Invalid private key error | Bitcointalksearch.org

Romoe

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Quote

Unfortunately, I don’t have the python script you referenced. If you can, please send me the link. Thanks.

I can create it for you, but I need to known where the wrong position is.
For example, 5JXB[]hvvfQaT7GxoN7BGicZST25uGhLJ5aK9y3SS3LL[]766tfaS, the wrong position is '5' and '44'

I don't check this site often, Can you contact me in telegram? [Telegram: @Panadawn]

Tofee

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Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: Romoe on January 23, 2023, 01:14:39 AM

Quote

I assume the last seven characters on a private key is based on checksum then the search would have been 3*58.

I tried it on FinderOuter but the search is 3*58*58*58*58*58*58*58*58.
Ie 3=first character after 5.
Than 58 for one invalid character.
Then last seven characters for checksum ( 58 x 7 ).

Had FinderOuter provisions for elimination of checksum and calculated only the main characters then the search for valid key would have been very simple.

1. Checksum part for WIF private key starting with '5' is only last 5 character (Not 7)
2. If you assured that there are 2 Char wrong, So all possible valid key that can generated is only 3x58. ( = 174 key)
3. After convert those key to P2PKH address (BTC address starting with '1'),You can check all of that 174 address if it have balance or not. (It takes less than 1 minute in bitcoin blockchain inquiry API)

All the above processes can be done with one python script

Thanks for your response.
As per your response, in FinderOuter, I will have to include 5 x 58 in place of checksum. Accordingly, the search would be 2 (for missing chapters) + 5(for checksum characters) = 7 * characters.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the python script you referenced. If you can, please send me the link. Thanks.

Romoe

newbie

Activity: 7

Merit: 1

Quote

I assume the last seven characters on a private key is based on checksum then the search would have been 3*58.

I tried it on FinderOuter but the search is 3*58*58*58*58*58*58*58*58.
Ie 3=first character after 5.
Than 58 for one invalid character.
Then last seven characters for checksum ( 58 x 7 ).

Had FinderOuter provisions for elimination of checksum and calculated only the main characters then the search for valid key would have been very simple.

1. Checksum part for WIF private key starting with '5' is only last 5 character (Not 7)
2. If you assured that there are 2 Char wrong, So all possible valid key that can generated is only 3x58. ( = 174 key)
3. After convert those key to P2PKH address (BTC address starting with '1'),You can check all of that 174 address if it have balance or not. (It takes less than 1 minute in bitcoin blockchain inquiry API)

All the above processes can be done with one python script

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 14, 2023, 06:50:25 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 04, 2023, 12:04:52 AM

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.

You don't need to know an address in order to attempt to brute force. The checksum will only be valid for 1 out of every ~4.3 billion possibilities, meaning you can easily simply look up the address of any valid key that you find.

Quote from: Tofee on January 13, 2023, 08:05:04 AM

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money - https://money.cnn.com/2014/03/21/technology/mt-gox-missing-bitcoin/index.html.

None of this is relevant to you. It does not matter what type of wallet created the WIF private key you are trying to recover. It is either a valid WIF key, or it isn't. The only thing that might change is the locking script related to your private key, but you won't be able to even start thinking about that until you have successfully brute forced the private key.

I am trying to locate the seller or the sellers who had the capability of selling bitcoins during the period 2009 to 2011 and the name a few of them arise are Mt.Gox and Coinpal.

If X = Mt.Gox (exchange ) or wholesale provider.
If Y = marketer or internet marketing links/blogs administrator or distributor
If Z = purchaser or buyer.

What if the selling system was designed that bitcoins would be sold by the exchange Mt.Gox X (first party) on an order placement basis by second party Y (person who is marketing through link advertisements on internet such as Yahoo finance and other blogs) to third party Z (third party is purchaser or me in this case) then in this scenario X is instructed for delivery of bitcoins by providing the access authority or Privatekey to Z ( delivery destination email address).

In this above mentioned scenario, if I am the legal owner for accessing those bitcoins but by virtue if the privatekey provided by X without providing details explanation of how to execute the key and if it is not valid key then how am I going to own them.

There are other arguments which arise apart from this as well. Please give it a thought of the scenario I mentioned above and please let me know your opinion. Critics are welcome.
Thanks

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 15, 2023, 11:46:02 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 11:32:10 AM

Hence, in FinderOuter, I have last six unknown characters and one unknown character in the middle of the key as basic search. I am replacing ‘F’ with H,J,K. This search will take a very very long time for completion.

