Topic: I have a multibit wallet and I don't see any funds (Read 959 times)

More correctly, once you get the coins from Coinfloor into your Electrum wallet... then your Electrum seed phrase comes into play.

If you have those 12 words, you'll be able to recreate your entire Electrum wallet. That is to say, any and all private keys that it generates from that seed phrase. Those 12 words are all you require. Make sure you have them securely and safely backed up offline.

Do not store a screenshot of them, do not store them unencrypted in digital form on an online computer or cloud backup service etc.

Yes, but not any private key. The private key that corresponds to the public key and address where those funds were sent. Each address has a different private key, so you wont be able to use that key as an universal recovery key (aka recovery phrase). You might want to consider creating a wallet that shows you a 12/24 word seed instead. You write down the seed only and forget about individual private keys.

Thanks.  Once they are then back in a wallet then the private key comes into play again?

No.
Coinfloor is an exchange and you cannot import your private key(s) into an exchange. If you want your fund to appear in an exchange, you have to make a transaction to your deposit address.
Note that in exchanges, you have no control over the keys and therefore and there is no import/export private key(s) feature.

This  may be  a daft question.  But can I use my Bitcoin private key to get my bitcoin from Coinfloor?

You can also go to "Addresses" tab and see all your addresses.
If "Addresses" tab is not available, you can click on "View" at top of the window and select "Show addresses".

All bitcoin addresses are permanent. They will work forever, even if they don't receive any bitcoin.
The expiry time you see there is used only for knowing whether the sender has sent the fund in time or not. Ignore it.

OK thank you for the replies.

I've set up an electrum account.  I have then chosen the option to create a 'new seed' which I have written down on a piece of paper.  I've also set up a password.  Then I guess I go to the 'receive' page and click on the 'New address' tab and I provide this to Coinfloor as an address to send me the Bitcoin to this wallet.  Am I doing this correctly?  I see that that address it's generated is only available for 1 day.  But once there's Bitcoin in it I presume it  becomes permanent?

Here're my recommendations if you're not a techie-guy:

— The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
— Bitcoin: Hard Money You Can't F*ck With: Why bitcoin will be the next global reserve currency
— 21 Lessons: What I've Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole (for later)

Or if you love computers:

— Mastering Bitcoin
— learnmeabitcoin.com (not a book!)

---

Not that this forum is also a great source of knowledge. Whichever book you read, you may get yourself redirected here. It's generally a known place, it even had the creator of Bitcoin hanging around sometime (!).

In case Coinfloor is an exchange: No.

Just a small typo in your previous post. I fixed it for you

I would advise you to take a look at the Bitcoin for Beginners series by Andreas Antonopoulos. The playlist consists of 45 videos of various lengths. Some are as short as 4-5 minutes but there are also video lectures as long as 1-2 hours. And it's free.

In the case you are referring to this website, that's an exchange not a wallet.
I haven't ever used this service and I don't know how reputable they are. It may be a good choice for selling and buying bitcoin, but it's not recommended to hold bitcoin on an exchange.

When you hold bitcoin on an exchange, you give all your fund to them and instead they show you a number as your balance. Since you don't have control over keys, you aren't the real owner of the fund.
For holding bitcoin, I recommend you to use a non-custodial wallet like electrum.

Edit:
Thanks Pmalek for noticing the typo.

Well thank you all.  I've managed to retrieve all those forks thanks to the assistance of people on here.  In fact, I wouldn't have been able to retrieve the Bitcoins either if it wasn't for help on this thread.  I've learnt a great deal here.  I'm going to hang onto the Bitcoin.  We'll see how things  go.

Can anyone suggest a good book regarding Bitcoin?  Nothing too complicated.  There's a lot on Amazon.

Incidentally, I've left my Bitcoin on Coinfloor.  Is that a good course of action?

Have you tried ElectrumG wallet?
I just downloaded it to see how it works. It's same as electrum. It allows you to import your seed phrase.

Select "Standard wallet" and then "I already have a seed."




ElectrumG also allow you to import your private keys. Select "Import Bitcoin Gold addresses or private keys."

OK thanks.  I am fine with the Bitcoin Diamond Wallet now.  It's the Bitcoin Gold Wallet which is causing me problems downloaded from link from Coinmarketcap.  Can't find anywhere to enter an address or seed or key.

@BitDraig
Whatever wallet you download, you need to make sure that you got it from an official source like it was suggested to you in the previous posts. Unfortunately, you can't trust Google to point you in the right direction because they sell ad space to scammers advertising phishing sites whose goal is to steal your coins and/or infect your device. If you google a particular wallet, it has happened in the past that the first result is a fake site.

