Topic: Blockchain.info wallet recovery phrase - 17 words, not 12 (Read 786 times)

Hello,

Don't know if you are still around but a friend and I might be able to help you.

We are new to this, hence the low number of messages here, but it is very possible that we can help you recover your wallet if you still need help.

We are well aware this space is full of scammers so just so you know :

> We are not going to ask for any money or info from you upfront
> We are doxxed and willing to do a video call with you to prove it
> Anything you'll need to feel safe we'll do if possible

Just contact me via DM or via [email protected] and we'll talk to see if our technology can solve your situation.

Looking forward to hear from you if we can help,

If you still need help we just recovered a 17 word wallet from 2013 with blockchain.info

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/kyfiih/i_had_my_initial_doubts_but_a_wallet_recovery/

/KX

Congratulations!

You did not have to do this.  You could have continued to use the wallet in the legacy mode.  But it is an great idea to do it for the reasons listed below.  Eventually you will be glad you switched over to the HD wallet.

YES.  The 12 words are the seed, the 12 words are everything.  From those 12 words you will be able to recover all your private keys, all your public keys, all your Bitcoins on all your private/public key pairs and your entire transaction history.  You do not need to back up your wallet anymore - there is no need to back up since you can recover everything from those 12 words.

NOTE:  anyone can recover everything from those 12 words so never ever never ever lose them, put them on the internet or in any way allow them to be compromised.  Anyone who has those 12 words can take all your Bitcoins.  They do not need your password.  They only need those 12 keys.  This is because all your current private keys and every private key you will ever use in the future are contained in those 12 words.

Keep them safe.

12 words -> every private key you will ever use -> every public key you will ever use -> every Bitcoin address you will ever use -> every transaction you will ever do -> your HD wallet

Not exactly.  Even in the old legacy wallet you could manage many private keys, public keys and many addresses.  You just chose not to.

Now here is something you need to know:

In the old wallet, whenever you sent out Bitcoins to someone else, the change from the transaction was placed back on the original address.  This was very convenient and allowed you to think you only had and only needed one Bitcoin address.  But this behavior was causing great privacy concerns for the entire Bitcoin system. So...

In the new HD wallet every time you send out Bitcoins to anyone the change will come back to a brand new address calculated from your seed.  So do not be surprised when your Bitcoins move to a new address every time you do a transaction.  It may take some getting used to but that is the way it works.  Since all your Bitcoins are currently at one address you will see the change move to a new address every time you send out a payment for any reason.

You do not need to export your xPriv.  Your xPriv can be calculated from your 12 words.  Technically this is how it goes:

Your 12 seed words are used to mathematically derive your xPriv
Your xPriv is used to mathematically derive your xPub

Your xPriv is used to mathematically derive all the private keys you will ever use
Your xPub is used to mathematically derive all the public keys you will ever use

Your public keys are used to mathematically derive all the Bitcoin addresses you will ever use.

Cool, eh?

NO.  It is impossible to derive the xPriv from the xPub.  You can only derive the xPriv from the 12 words.  If someone gets your xPub they cannot get your xPriv and they cannot steal your Bitcoins.  However, if someone gets your xPub they will be able to calculate every public key and therefore every Bitcoin address you have ever used, are currently using and will every use in the future.  So they would know exactly how many Bitcoins you have and be able to track every transaction you ever do.  This is a great privacy concern.  So, keep your 12 words and your xPub safe and secret.

Again, you have all your private keys now.  You have all your current and future private keys.  They are all contained in your 12 words.  That is all you need to backup - ever.

Hello,
I could open my old account after I typed myself the password given by  the recovery through blockchian.info. Whereas when I copy-pasted my password, the site claimed it was false...

Once I opened my old account, the site told me that a new ID is generated and I needed to transfer my BTC to the new wallet. It cost 8 USD...
So now I have a new ID, a recovery phrase of 12 words [which is the seed?], a new password. Apparently, this is for a wallet and no longer a BTC address. Inside one wallet, I can have several BTC adresses. Before this change, it was easier to manage since 1 wallet = 1 fixed BTC address = 1 password. I also tried to export my private key, but all I found is an xPub. Apparently private keys  are obtained through local html page downloaded from github, to convert my xpub key into my private key. Since I do not need a private key so far, I did not do it.

Yes, if you have the correct recovery phrase, you have all the words, you have the words in the correct order, etc. then this page should give you the correct password to your wallet.

Make sure there are no extra characters in the recovery phrase.  Not sure if it matters but make sure there is only one space between each word.  It may be case sensitive.

When you type in the 17 words does the password generated look like a password you might have used?  Does it look familiar?  If not then there is probably something wrong with the way you are entering the phrase into the web site.

If this is not producing the correct password then the most likely scenario is that you changed the password and did not print out and keep the recovery phrase for the new password.  The recovery phrase would have changed every time you changed the password on the wallet.

Is it possible that this 17 word recovery phrase is for one of the passwords you used but it is not the most recent password that was used to encrypt the 7 backups you have stored?

The old recovery phrase is not a seed.

The old blockchain.info wallets were not HD wallets and so they did not have seeds.  The old wallets gave you a blockchain.info only non-standardized recovery phrase that you could theoretically use to recover your wallet - but it is not a seed that can be used to import your wallet into another web site or wallet.