This search is trivial to do if you set up btcrecover properly. You have three unknowns for the first character, and 58 unknowns for the character in the middle. Even assuming the worst case scenario of the checksum only being 5 characters, giving you another unknown character in the 6th from last position, then there are only 3*58*58 possibilities, since the last 5 characters don't need to be brute forced since they will be calculated from the rest of the key. This is only 10,092 possibilities, which can be searched in under a second.

Thanks for your response. I am trying to install BTCrecover on Ubuntu 22.0 but it is having issues with Ripemd160. Ripemd160 is not working and tests are not working.

I assume the last seven characters on a private key is based on checksum then the search would have been 3*58.

I tried it on FinderOuter but the search is 3*58*58*58*58*58*58*58*58.
Ie 3=first character after 5.
Than 58 for one invalid character.
Then last seven characters for checksum ( 58 x 7 ).

Had FinderOuter provisions for elimination of checksum and calculated only the main characters then the search for valid key would have been very simple.

If the seller who emailed me the private key has given me a valid key.

As one of the response stated that if the seller has scammed me then none of the above search efforts are of any use.

Hence, currently the task is unpredictable.

Thanks

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 11:32:10 AM

Hence, in FinderOuter, I have last six unknown characters and one unknown character in the middle of the key as basic search. I am replacing ‘F’ with H,J,K. This search will take a very very long time for completion.

This search is trivial to do if you set up btcrecover properly. You have three unknowns for the first character, and 58 unknowns for the character in the middle. Even assuming the worst case scenario of the checksum only being 5 characters, giving you another unknown character in the 6th from last position, then there are only 3*58*58 possibilities, since the last 5 characters don't need to be brute forced since they will be calculated from the rest of the key. This is only 10,092 possibilities, which can be searched in under a second.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 15, 2023, 11:01:45 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

I did know about the web site which you have mentioned but since it’s online, I am not comfortable checking out the checksum of the private key which I have in order to gather info of the corresponding pubkey address.

You won't be able to calculate a valid checksum for your private key since it contains invalid characters. That website will simply throw an "Invalid Base58 encoding" error if you try.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

I am currently using FinderOuter offline but I have not come across checksum of pub address or private key, since the private key I have has been showing checksum errors on several occasions.

As I covered above, this does not mean your checksum is incorrect. A checksum error simply means the checksum does not match the rest of the key. Given that the rest of the key is invalid as it contains invalid characters, there is no checksum in existence which will be valid. Every possible checksum will return the same error. You are focusing on the wrong things here.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

As I mentioned earlier on my posts, my key starts with 5 but is followed by ‘F’ and has ‘I’ included as one of the characters and ‘l’ on one of the last seven characters (which I presume as checksum) of the key.Please correct me if I am wrong.

The checksum encodes 8 hex characters in to base58 characters, meaning it will be either the last 5 or 6 characters which are the checksum.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

My current position is that I am unable to share this key with any recovery/investigation due to unknown public address key and their total number of bitcoins.

I am happy to attempt to brute force it for free, at least for all the straightforward character replacements and similar we discussed earlier. Completely understand if you don't want to risk it though.

Thanks for your response. In my key, the invalid character is within the last four characters, hence I conclude that the checksum is not base58 format. Hence, in FinderOuter, I have last six unknown characters and one unknown character in the middle of the key as basic search. I am replacing ‘F’ with H,J,K. This search will take a very very long time for completion. Thanks

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

I did know about the web site which you have mentioned but since it’s online, I am not comfortable checking out the checksum of the private key which I have in order to gather info of the corresponding pubkey address.

You won't be able to calculate a valid checksum for your private key since it contains invalid characters. That website will simply throw an "Invalid Base58 encoding" error if you try.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

I am currently using FinderOuter offline but I have not come across checksum of pub address or private key, since the private key I have has been showing checksum errors on several occasions.

As I covered above, this does not mean your checksum is incorrect. A checksum error simply means the checksum does not match the rest of the key. Given that the rest of the key is invalid as it contains invalid characters, there is no checksum in existence which will be valid. Every possible checksum will return the same error. You are focusing on the wrong things here.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

As I mentioned earlier on my posts, my key starts with 5 but is followed by ‘F’ and has ‘I’ included as one of the characters and ‘l’ on one of the last seven characters (which I presume as checksum) of the key.Please correct me if I am wrong.

