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Deserves its own topic. Let's move there, to avoid derailing this one: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/acquiring-bitcoin-with-cash-what-why-how-5433669 
Topic: Invalid private key error - page 2. (Read 1510 times)
Has anyone tried sending cash by mail? That's also an option.
Once or twice, but only ever with another party whom I have traded with several times before and built up some trust and rapport with.The main problems with cash via mail are privacy and security. The bitcoin seller must obviously give an address, and from our discussions regarding how to anonymously receive a hardware wallet, that can be difficult to do without compromising your privacy. However, if you do have a way to anonymously receive packages, then this can be an extremely private way to sell, and can be completely anonymous for the bitcoin buyer.
There is also the security of sending large amounts of cash through the mail, and how to verify that neither party is attempting to scam the other. Bisq have a great tutorial on how to do it as safely as possible here: https://bisq.wiki/Cash_by_mail. I still probably wouldn't pick it as a method with a first time trading partner, though.
i can see why someone would prefer using F2F
You don't need the approval of any bank, nor do you have any eyes watching you. It's so disappointing that this is priceless nowadays. In a country where there is no tax framework for cryptocurrencies, trading at a DEX with financial institutions which might report your potentially disapproved activity is dangerous, unfortunately. I wish there were more people willing to do this, but it's just hard practically. I mean, I have to meet someone F2F, so I'm limited to my nearby towns' borders. If you don't charge this, I don't know what deserves to be. Has anyone tried sending cash by mail? That's also an option.
--snip--
I don't know if this can help you dude, but try to go on udrop.com where you can bitcoins private keys finder
Here is the link: [LINK SNIPPED]
or it could be that your private key has made an error, you may have just one letter missing from your private key or replaced by another
letter.
Have you tried this tool personally? I did quick check and i'm 99.99% sure this tool is either malware, scam or fake.
1. This software is closed source.
2. The video mention udrop.com to download the application, but link on video description provide download link at mediafire.com and mega.nz instead. For reference, i checked the application based on mediafire.com link.
3. The application was compressed into .rar file with password. This is fairly common method to share pirated software or malware.
4. The application claim to search for ownerless wallet, but doesn't mention location of the wallet file.
5. This application seems to have ability to find seed phrase based on Bitcoin address (video duration 2:53), which is IMPOSSIBLE.
6. The .exe file is flagged by 21 AV. See https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/13ab2aa012971573519748407a9fe49bb8ae87e85486dcd91f8f593ca672d8ff/detection.
but all of these p2p dexs they got tons of people wanting to buy using these crappy unsafe payment methods. unsafe to the seller!
My favorite DEX - Bisq - purposefully does not allow people to use methods such as PayPal which can easily be reversed.Bisq also has security deposit requirements to protect both party.
i'm not sure there really is a suitable payment method other than cash or crypto.
In terms of reversibility, then yeah, really the only completely safe payment method is cold hard cash. Any electronic fiat method can ultimately be reversed, although some are obviously much harder to do than others, and with PayPal it is almost trivial to scam the other party. I generally stick to cash or bank transfers when trading peer to peer, and have never had a problem with someone trying to reverse a bank transfer, although I am quite selective with whom I choose to trade. Look for other parties with good reputations and you'll likely have zero problems.but all of these p2p dexs they got tons of people wanting to buy using these crappy unsafe payment methods. unsafe to the seller!
My favorite DEX - Bisq - purposefully does not allow people to use methods such as PayPal which can easily be reversed. 
Most platforms have methods built in to deal with this. For example, on HodlHodl you can set a stop loss which will disable your trade if the price fluctuates outside a price range you have set. Or on AgoraDesk you can use floating price so your trade takes places at the price when the offer is completed, not at when it was posted. Or you can just take your offers down when you go to bed.
cool. i'll look into those.Quote
If you are the only person offering a service which is in demand, then you can charge a premium for doing so. This is not unique to bitcoin.
i can see why someone would prefer using F2F these days since alot of payment methods like paypal are just not suitable for selling your bitcoin for. since they are subject to chargebacks/reversal long after you sent the person your bitcoin...i'm not sure there really is a suitable payment method other than cash or crypto. like litecoin. but all of these p2p dexs they got tons of people wanting to buy using these crappy unsafe payment methods. unsafe to the seller! 