The new blockchain.info wallets do use a seed and those seeds can be used to import your entire wallet, all of your BTC and your entire transaction history into another wallet.

You have an old wallet.

You are doing the correct thing using https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password

You cannot send Bitcoins from a watch only address in any wallet.  Watch only means just that - you do not own that address, you do not have the private key, and you cannot move the Bitcoins from that address since you do not have the private key.  You can only watch it.

You can't just "avoid the fee". The miner's fee is paid to whoever mines the block that contains your transaction and a higher mining fee obviously incentivises the miners to confirm your transaction faster than people that paid less than you.

The within 25 blocks will from experience take anywhere between 5-100 blocks to confirm, depending on mempool conditions and the number of unconfirmed transactions.

If you just want to turn your BTC -> USD and is not in a hurry, do like the second or third highest fee option in electrum.

Apparently, sending BTC in electrum is not free, because the max amount I can send from my watch-only account to my new account_3 is 0.1 mBTC less than my balance [cursor on the left]. THe fee varies according to how soon I want the transfer to be made. I do not recall this from my usage in 2014. I though sending BTC was free. Is there a way to avoid the fee?
 
How slow is the option '' within 25 blocks'' ? is it several days, several hours or several 30min?

My goal is to turn the BTCs into USD. so after this transfer on a wallet I control, what do it do?

I found an URL of a transaction I did in 2014, with my non-dummy account.. I imported my BTC address in electrum-3.0.2-portable and I see all the activity of this account. THere i no new activity since 2014, so a hack seems out of the question.

When  i CREATED this wallet in electrum-3.0.2-portable, it told me that it is ''watch only wallet'' and that to send BTC, I need the seed or the private key.
DO you confirm that the seed is what blockchain calls ''recovery phrase''  ?

If so, I could create a new account, so account_3, and send the BTC of my account_2 to this new account, then forget about account_2 ?

I tried  my-wallet-backup-decryption-tool-win64 and it flashes when I click ''Decrypt''. I tried with several back ups of wallet.aes.json [I have 7 back ups] and the original password that I stored, plus the last password that recognised and which is the one given by the recovery phrase here https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password

Does this denial mean that somebody changed the password of my account ?


The staff from blockchain replied to me to tell me they cannot recover my password and I need the sequence of 12 random words, which does not apply to me. I replied to them by quoting the page https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password
''Password not working?
It may have been changed since the time the wallet was created or a browser error. Please contact the help desk with your wallet recover mnemonic to have a backup restored from an earlier date. ''

and I hope they will see on their system, the old password that I stored.

What is odd is the same situation with the dummy account which has 0BTC : the password obtained by the recovery phrase is invalid, whereas it is indeed the password that I stored in txt file for this account. For this account, I did not found wallet.aes.json....

Try the second tool that was mentioned here:


And forget blockchain.info's support regarding that problem, Most likely they will either ignore it or say insignifant things. Never heard of a guy with a similar problem who got an actual help from their support.

I am in the same situation : 2 accounts from 2014, I have the recovery phrase for both. I go to this page https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password
to get the login+password. I have the email + the file wallet.aes.json for 1 account [the account I want to recover !] and I try to login and it says the decryption failed.
This morning, when I still did not know my real password so I just tried random passwords, I already authorised my browser to access the account. Then I tried the real password on Chrome and it asks for permission. I did not receive the email for the validation.
I went back to firefox to try once more, and now it asks for validation, but I did not receive the email again...

I contacted blockchain.info and still no reply....

i tried to upload my wallet.aes.json and put my password, but I get

''Error Decrypting Wallet. Please check your password is correct.''

I have the wallet identifier, email access, password, 17 words passpharse but when i login it displays a message which says Welcome to your Blockchain and when i click on the Continue button, the page logs out and rediects to blockchain homepage. Seems strange as my other wallets are working fine.

So you forgot your wallet identifier?  What do you mean you cannot log in?  You should be able to enter your wallet identifier and your password.  Assuming they are both correct you should log in or be take to the next log in step.

What exactly do you mean by "cant login to blockchain"?

I am having the same issue, Mine is i have all the details inclusing my password, 17 word passphrase but cant login to blockchain.

I have contact blockchain but there has no been response

Does anyone know which wallet supports the 17 word passphrase so i can recover my account?

Yes its their old wallet. Blockchain.info now uses HD wallets which has 12 words.

@OP, I don't know if this still works but you can try entering your 17 word phrase here: https://blockchain.info/wallet/forgot-password

If you happen to also have your backup file/s you can try importing it here: https://blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet

I think legacy blockchain.info wallets used 17 words and the newer blockchain.info HD wallets use 12 words.  You need to recover a "legacy wallet" so Google that.

Hello everyone,

I have logged around a year ago to my blockchain.info wallet.
I have also recorded the resovery passphrase words (I have 17 of them).

Now, I cannot log in (my password does not work) but also if I try to recover using my passphrase, the site saiz I need to use my "12 worded passphrase".

This is weird, because I have 17 words written down . (I tried to use them too, but with no luck).

Anybody has the same issue?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.