Topic: Historically unclaimed bitcoin (Read 181 times)

Does this transaction receipt only show the wallet address (likely starting with a "1")?

It doesn't have a private key or anything on it? If not, then it would seem likely that you provided that address to the company you purchased the coins from... so, hopefully it would be included in your wallet.dat that is on your old drive.

If you can open Bitcoin Core with that wallet.dat (regardless of whether or not it is properly synced), you should be able to go to the "Window -> Console" menu... and then enter the command:


It should spit out a bunch of values... you want to look for the one labelled "ismine"... is that "true" or "false"?

If it says "true", congrats, you will be able to recover the coins... if it says "false", you can stop mucking around with that wallet.dat and Bitcoin Coin because it does not contain the private key necessary to recover the coin

If you don't want to wait for Bitcoin Core to download the entire blockchain or you don't have enough space on your hard drive, I suggest you go for option 3b that LoyceV suggested above. You can export your private keys from Bitcoin Core even if the wallet has not synched to the blockchain.

Follow the advice that Lucius posted in a different thread on how to export your private keys from Bitcoin Core:

You are not "assigned" an address, nor do you "receive" one; rather, your wallet creates one from scratch (through a number of steps) from a long, random number. There is no requirement to communicate with the blockchain or any other node in the process of creating an address.

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There are many more steps to this that you need to mention if OP wants to be safe while handling raw private keys. It is not entirely straightforward.

They need to download and verify Electrum safely: [GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum [Guide]
They should extract their private key and import it to Electrum on an offline computer. Ideally, I would create a watch only wallet from the address(es), keep the private key(s) permanently offline, and sign the transaction moving the coins to a more secure wallet offline.

Thanks LoyceV

So just to clarify in my own head.. when I 1st signed up to bitcore I must have been assigned an address which I provided to the company I bought the bitcoin from, an address which I received even though I hadn't downloaded the blockchain yet..

I will explore the solutions you suggest

That's how it's supposed to be. You get a new address from your own wallet, and receive a deposit on that address.

No. That's how you get scammed creating a watch-only wallet.

Easy options:
1. Ignore all PMs offering to "help" you.
2. Create a backup of your wallet.dat on a USB-stick. Then, create another backup on another stick.
3a. Set Bitcoin Core to prune the blockchain.
or:
3b: Export the private key to your address from Bitcoin Core and import it into Electrum.

Option 3a is the safest but slowest solution. Whatever you choose: be sure to know what you're doing before doing it. Be careful where you send your Bitcoins, it might have a substantial value so don't get scammed.
After moving your Bitcoins, read about Forkcoins.

In 2014 I got a tip from a work colleague to invest in bitcoin and decided to get on it.  I purchased 1 bitcoin and I have the transaction receipt with the wallet address and BTC TX Hash.  It happened so long ago, I had no idea what I was doing, and I can't remember the exact process.  But I started downloading bitcore qt to receive the funds.  I stupidly chose the option to be a node because I thought it was supporting the bitcoin community- down with the man!... I did not realise the blockchain was so large- now exponentially larger!  After a month of downloading I gave up- internet was slow and expensive where I lived and it was starting to cost more than it was worth.  Eventually the computer died but I always kept its hard drive just in case..
Of course now internet is fast and bitcoin is worth way more and I'd like to recover my funds if possible.  Unfortunately I don't know much more about bitcoin transactions than I did before.  So I have a few questions;

Would the wallet address that appears in the transaction receipt that was provided to me by the company I originally purchased the bitcoin from have been provided by me, from the wallet address of a wallet I had already created? Or....
have they provided the address which I need to input into a wallet transaction to receive the funds?

Those that have read my previous post on this forum would know that I've already filled my entire hard drive trying to download the entire blockchain to retrieve my bitcoin.  I'm thinking this may not be necessary with the details I already have?

Help and advice greatly appreciated