You can use CoinMarketCap, for example, to point you in the right direction. Here is what they have on the coins that were mentioned recently:
Bitcoin Diamond
Bitcoin SV
Bitcoin Cash

If you need anything else, just enter it on the search bar on the top right.

What did you download? and where did you download it from?

I vaguely remember that there were some "fake" Bitcoin Diamond wallets that stole seeds/keys... The "official" site seems to be: https://www.bitcoindiamond.org

The download page is: https://www.bitcoindiamond.org/download/

There are various options there... but you'll be wanting the one underneath the "Electrum Wallet" heading. The "Qt" wallets are the full node wallets that require downloading the blockchain etc.

It looks just like Electrum. I've turned on my Forkcoin VM for a screenshot of Electrum-BCD-3.0.5.3-Ubuntu:

Has anyone used the Bitcoin Diamond BTCD Wallet?  I can't seem to find where it's requires the key or seed.  It's not quite like the Electrum wallet.

Sounds like you had no Bitcoin on the key/addresses generated by that seed at the time of the fork. If you loaded that seed into Electrum and it showed a Bitcoin balance as at 1 August 2017, it should also have had Bitcoin Cash.

Loading the seed into Electron Cash, did it show any history at all? Were the BCH coins moved after the fork?


Those old "non-12" word phrases (ie. 15, 16 or 17 words etc) generally tend to be a "password recovery" phrase for blockchain.info... not a "seed" as such.

You can attempt to use it here: https://login.blockchain.com/wallet/forgot-password

I'm relatively new to all of this even though I purchased my bitcoin back in 2013.  I couldn't even remember transferring it to Blockchain.  I was getting confused regarding the address and the key and the seed.  I found the key from a paper wallet I mentioned earlier in the thread and using it, I managed to recover my Bitcoin Cash.  The seed I created didn't.  I also had another 16 word  seed I had written down  years ago.  I tried that and it didn't work  but I think it was linked  to my Blockchain wallet.  I am learning slowly.  When I purchased Bitcoin it was worth around £100.  Who would have thought it  would have reached these heights and until recently, I thought I had  lost mine until I decided to search in an old computed I had lying around and found the account name with Blockchain in my 'favourites'.  My only regret is not having bought more.

Can you post your address (if you don't mind the privacy loss)? I'm curious to see if you lost your BSV/BCH-A to the lack of replay protection. The BCH-A Fork is now worth more than BSV.

What fixed the issue you were having with Bitcoin Cash? It might be helpful for anyone else finding this thread later if you could explain what you did to get it.


I believe the "official" website is: https://electrumsv.io/

But I offer no guarantees, use at your own risk

Thank you for all your  help.  I've learnt a lot.  I've moved my Bitcoin Cash over to Coinbase now.  Now onto Electrum SV.  Is this the correct link to it's Wallet?  I couldn't find a link  from https://bitcoinsv.com/en

Did it even create the same addresses as from Electrum? If so, are you sure that this BTC wallet even had coins in it at the time of the BCH fork?

Did you put the BTC address into blockchair.com and see what it says? For instance, here is an old coinbase address from Block#200 that is still 'unspent': 1HwmP33SaknLYShXfjVU8KmVThU3JiuVgH

If we put that into the search at blockchair.com we can see that it has BTC, BCH and BSV:

---

As a test, try and see if you can replicate this scenario with "known good" data. I just created a test BIP39 seed:


I loaded it up in both Electrum 4.1.5 and Electron Cash 4.2.5... I used "BIP39 seed" option in when entering the seed on both. In Electrum, I chose "Legacy" - m/44'/0'/0'.... and in Electron Cash, also opted for the legacy m/44'/0'/0' option... They both generate the same addresses:


NOTE: in Electron Cash, you have to click this icon in the bottom right corner to swap between cashaddr and Legacy address formats:



See if you can create the 2 wallets in Electrum and Electron Cash and see if you also get the same addresses generated as the first 2 addresses in the address list:
- 1ArEK4rsCkvUh2Q4ZVa6xXQLnBy4yQtwPy
and
- 1GEZkp7FWEURQm88Dyt2VSRSbnuuCYKov8


If that works, but you still can't get it working when using your blockchain.com 12 word seed, then I suspect the wallet you're trying to get the BCH out of, is NOT part of your Blockchain.com HD wallet... so it won't be generated by the 12 word seed. It might be an imported private key/address in blockchain.com wallet instead.

Note that even if you import the wallet into Electron Cash successfully, the watch-only wallet will still show the balance. By importing the seed phrase into a new wallet, you don't move the fund to a new wallet. You can have multiple same wallets at a same time while all of them show the balance.


Thanks for the correction.


Yes, use space between the words.