Here is the link
That's a scam. Please delete the link before you are responsible for someone downloading this malware and losing their coins.As if a closed source piece of software being distribute via YouTube wasn't obviously enough a scam, you can just look at the hundreds of blatantly obvious bot accounts posting generic spam comments that don't even make sense in relation to the video. And if all that wasn't enough, just watch the video where the person enters a random address and 15 seconds later the software has managed to crack the seed phrase for that address.
Please pay more attention to links you are sharing in the future.
what happens if you're sleeping and bitcoin spikes in price to $20,000 while you had limit sell orders of $18,000? someone will have lifted your ask and what are you gonna do? try and cancel?
Most platforms have methods built in to deal with this. For example, on HodlHodl you can set a stop loss which will disable your trade if the price fluctuates outside a price range you have set. Or on AgoraDesk you can use floating price so your trade takes places at the price when the offer is completed, not at when it was posted. Or you can just take your offers down when you go to bed.so you want to do a face to face trade with someone and charge them significantly over bitcoin's market price.
If you are the only person offering a service which is in demand, then you can charge a premium for doing so. This is not unique to bitcoin. This much is true, but if I was selling a large amount I would never go to the order book on a single platform and just start scooping up all the orders there. Much better to create your own order, preferably two or more orders on different platforms, setting your own price and letting trades come to you. Then you can fill your order with multiple different parties with no price slippage.
but how many good bitcoin DEXs exist though that has sufficient liquidity and volume to be worth your time? maybe 2 or 3? i understand your strategy there but when you set up limit orders I guess you have to keep an eye on the market. what happens if you're sleeping and bitcoin spikes in price to $20,000 while you had limit sell orders of $18,000? someone will have lifted your ask and what are you gonna do? try and cancel?
Quote from: BlackHatCoiner
I've been thinking of creating a F2F trade, which will cost a lot from the buyer's view, because there's 0 liquidity for cash <-> bitcoin trades. I want to see how that'll go.
so you want to do a face to face trade with someone and charge them significantly over bitcoin's market price. if you can find someone like that, you can just rince and repeat over and over. hopefully your bank won't notice those cash deposits coming in all the time. the more you want to buy, the worse your average price will be too! someone is making a profit and it's not YOU.
Unless you make the offer. I've lots of times sold bitcoin in prices above the bottom (which is mostly coinmarketcap) and sometimes even had them accepted nearly instantly. I've been thinking of creating a F2F trade, which will cost a lot from the buyer's view, because there's 0 liquidity for cash <-> bitcoin trades. I want to see how that'll go.Generally, if you don't believe the offers are good, check out other DEX or CEX that don't require KYC.
thanks for pointing out that service. never heard of it before but i think the problem with services like this (DEXs) is they typically have low volume which means if you want to buy any significant amount of btc ( or sell), you're going to get price slippage.
This much is true, but if I was selling a large amount I would never go to the order book on a single platform and just start scooping up all the orders there. Much better to create your own order, preferably two or more orders on different platforms, setting your own price and letting trades come to you. Then you can fill your order with multiple different parties with no price slippage. I get how you are against using paypal to buy crypto but it's safer to do that than to buy crypto from a 3rd party USING paypal as the payment method, don't you think?
I don't trust PayPal in the slightest, so I would never suggest either buying from PayPal nor using PayPal to buy from a third party.
which I won't argue against your stance as your alternative below does make sense.Quote
The best way to trade bitcoin is via a good decentralized exchange which has a built in trustless escrow such as Bisq, using a fiat method which is not easy for one party to reverse.
