationship with mined bitcoin, unused addresses with assigned keys in a wallet.dat file, and having zero balances when checked with blockchain.info
Unused addresses are unrelated to mining activity. Even if you were mining, you will still see many unused addresses. The Bitcoin earned from mining would be associated with a used address.
Bitcoin Core by default will generate 1000 (previously 100) unused keys to be used in the &quot;keypool&quot;. The keypool is the pool of unused keys and is used as a lookahead. This is useful when you restore a backup. The unused keys you are seeing are this keypool.