I have just tried it and it didn't work.  I do leave spaces between the seed words don't I?

There is a slight trick with "forked" coins... they'll be on addresses generated using the "original" coins derivation path. So, in Electron Cash, you want to use the blockchain.com seed, but use the BTC derivation path of m/44'/0'/0' That should find "old" Bitcoin Cash coins from the fork.

The m/44'/145'/0' is only used for "new" Bitcoin Cash wallets. ie. ones created after the fork.

I did this in Electron Cash using the seed I created in Blockchain and nothing appears.  The Bitcoin Cash still appears in another wallet as an imported address, watching only.  Any suggestions?

Blockchain.com has changed quite a bit it seems... in the top left corner, click the "arrow" next to your balance:


Then click "BTC".

That should then give you the option to view all your BTC transactions... you can easily view just the "sent" transactions:


You'll want to see if you can identify the address you sent to... and then see if that matches with the coinfloor receive address (if so, you probably imported keys to Electrum and then sent to Coinfloor). If it doesn't match, then you likely created a transaction to send to Electrum first, then sent to Coinfloor.

Do you still have access to the old Electrum wallet?


That's a good start... that should help cross reference things between the wallets so you can see exactly what happened.

OK thanks.  Where in Blockchain will I find the transaction?  

I've found a deposit and withdrawls aread on Confloor and it provides an 'Address' and 'Transaction Hash'.  Does this sound good?

You either created a completely different wallet in Electrum and then sent the funds to it from Blockchain.com or it's possible you swept the funds or imported the private keys. If you sent or swept the funds, there should be a transaction in blockchain.com showing the coins going to your Electrum wallet... and then the inbound transaction on coinfloor should show the coins coming from somewhere other than your blockchain.com wallet.

If you imported the keys to Electrum, you would have been effectively "cloning" the blockchain.com wallet, so there should be a transaction showing in Blockchain.com that shows the funds going directly from there to coinfloor.


I don't see why you can't sell the coins in your coinfloor account... as far as I can tell, it is a custodial service, but as long as you meet their minimum amount requirements, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to sell them.


Theoretically yes... but if you already imported the keys elsewhere (like Electrum), then it's possible that it is also linked to other wallets.

Note that you didn't "create" the seed phrase this evening. It has always been the seed phrase for your wallet since the wallet was first created. It's also entirely possible you already viewed that seed phrase and imported it to Electrum when you were first "moving" coins from blockchain.com to Electrum to coinfloor.

Without having access to transaction histories and addresses etc it is kind of difficult to really say for sure exactly what you have done, and how... So most of this is "guesswork" based on your description of what has happened.

OK thanks for the help.  I have now created a seed phrase as advised by hosseinimr93.  I haven't used it to move my BCH.

A few months ago I had some Bitcoin in my Blockchain.com Wallet and I moved it to Coinfloor without the use of a seed phrase.  I firstly moved it to Electrum and then sent it to Coinfloor.  I'm confused as to how I was able to do this after reading some recent advice on here.  I don't now have any Bitcoin showing in Blockchain but I do on Coinfloor.  Will I be able to sell this?  And the seed phrase I created this evening is only linked to what is currently in my Blockchain.com wallet?  Thanks and sorry for my ignorance.

Let me make my previous warning about replay protection a bit clearer: if you send your BCH to Coinbase, you may lose your BSV and BCH-A. That's currently almost $250 per Bitcoin you owned when they Forked.
All you need to prevent this, is some split BCH-dust on your address before you make the transaction, and you'll need to include that when you send your BCH to Coinbase. If you do it this way, the transaction can't exist on the other Fork chains, and can't be replayed.

These messages are showing that you don't appear to have what you think you have (ie. private keys)... It seems that all you have are addresses. If you don't have the private keys, you won't be able to spend any of the coins.

Your addresses will look something like:
1xBitcoinAddress
or
3xBitcoinAddress
or
bc1qBitcoinAddress

ie. they'll start with a 1, 3 or bc1... Your BitcoinCash address might start with a "bitcoincash:" prefix.


Whereas your private keys in WIF format will look something like
5KCYdMUyh8hBHxw8mmcZeK4tzSLQEhryP6ppcFRRE4ioKFb8bYW
or
KxCY5wByvumhAa2E6cyTuuTUUXq4xNvTR4vcx9G5UgsB9aKsxvZD
or
L3KxbTQVE8xLRsswJbuy5gkCUWpdZVMZrYi58aemvfRVRCq5MTAi

ie. they'll start with a 5, K or L.


If you want to spend coins, you'll need to import the private keys... importing the address will create, as you've discovered, a "Watching-only" wallet which only allows you to view the transaction history and balance etc... but you can't sign transactions (you don't have the private keys!).