thanks for pointing out that service. never heard of it before but i think the problem with services like this (DEXs) is they typically have low volume which means if you want to buy any significant amount of btc ( or sell), you're going to get price slippage. as an example lets look at Bisq's order book:
Code:
Sell Offers
Price Amount (BTC) Amount (USD)
$16,828.39 0.085 BTC $1,430.41
$17,493.12 0.05 BTC $874.66
$17,499.85 0.0044 BTC $77.00
$17,501.53 0.02 BTC $350.03
$17,501.53 0.0512 BTC $896.08
$17,526.77 0.01 BTC $175.27
$17,533.50 0.0113 BTC $198.13
$17,582.31 0.03 BTC $527.47
$17,585.67 0.024 BTC $422.06
$17,669.81 0.0124 BTC $219.11
$17,737.13 0.0089 BTC $157.86
$17,796.03 0.112 BTC $1,993.15
$17,796.03 0.112 BTC $1,993.15
$17,836.41 0.02 BTC $356.73
$17,838.10 0.025 BTC $445.95
$18,342.95 0.10 BTC $1,834.29
$18,443.92 0.0091 BTC $167.84
$18,679.52 0.10 BTC $1,867.95
$18,847.80 0.015 BTC $282.72
$19,352.65 0.01 BTC $193.53
$20,177.24 0.01 BTC $201.77
$21,018.66 0.01 BTC $210.19
$21,876.91 0.01 BTC $218.77
$21,876.91 0.0025 BTC $54.69
$21,876.91 0.02 BTC $437.54
$21,876.91 0.005 BTC $109.38
$23,600.00 0.12 BTC $2,832.00
$24,300.00 0.10 BTC $2,430.00
$27,700.00 0.02 BTC $554.00
coinmarketcap says the current bitcoin price is around $16,827 but even if you only wanted to buy $3000 or so worth of bitcoin, your average price in that case is going to sit around $17,250. the more you want to buy, the worse your average price will be too! someone is making a profit and it's not YOU.
yes you can place buy limit orders the problem with that is no guarantee they will get filled and you put yourself at risk of the market moving against you and then your order is out there like a sitting duck.Quote
I'm not going to argue about it here since it is off topic, but you can do a web search for "paypal misinformation" or similar and see that everyone from lawyers to senators to the former president of PayPal agree with what is being said in that thread about this pro-censorship policy.
ok. I get how you are against using paypal to buy crypto but it's safer to do that than to buy crypto from a 3rd party USING paypal as the payment method, don't you think?
I don't trust PayPal in the slightest, so I would never suggest either buying from PayPal nor using PayPal to buy from a third party.The best way to trade bitcoin is via a good decentralized exchange which has a built in trustless escrow such as Bisq, using a fiat method which is not easy for one party to reverse. No, such a platform did not exist at the time, but that doesn't mean that OP didn't mess up by accepting a raw private key and apparently at no point checking that it was actually valid or contained the coins he thought it did.
I'm not going to go argue in that other thread
I'm not going to argue about it here since it is off topic, but you can do a web search for "paypal misinformation" or similar and see that everyone from lawyers to senators to the former president of PayPal agree with what is being said in that thread about this pro-censorship policy. You don't need to convince me that OP messed up here. Obviously he should have imported the key, checked it worked, and then moved any coins to a new address under a key he controls. But he didn't do that, so he is left with the situation he is in.
Which is pretty much the same situation he would have been left with if he would have checked originally. A useless private key and paypal won't do anything to help and the seller, if we assume them to be a scammer, won't do anything either. I get how you are against using paypal to buy crypto but it's safer to do that than to buy crypto from a 3rd party USING paypal as the payment method, don't you think? Nowadays, i mean. OP didn't have that option back then.where does it say they're going to "fine you thousands of dollars if you say things online that they don't like" ?
Quote
You can read the rest of the thread I linked for details. Anything that some unknown entity at PayPal deems as "false, inaccurate or misleading" is classed as a restricted activity and can be fined. Pure censorship.
And you're wrong. I'm not going to go argue in that other thread but you're not understanding their terms and conditions. just because they classify something as a restricted activity doesn't mean a fine would apply to it. they can hold someone's funds for 180 days and then it requires legal processes to extend that longer. but there's no $2500 fine that they can just apply to anyone that engages in a restricted activity. so get your facts straight.
no one is going to get fined $2500 by paypal for saying things they don't like. it's not part of their terms and conditions. so if they did that then they would have no basis for it.which would/should have made it even more obvious/incombent upon the person purchasing to make sure they could verify the private key. otherwise they're just buying a string of alphanumeric characters
You don't need to convince me that OP messed up here. Obviously he should have imported the key, checked it worked, and then moved any coins to a new address under a key he controls. But he didn't do that, so he is left with the situation he is in.where does it say they're going to "fine you thousands of dollars if you say things online that they don't like" ?
You can read the rest of the thread I linked for details. Anything that some unknown entity at PayPal deems as "false, inaccurate or misleading" is classed as a restricted activity and can be fined. Pure censorship. Quote
It starts with 5 but the second character is ‘F’ followed by other characters with two invalid Base 58 characters and checksum error which makes me understand that last four characters are not correct.
Quote
The one charecter that does’nt fit the Base58 chart is ‘I’.