The checksum encodes 8 hex characters in to base58 characters, meaning it will be either the last 5 or 6 characters which are the checksum.

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 10:55:02 AM

My current position is that I am unable to share this key with any recovery/investigation due to unknown public address key and their total number of bitcoins.

I am happy to attempt to brute force it for free, at least for all the straightforward character replacements and similar we discussed earlier. Completely understand if you don't want to risk it though.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 15, 2023, 08:20:50 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 07:06:36 AM

Thanks for your response. I sincerely appreciate your efforts. Please let me know which website or tool is the best for checking the checksum and correcting the public address. Thanks.

To fix that address I simply decoded it to hex, calculated the correct checksum, and then re-encoded it in Base58. You could probably use a site like https://gobittest.appspot.com to do this online if you wanted.

I really don't know why you want to, though. None of this is in any way relevant whatsoever to your private key with the incorrect characters. Have you tried brute forcing it with btcrecover yet as I suggested above? Do you want me to try for you?

Thanks for your response.

I did know about the web site which you have mentioned but since it’s online, I am not comfortable checking out the checksum of the private key which I have in order to gather info of the corresponding pubkey address.

I wish to interact web site offline availability, hence I enquired from you. I am currently using FinderOuter offline but I have not come across checksum of pub address or private key, since the private key I have has been showing checksum errors on several occasions.

As I mentioned earlier on my posts, my key starts with 5 but is followed by ‘F’ and has ‘I’ included as one of the characters and ‘l’ on one of the last seven characters (which I presume as checksum) of the key.Please correct me if I am wrong.

My current position is that I am unable to share this key with any recovery/investigation due to unknown public address key and their total number of bitcoins. I am in the process of getting other details of the transaction and then I may have other details which can be shared. Thanks again for your responses.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on January 15, 2023, 07:06:36 AM

Thanks for your response. I sincerely appreciate your efforts. Please let me know which website or tool is the best for checking the checksum and correcting the public address. Thanks.

To fix that address I simply decoded it to hex, calculated the correct checksum, and then re-encoded it in Base58. You could probably use a site like https://gobittest.appspot.com to do this online if you wanted.

I really don't know why you want to, though. None of this is in any way relevant whatsoever to your private key with the incorrect characters. Have you tried brute forcing it with btcrecover yet as I suggested above? Do you want me to try for you?

Tofee

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Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: lionheart78 on January 14, 2023, 09:08:33 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 12, 2023, 05:34:17 PM

Hi there,
Can anybody explain what is meant by “bitcoins found in ‘old format’ wallet” and examples of their public keys/private keys. Thanks.

I think it means Bitcoin stored in an old format wallet where old format wallet refers to a legacy or non-segwit format. An example of public key of the old fromat wallet is an address string that might be start in 1 such as "1cDwMSxYstvetZTFn54X5m4GFgzxJaMDo5" and an example of the private key in the old format might be a string of characters that starts with 5 like "5WzTsXwOe1pm601tcNygAGRdCckhHJBGFsvd3VyK55PZXj3tL".

Quote from: Tofee on January 13, 2023, 08:05:04 AM

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money - https://money.cnn.com/2014/03/21/technology/mt-gox-missing-bitcoin/index.html.

Can anyone please help me understand the above article of old-format wallet used prior to June 2011. Thanks

This may be an answer to your question

Quote

The statement you are referring to is about the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, which was one of the largest and most popular exchanges for buying and selling bitcoins in the early days of the Bitcoin network.

In the statement, Mt. Gox is confirming that an old-format wallet that was used on the exchange prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC. This means that the bitcoins were stored in an old-format wallet, which is also known as a "legacy" or "non-segwit" wallet. These wallets were the original way that bitcoins were stored on the Bitcoin network and used a different format for the public and private keys compared to the current format.

The old-format wallets were less secure than the new format wallets and are more vulnerable to hacking. It is possible that this old-format wallet was compromised by hackers, which led to the loss of the 200,000 BTC.

This statement is made by Mt.Gox in the year 2014, and it is indicating that they discovered an old-format wallet that they used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC. It is unclear what happened to those bitcoins, but it is reported that Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after losing 850,000 bitcoins, including 750,000 belonging to customers, and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins.
It is important to note that Mt.Gox's incident is a cautionary tale for the crypto community to always keep their private keys secure and use the latest security measures for their wallets.