Do as mentioned above and get either the 12 word recovery phrase from blockchain.com wallet... or if the addresses you're trying to export were originally "imported" to blockchain.com, then you will need to click the gear icon in the top right corner and select "wallets and addresses":


That should give you options to view "imported" addresses in blockchain.com and if you select "manage" to the right of those addresses, you should get the option to view the private keys:



NOTE: you cannot see the individual private keys for addresses in your blockchain.com wallet that are part of the HD wallet (ie. generated from the 12 word recovery phrase), without using the 12 word recovery phrase and external tools. You can only see the individual private keys for imported addresses.

For exporting the wallet from blockhchain.com, you can use the seed phrase.

In blockchain.com, click on "Security" at top of the page. After that click on "Backup Funds" and then "View Secret Private Key Recovery Phrase" .
You will see a series of 12 words which is your seed phrase.
The seed phrase can be used for recovering both bitcoin and bitcoin cash.


For bitcoin, Use Electrum.
Create a new wallet. Select "Standard wallet" and then "I already have a seed".
Click on "Options", check BIP39 and click on "OK".
Paste your seed phrase and click on "Next".
In the new window, select "Legacy" if your addresses start with 1 and "Native segwit" if they start with bc1q.

For bitcoin cash, use Electron Cash.  
Standard wallet > I already have a seed.
Options > Check "Force BIP39 interpretation of this seed".
Leave the derivation path as default (m/44'/145'/0') Change the derivation path to m/44'/0'/0'. (Thanks HCP for the correction.)

If you have both bitcoin and bitcoin cash, for more security, move your bitcoin before trying to move bitcoin cash or other forks.

OK.  I'll have to do that tomorrow as I access my Blockchain from another computer which is elsewhere.  I can't remember seeing any 'private key' in the blockchain wallet?  Just the address. 

That means that you imported the address instead of the private key and made a watch-only wallet. Note that it's impossible to spend fund from a watch-only wallet.
Create a new wallet (File > New/Restore) and import the private key (not the address) this time.

OK thanks.  I am trying to send to my Coinfloor wallet.  I've chosen the 'send' tab and inserted the destination address and chosen 'max'.  I can't seem to find a tab or button to make the transaction?  Can anyone help?

It also says, 'imported address, watching only' if that's of any help?

You can safely close it. No need to do anything.
Whenever you want to spend the fund, you can open the wallet and make a transaction.
Note that as long as you have the private key(s), there is nothing to worry about. Even if you lose the wallet file, you can recover your wallet using the private key(s).

Thanks.  The private keys.

I got confused.  I had download Electron cash as you stated but I hadn't selected "Import Bitcoin Cash addresses or private keys".  I've now done this and they have appeared in the default wallet. I want to leave them there for the time being but I hope to send them to my Coinbase wallet later on. Do you need to save this or just quit or what?  Thank you all for your help.

When you say "downloaded electrum etc"... do you mean that you downloaded Electrum and then several of the Electrum clones (Electron Cash, ElectrumG, ElectrumSV etc) to be able to claim the fork coins? Or did you just download Electrum and you're trying to access other coins in it?

Electrum, as stated above, is BTC only... to get the fork coins, you need to download the Electrum clone specific to each Fork. You can generally find links to these clones from the forkcoin's homepage.


What exactly do you have from blockchain.com... the 12 word seed? or individual private keys in WIF format?

First suggestion: read the topic again, especially the part about replay protection.

Counter question: Do you have the private key to your address(es) now? If so, moving Forkcoins shouldn't be too difficult.

Electrum only supports bitcoin and cannot be used for claiming its forks.
For Bitcoin Cash, you need a wallet supporting it. As already said in my previous reply, I recommend you to use Electron cash.
In Electron cash, create a new wallet, select "Import Bitcoin Cash addresses or private keys" and after that enter your private keys.

I have downloaded electrum etc.  I'm having difficulty in importing the bitcoin cash into the wallet from Blockchain.com  Any suggestions....again?  :-)

Shit, really? I could have sworn I saw you mention that it was yours. Plus the 'ninja' part of the site's name points at you. Did you advertise/mention it a few times in your posts that could have led me to believe that it was yours or joked about it being your site? I will surely remember it now. 

Warning: you shouldn't trust this site! Although it works sometimes, it doesn't work for all addresses. Example: 1ELTDVM85P22TdMkK6asC5Sxzywafi1JKL holds 50 BTC and (most probably) every possible Forkcoin. Find My Coins shows this:

Lol, why do people keep saying I created this website.

I clearly would have done a better job, since you cannot use addresses with more than 20 transactions.