Perhaps the format of the key is not Base58. The knowledge of wallet creation may not have been widespread in 2010, so methods for generating private keys may differ, You should try to decode your key with another format ex Base64, Base62
Appreciate your suggestion.
I shall try it. Since most of the posts mentioned Base58, hence so far I have beer trying only Base58. Once again, thanks for your response. It helps a lot.
It starts with 5 but the second character is ‘F’ followed by other characters with two invalid Base 58 characters and checksum error which makes me understand that last four characters are not correct. So, in total the key has the atleast 7 characters wrong and could be more.
It has to start with 5H, 5J, or 5K.The invalid checksum is telling you that the checksum is not correct for the key you entered. We already know that is the case because the key contains invalid characters. This does not necessarily mean the checksum contains errors - the checksum may very well be the correct checksum for the correct key and will validate just fine once you sort the other errors.
Appreciate your suggestions and advice.
Use btcrecover as I suggested above. If you are struggling with this, then your only option would be to ask a third party wallet recovery service to run it for you. I'd be happy to give it a shot as well, but this will necessitate you sharing your incorrect private key with either the wallet recovery service or myself.Thanks for response and suggestions. I appreciate it.
Unfortunately, the seller has never disclosed to me the address of my purchase hence I don’t have any clue as to what I own or I need to take into consideration before engaging third party wallet recovery. Though it is prophesied that ‘Your private key - your bitcoins” - in my case I was in the impression that I can trust the seller because it was purchased with escrow as PayPal.
Currently after recovering the key, I feel that the seller has taken advantage of my trust and executed his stealth scamming game by advising me to store the private keys at a secret or safe place and to delete the email.
Little did I ever realize that I am scammed until recently when I started analyzing the private key and opened a can of worms which is spread on my table.
Once again , thanks for your response and wish you and your family a very very happy new year 2023.
If it was hard to create your own wallet or key pairs from scratch, then it was probably even harder to find software which would let you import a raw private key to access coins you had supposedly bought.
Quote
I would suggest you just shouldn't use PayPal at all, since they introduced a clause in their Terms which allows them to fine you thousands of dollars if you say things online that they don't like.
where does it say they're going to "fine you thousands of dollars if you say things online that they don't like" ?
If you are a seller and receive funds for transactions that violate the Acceptable Use Policy and said violation is associated with fraud or the sale of goods that are counterfeit or otherwise infringe on intellectual property rights, then in addition to being subject to the above actions you will be liable to PayPal for the amount of PayPal's damages caused by said violation. You acknowledge and agree that $2,500 USD (or equivalent) per violation is presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal's actual damages - including, but not limited to internal administrative costs incurred by PayPal to monitor and track violations, damage to PayPal’s brand and reputation, and penalties imposed upon PayPal by its business partners resulting from said violation associated with fraud or the sale of goods that are counterfeit or otherwise infringe on intellectual property rights - considering all currently existing circumstances, including the relationship of the sum to the range of harm to PayPal that reasonably could be anticipated because, due to the nature of the violation, actual damages would be impractical or extremely difficult to calculate. PayPal may deduct such damages directly from any existing balance in any PayPal account you control.
since you don't suggest using paypal, who do you suggest? coinbase?
but they didn't have all the different wallets and things they do now. so i guess it was harder to create your own wallet/address.
If it was hard to create your own wallet or key pairs from scratch, then it was probably even harder to find software which would let you import a raw private key to access coins you had supposedly bought. no one should be needing to buy bitcoin from someone else using paypal these days though. since they can just buy it from paypal directly.
I would suggest you just shouldn't use PayPal at all, since they introduced a clause in their Terms which allows them to fine you thousands of dollars if you say things online that they don't like.Perhaps the format of the key is not Base58. The knowledge of wallet creation may not have been widespread in 2010, so methods for generating private keys may differ, You should try to decode your key with another format ex Base64, Base62
A possibility, although a raw private key encoded in these systems would be 44 characters, rather than the 51 OP has. Quote
It starts with 5 but the second character is ‘F’ followed by other characters with two invalid Base 58 characters and checksum error which makes me understand that last four characters are not correct.
Quote
The one charecter that does’nt fit the Base58 chart is ‘I’.
Perhaps the format of the key is not Base58. The knowledge of wallet creation may not have been widespread in 2010, so methods for generating private keys may differ, You should try to decode your key with another format ex Base64, Base62
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