Thanks for your response. Please refer to the response given by o_e_l_e_o where checksum is corrected and the address checked on blockchain explorer shows that it has never been used. Can you provide any references to your inputs. Just curious because the private key you provided has several discrepancies. Thanks

Tofee

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 15, 2023, 04:43:11 AM

Quote from: Tofee on January 14, 2023, 11:57:59 PM

Can anybody advise me where am I going wrong and if possible please let me know any reference to gain some information.

The problem is that the strings provided by lionheart78 are not valid.

I don't know where he got them from, or is he just made them up himself, but the WIF key he provided is the wrong length and contains invalid characters, and is not a valid private key. The address he provided is similarly invalid, with an invalid checksum. The correct checksum for that string would give the following (valid) address: 1cDwMSxYstvetZTFn54X5m4GFgztvxDw4

Thanks for your response. I sincerely appreciate your efforts. Please let me know which website or tool is the best for checking the checksum and correcting the public address. Thanks.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on January 14, 2023, 11:57:59 PM

Can anybody advise me where am I going wrong and if possible please let me know any reference to gain some information.

The problem is that the strings provided by lionheart78 are not valid.

I don't know where he got them from, or is he just made them up himself, but the WIF key he provided is the wrong length and contains invalid characters, and is not a valid private key. The address he provided is similarly invalid, with an invalid checksum. The correct checksum for that string would give the following (valid) address: 1cDwMSxYstvetZTFn54X5m4GFgztvxDw4

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

I appreciate the response by lionheart78.

I tried 1cDwMSxYstvetZTFn54X5m4GFgzxJaMDo5 on blockchain and was getting error. Also, the pvt key does not seem to be WIF base58 format. As mentioned in the earlier post, private key in WIF base58 omits few letters to avoid human sight error, and it starts with ‘5’ followed by ‘H’, ‘J’ or ‘K’ and has total 51 characters. But the key mentioned by lionheart78 though starts with 5 but is followed by letter ‘W’ and has number ‘0’ included and does not total up to 51 characters. C

Can anybody advise me where am I going wrong and if possible please let me know any reference to gain some information.

Thanks

lionheart78

legendary

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Quote from: Tofee on January 12, 2023, 05:34:17 PM

Hi there,
Can anybody explain what is meant by “bitcoins found in ‘old format’ wallet” and examples of their public keys/private keys. Thanks.

I think it means Bitcoin stored in an old format wallet where old format wallet refers to a legacy or non-segwit format. An example of public key of the old fromat wallet is an address string that might be start in 1 such as "1cDwMSxYstvetZTFn54X5m4GFgzxJaMDo5" and an example of the private key in the old format might be a string of characters that starts with 5 like "5WzTsXwOe1pm601tcNygAGRdCckhHJBGFsvd3VyK55PZXj3tL".

Quote from: Tofee on January 13, 2023, 08:05:04 AM

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money - https://money.cnn.com/2014/03/21/technology/mt-gox-missing-bitcoin/index.html.

Can anyone please help me understand the above article of old-format wallet used prior to June 2011. Thanks

This may be an answer to your question

Quote

The statement you are referring to is about the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, which was one of the largest and most popular exchanges for buying and selling bitcoins in the early days of the Bitcoin network.

In the statement, Mt. Gox is confirming that an old-format wallet that was used on the exchange prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC. This means that the bitcoins were stored in an old-format wallet, which is also known as a "legacy" or "non-segwit" wallet. These wallets were the original way that bitcoins were stored on the Bitcoin network and used a different format for the public and private keys compared to the current format.

The old-format wallets were less secure than the new format wallets and are more vulnerable to hacking. It is possible that this old-format wallet was compromised by hackers, which led to the loss of the 200,000 BTC.

This statement is made by Mt.Gox in the year 2014, and it is indicating that they discovered an old-format wallet that they used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC. It is unclear what happened to those bitcoins, but it is reported that Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after losing 850,000 bitcoins, including 750,000 belonging to customers, and 100,000 of the company's own bitcoins.
It is important to note that Mt.Gox's incident is a cautionary tale for the crypto community to always keep their private keys secure and use the latest security measures for their wallets.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on January 04, 2023, 12:04:52 AM

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.

You don't need to know an address in order to attempt to brute force. The checksum will only be valid for 1 out of every ~4.3 billion possibilities, meaning you can easily simply look up the address of any valid key that you find.