You can also use Find My Coins.ninja to see the entire list of fork coins available on your address. You just enter your address in the search field. The site was created by Bitcointalk user TryNinja, feel free to try it out. You have already moved your bitcoin from the address, but as a remainder, it's always a good idea to move your valuable bitcoin from an address whose private key you are about to import in a wallet for one of those forks.  

What you do with them is up to you (burn them, donate them, keep them, sell them....), so I assume you mean the "how" part: in my experience, there are currently 5 Forkcoins worth claiming:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-sv/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash-abc-2/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-gold/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-diamond/

The first 3 don't have replay protection, which means if you just sell your BCH, chances are you lose your BSV and BCH-A too. You need to ensure replay protection (by adding some fork dust to your address) before moving those.
The other 2 Forks don't have that problem, but I'd recommend to start with the most valuable coin. The total value of those coins is currently about 2.5% of the value of the Bitcoin you owned when they Forked.
Depending on the total value you could just import the private keys in a hot wallet, or use offline signing. I also offer my Bitcoin Fork claiming guide (and service) (coin prices in the OP are outdated).

To access you bitcoin cash, you need to import your private key into a wallet supporting bitcoin cash.
The best choice is electron cash. Download it only from its official website.
Electron cash is a fork of electrum and it works same as electrum.
After you import your private key into electron cash, you will have access to your bitcoin cash and you can send them to anywhere (e.g. an exchange) you want.

Also, note that besides bitcoin cash, you should have some other fork coins too.
For more information on how to claim those fork coins, I recommend you to visit the link below and read the guide provided by LoyceV.

LoyceV's Bitcoin Fork claiming guide (and service)

I managed to move the Bitcoin to Electrum and from the to Coinfloor.  So thank you for all of your assistance on here.

I have another question......I have a couple of Bitcoin Cash coins.  What can I do with them?

Thank you.  :-)

If you enter a private key, you will be able to see your balance and also spend the fund.
If you enter an address, you will create a watch-only wallet. A watch-only wallet can be used for checking the balance and transactions without touching the private key. Note that you can't spend any fund from a watch-only wallet.

If you want to spend any bitcoin from your wallet, you should go to "send" tab.
In the "Send" tab, you need to enter the address you want to send bitcoin to in "Pay to" field and the amount of bitcoin you wish to send in "Amount" field.
You can also click on "Max" button to send the entire balance.
After you click on "Pay", you should select the fee rate on the new window.
Note that the more fee you pay, the faster your transaction will be confirmed.
If you want a very fast confirmation, you can use "ETA" option as the estimation method and move the slider to right side.

It looks like they have appeared in my wallet. :-)  What should I do now?

It then askes....."Enter a list of Bitcoin addresses (this will create a watching-only wallet), or a list of private keys."

Yes, select "Import bitcoin addresses or private keys". Then enter your private key and click on "Next".
If you have imported the correct private key, you should see your bitcoin address in "Addresses" tab.
(If "Addresses" tab is not available, click on "View" at top of the window and then select "Show addresses".)

OK thank you.

What kind of new wallet do I wan to create?

Import "Bitcoin addresses or private keys" I would imagine?

Yes. Just make sure you don't download Electrum from a fake website, maybe verify your download, install Electrum, create a new wallet, and select "Import Bitcoin addresses or private keys".
Warning: If your computer contains malware, chances are you lose your 2BTC at this point!

If you import the private key, Electrum will know your address and lookup your balance. After that, you can send it anywhere you want.

Did your QR-scanner read the address or the private key? Or both?

If that's related to the same address, you don't need Blockchain.com if you have the private key.

I have managed to get the QR codes to work by scanning and darkening and I used my iphone to read of the computer screen.  I wasn't too far out with the magnifying glass.

So now I have the address where these bitcoin are held and I have what I am sure is the private key.

I guess that the only thing now is for the issue at Blockchain to resolve?

If I import the private key into electrum, will the bitcoin also be imported?  I apologize for not having too much knowledge concerning Bitcoin etc.

Yes it's 51.  I had missed out a letter.

Is that easy to do.....importing into electrum?

Are you sure it's not 51? See:

When you're sure your computer doesn't have malware, an easy way to check if you got it correct is by importing the private key into Electrum.

Be very careful who you trust with your private key! I wouldn't enter it on a website (like Blockchain.com's wallet).

To spend your funds

Thank you for that informative post.

The letters/numbers do begin with a 5 and it's 50 characters long.  The good new is that I've use a magnifying glass and I believe I've got most if not all the characters correctly written down.

The paper wallet I have says blockchain.info/wallet/my account name on the top.  It then has two qr codes similar to the one post above with Scan to load & Verify above one on the left and Scan to redeem above the one on the right.  In the middle is a bitcoin address identical to the one holding the bitcoins in the blockchain imported address.  So it must surely have somehow come from Blockchain.  It even has what looks like their faded logo on the top.

I've been in touch with Blockchain and been trying to move the imported bitcoin address to a Blockchain Private Key wallet.  But their system won't allow this to be done at the moment.  They are now looking into it and I'm waiting to hear back from them.

At what point would I need to use my Private Key?

I did all this back in 2013 and more or less forgott about but I decided to do some searching since bitcoin became much more valuable.  I wonder how many others are the same?  I remember a guy in Wales who had thrown a computer away (possibly by accident) and it had thousand of bitcoins on it.  A search of the local dump wasn't successful.

 

Correct, you can import an address into Blockchain.com wallet (ie. a "watching-only" wallet) and 1Blockchain.com will be able to monitor the transactions and balance etc... but you won't be able to send any transactions without the private key.


Probably not. As far as I can tell, Bittylicious does not generate private keys or have wallet functionality available to users. You need to already have a wallet of some kind (web wallet like blockchain, paper wallet, desktop wallet like multibit/electrum etc) and when you buy bitcoins, you enter you wallet address and Bittylicious sends the coins directly to that wallet address.


Without seeing the paper wallet and it's design etc. it's impossible to say really... but I am fairly sure that you didn't get it from either Blockchain or Bittylicious... I don't think either of those services ever produced "paperwallets".



I don't think you imported it from Bittylicious. You would have sent the coins to a bitcoin address when purchasing them from Bittylicious... but Bittylicious does not generate private key/addresses for you.


Can you see if the letters/numbers underneath the QR code start with a "5", an "L" or a "K"? If it does... then those letters/numbers are indeed the private key that is on the paper wallet (no guarantees that it is the private key that matches your imported address, but it is a good start)


I don't think so... not if the only thing you have in blockchain.com wallet is an address... the private key was likely generated elsewhere.

---

At this point I would suggest:

1. Getting a magnifying glass and attempting to read the letters/numbers underneath the QR code
or
2. Make a physical copy of the QR Code using a photocopier and then darken up the QRCode code on the copy by hand with a pen/marker
or
3. You could attempt to make a copy of the QR Code and then darken up the image (using photoshop or similar) so it can be read by your phone
or
4. Attempt to re-create the QR Code in a QR Code generator app that allows pixel by pixel editing, like this: https://www.pixilart.com/draw/qr-code-c70c8f58df


Note that making a digital copy of the QR Code (ie. options #3 and #4) is NOT recommended unless you are happy that your computer is malware free... if someone gets hold of that QRCode, they could take your coins... which, being 2 BTC, is quite a significant sum. Appropriate precautions should be taken.

I would personally attempt #1 first.

I'm starting to suspect that the OP is confusing some terminology.

The term "wallet" is a general term, and it really consists of two parts; the public address and the private key.  If you have a paper wallet that looks similar to the photo posted by LoyceV, you should have both the public address and the private key on that piece of paper.  Since Blockchain.com told you that you need the private key to spend the bitcoin, I'm assuming you never actually imported the private key to Blockchain.com.  Blockchain and Multibit will allow to import the public address, which will allow you to view the transactions, but will not allow you spend the bitcoin.  That makes it a "watch-only" wallet.

My suspicion is that you imported the public address to these wallets, which allowed you to view the coins therein, but since you never imported the private key, you are unable to spend the coins.

The paper wallet should have two QR codes with text underneath them.  The public address will start with "1," and the private key will start with either "5", "L", or "K".  If you're phone will not recognize the QR code, you'll have to type out the private key manually.

See how much of the private key you can read. QR-codes have error correction, so you can probably use that to recover at least parts of the code (don't ask me how) to combine with the readable parts of the written code.

Yes I apologise and thanks for your reply.  Forget the multibit as they weren't a part of the picture.  I had downloaded a mulitbit wallet to my computer years ago and now I thought by bitcoin was in there.  But I managed to track them to to Blockchain by looking at my old computer's 'favourites'.  I have access to the Blockchain account.  I tried to move the Bitcoin to Coinfloor but it wouldn't allow me to.  Blockchain helped me to realise that they are kept in a wallet in Blockchain which had been imported.  I had imported it from Bittylicious.  I even still have the Bittylicious account which I managed to gain access to.  But, in order for me to do anything with the Bitcoin in the imported account, I need the Private Key which is either a Base-58 or WIF format key.

Now I have a paper wallet which is I believe linked to this imported wallet.  It's a little faded and my phone is unable to read it.  I do have an Iphone 5s. But there's writing under the wallet address which I believe is the private key.  I gather Blockchain generated the private key?  Anyway they are unable to help.  Looking at the Bittylicious transactions, this all happened back in 2013.

You said it looks like the one I posted, which is created by Bitaddress.org.

A "standard" paper wallet has an address, and a private key. If you need a magnifying glass: get one! If you have a written private key and a QR-code printed, those are your only options. If your phone can't read the QR: try a different phone. But: know that malicious QR-apps can steal your Bitcoin!

I'm only posting here because you asked me to. I suggest to make your story much clearer, it's now very difficult to know what you're talking about: Multibit, paper wallet, mnemonic, Blockchain...... Those are all different systems and all take a different approach to recover whatever coins you have in their. It might help if you create a clear overview of events.

I have been trying to tansfer the bitcoins I own from Blockchain to Coinfloor.  I was having trouble as it wouldn't allow me to do so.  It transpires that I have a wallet in Blockchain with an imported Bitcoin address and I need the private key to 'access' it.  I have a paper wallet which I printed off years ago.  I try to scan the QR code but my phone doesn't manage to do it.  It is faded a little.  Under the wallet address is a number and letters  (very fine) which I'll need a magnifying glass if I have any hope of reading it.  Is there another way of getting the private key?  I have just managed to open up my old Bittylicious account from where I bought the Bitcoins.  Would I find the key there?  Where would I have got that paper wallet from?  Would that have come from Blockchain or Bittylicious?  I would be very greatful for some help.  Thanks.

Firstly, thanks for the update... always good to hear how it worked out (positive or negative).


Sending from blockchain.com to an exchange should not be a problem. Create an account at an exchange, get a deposit address (ensuring your select the BTC wallet address on the exchange and not some Bitcoin fork like BSV or BCH etc), then create your send transaction on Blockchain.com.

Just be wary of what the Bitcoin network activity when you go to send and set your transaction fee accordingly. Blockchain.com has a pretty bad fee algorithm... so you'd be wise to use a "custom" fee and then look at:
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,24h
https://mempool.space/
https://bitcoiner.live/

to get an idea of what you'll need to pay based on how quickly you want the transaction confirmed... or how long you might have to wait if you want to send cheaply.


As for, "The best exchange"™... that will depend greatly on your particular circumstances and your locale... some exchanges do not allow users from certain locations (countries or even specific states in the US) due to various laws and regulations. Additionally, not all exchanges will allow you to withdraw to your bank etc.

Finally, be prepared to have to walk the KYC/AML regulation trail... you'll probably need to hand over various ID, take selfies holding them and give all your personal details like address/phone etc to create an account and cash out even relatively modest amounts of fiat. Note that trying to provide false information can lead to your account being locked and a lot of hassles.

I have managed to located the Bitcoins.  They were in a Blockchain.com wallet.  I'm sorry for wasting people's time on here helping to recover them from a Multibit wallet.  It's a few years since I set it up.  I am thinking of cashing them in soon and if the price corrects (which I believe it will) I will buy back in again.

Which exchange is the most reliable?  Would it be easy to transfer from Blockchain.com to an exchange?

What do you want to do with the Bitcoin? Keep hold of them or transfer to an Exchange to convert to fiat?

If you're wanting to hold them, then it might be worth just leaving them exactly where they are... they haven't been "taken" in all this time, so the private key is likely still "safe". Then you can figure out if you want to move them to a different wallet or whatever later.

If you're wanting to convert them, you would need to import the private key into a wallet like Electrum, and then create a transaction to send the coins from there to the exchange of your choice.


It was possible to create multiple wallets in MultiBit Classic... so you might want to use the "open wallet" menu in Multibit and see if there are other "xxxxxx.wallet" files... also check how many "xxxxx-data" folders are shown in the MultiBit data directory (multibit should default to this directory when you use the "open wallet" menu option)... each wallet should have it's own "xxxxx-data" folder.

I've now managed to look at my old computer and the wallet was Multibit 0.5.14 .  There's an address there which I've searched for using the links posted above and the address comes up as never having received or spent any Bitcoins.   I'm totally confused.  Yes LoyceV the paper wallet I have looks something like that.  It must have been linked to Bittylicious?  But I'm sure I deposited the coins from there into a wallet on my computer.  Any suggestions?  The address on the paper wallet says there's just under two Bitcoins received and remaining at that address.

Is that the address on your paper wallet?

Do you have something like this?

If so, it's as easy as importing the private key into any wallet. But if you have 2 Bitcoins on it, you probably shouldn't risk importing it in a hot wallet (on a system connected to the internet).

Yes it does show a transaction history with a balance of just under 2 Bitcoins which is what I thought there should be as a final balance.  But what's confusing me is that it also says that total received was 4.8 Bitcoins.  I didn't purchase that many.  I purchased 2 in total.   I'll try and access my old computer tomorrow. 

What happens if you lookup the "1xxxxx" address that is on the paper wallet using one or more of the following block explorers?

https://www.blockchair.com/
https://www.blockstream.info/
https://www.blockchain.com/
https://www.btc.com/
https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/

Do you see some transaction history? Does it indicate that there is a positive "final balance" or does it show as zero? The transaction history is often the important clue (even with a zero balance), as it means that the address was in fact "used" at some point...

If you have transaction history, but zero balance, it means the coins were spent at some point.
If you have no transaction history, it means the paper wallet was never funded and can be "ignored".


You also really need to check which version of MultiBit you were using... was it MultiBit Classic:



or was it MultiBit HD:



The method to recover coins from each is slightly different.

I'd say try that first. Just to be sure: keep that computer offline while you export the private keys.

To do that, do I need to open the original wallet on the computer it was originally created and kept on?  I have that at another address.

Have you tried exporting private keys from Multibit?

It's discontinued, so it's possible it can't show the last balance without connecting to a server. Or maybe your coins were moved.

Unfortunately it didn't detect my existing account.

So now I have a standard Electrum wallet with nothing in it.  What should I do next?

Also, why wouldn't the coins show up in the old multibit wallet?

The address starts with a 1. It's the private key that starts with 5, L or K.

Warning: ignore all private messages from people who offer to "help" you. People have been scammed that way.

Bonus for after recovering and moving your Bitcoin: you probably own some Forkcoins too. Don't do anything with them before securing your Bitcoin, but don't forget about them either.

Thank you both for your replies.

The address that I have doesn't start with a 5 or an L or  K.  It starts with a 1.  It does say that it's a paper Wallet.  I purchased by Bitcoin through Bittylicious and it was pre-2014.  I payed a £100 per Bitcoin.  I'm thinking that maybe the paper wallet came with the orginial purchase through Bittylicious?  I then later on opened a Multibit wallet and put the bitcoins into it which I could see.  I left them there for a few years but I opened the Multibit wallet up again last year or at least year or the year before and I couldn't see them.  I'll download electrum now.

If you can still open the wallet you can do this below if the above suggestion doesn't work.

You can try to export the private keys from Multibit by going to tools>export private keys

It should be looks like this



Then you can import it to Electrum.

If you have a wallet recovery mnemonic, then you were likely using MultiBit HD... as multibit classic did not use recovery mnemonics.

Which is a bit confusing, as you say you have a single address with QR Codes for the address and private key... as that is a paper wallet, and from memory was not a feature in MultiBit HD. So, I'm thinking that maybe the "recovery mnemonic" and the "paper wallet" are not actually related.

To recover using the wallet recovery mnemonic, you can enter that into another BIP39 compatible wallet. I would recommend that you use Electrum: https://www.electrum.org/#download

ONLY download from the official site as linked... and follow this excellent tutorial on how to verify that download before using it: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54223763

Once you have Electrum setup:
- create a new wallet
- select "standard wallet"
- select "I already have a seed"
- click the "Options" button and tick the "BIP39 seed" box
- Enter your recovery mnemonic (it should say next to the options button "BIP39 (checksum: OK)".
- On the next page, Electrum should prompt you for the address type... click the "Detect existing accounts" button

At this point, Electrum will hopefully find your old addresses/transactions/private keys etc... If it does not, the appropriate settings are:
- Select "Legacy (p2pkh)"
- Change the derivation path to: m/0'



That will restore your multiBit HD wallet into Electrum.


As for the piece of paper with the QR codes, you can also import that into Electrum, but instead of using the "standard wallet" option... use the "Import bitcoin addresses or private keys" option when creating the wallet and then scan the "redeem" barcode. (or enter the private key manually... it should start with a "5" and "L" or a "K")

If you don't have a webcam, you can trying using a mobile wallet (like Mycelium or Electrum - Android) to scan the "redeem" QR code.

OK as I state in the title, I opened a multibit wallet a few years ago into which I deposited a couple of Bitcoins.  When I open the wallet, it just doesn't show any Bitcoins at all in there.  I would have set up the wallet around 2015 I think.  I still have the address for the transaction into the wallet printed on a piece of paper.  It also has two scan boxes; one to load and verity and the other to redeem.  I'm not sure what they mean.  I also have the words written down which are the wallet recovery mnemonic.  The computer on which I set all this up is not now in use but sitting in a spare room at home.  Could someone give me some guidance on how to find my Bitcoin if they are still there to be found?  Thank you very much for any replies and forgive my ignorance.