Quote from: Tofee on January 13, 2023, 08:05:04 AM

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money - https://money.cnn.com/2014/03/21/technology/mt-gox-missing-bitcoin/index.html.

None of this is relevant to you. It does not matter what type of wallet created the WIF private key you are trying to recover. It is either a valid WIF key, or it isn't. The only thing that might change is the locking script related to your private key, but you won't be able to even start thinking about that until you have successfully brute forced the private key.

nc50lc

legendary

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Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on January 13, 2023, 08:05:04 AM

Quote from: nc50lc on January 12, 2023, 11:06:00 PM

-snip-

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money -

Must be talking about 2011 version of Bitcoin Core or its wallet.dat since the article was written in 2014.
Or sometimes, users tend to use the term "wallet" when talking about "address".

But that article isn't technical for you to overthink its use of "old format", the latest version still supports the old version's keys/coins if you're worried of backwards compatibility.

Tofee

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Activity: 45

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Quote from: nc50lc on January 12, 2023, 11:06:00 PM

Quote from: Tofee on January 12, 2023, 05:34:17 PM

Hi there,
Can anybody explain what is meant by “bitcoins found in ‘old format’ wallet” and examples of their public keys/private keys. Thanks.

I skimmed through the pages and didn't find any mention of that phrase.
If you're talking about old wallet.dat files, the old ones are not "HD" (Hierarchical Deterministic).
Means that every key it generates are random, unrelated to each other and can't be reproduced by a master key.

For the very old ones (not exclusive to Bitcoin Core), public keys are uncompressed which have 130 characters that starts with '04',
of which WIF Private keys consist of 51characters and starts with '5'.

Examples:

WIF PrvKey Uncompressed: 5HpHagT65TZzG1PH3CSu63k8DbpvD8s5ip4nEB3kEsreAnchuDf
PubKey Uncompressed: 0479be667ef9dcbbac55a06295ce870b07029bfcdb2dce28d959f2815b16f81798483ada7726a3c 4655da4fbfc0e1108a8fd17b448a68554199c47d08ffb10d4b8

Here is the statement I am curious about:

“On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC," the statement said.” As reported CNN money - https://money.cnn.com/2014/03/21/technology/mt-gox-missing-bitcoin/index.html.

Can anyone please help me understand the above article of old-format wallet used prior to June 2011. Thanks

nc50lc

legendary

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Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on January 12, 2023, 05:34:17 PM

Hi there,
Can anybody explain what is meant by “bitcoins found in ‘old format’ wallet” and examples of their public keys/private keys. Thanks.

I skimmed through the pages and didn't find any mention of that phrase.
If you're talking about old wallet.dat files, the old ones are not "HD" (Hierarchical Deterministic).
Means that every key it generates are random, unrelated to each other and can't be reproduced by a master key.

For the very old ones (not exclusive to Bitcoin Core), public keys are uncompressed which have 130 characters that starts with '04',
of which WIF Private keys consist of 51characters and starts with '5'.

Examples:

WIF PrvKey Uncompressed: 5HpHagT65TZzG1PH3CSu63k8DbpvD8s5ip4nEB3kEsreAnchuDf
PubKey Uncompressed: 0479be667ef9dcbbac55a06295ce870b07029bfcdb2dce28d959f2815b16f81798483ada7726a3c 4655da4fbfc0e1108a8fd17b448a68554199c47d08ffb10d4b8

Tofee

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Activity: 45

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Hi there,
Can anybody explain what is meant by “bitcoins found in ‘old format’ wallet” and examples of their public keys/private keys. Thanks.

BlackHatCoiner

legendary

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Farewell, Leo

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 09, 2023, 08:03:50 AM

[...]

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

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

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Quote from: BlackHatCoiner on January 09, 2023, 07:39:13 AM

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.

BlackHatCoiner

legendary

Activity: 1512

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Farewell, Leo

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 08, 2023, 10:29:27 PM

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.

ABCbits

legendary

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Crypto Swap Exchange

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Tofee on December 06, 2022, 10:56:05 PM

--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.

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 09, 2023, 06:00:05 AM

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 08, 2023, 10:29:27 PM

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.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 08, 2023, 10:29:27 PM

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 08, 2023, 10:29:27 PM

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.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 08, 2023, 03:47:49 AM

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! Shocked

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

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Quote from: ?? on ??

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. Roll Eyes

Please pay more attention to links you are sharing in the future.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 07, 2023, 08:18:21 PM

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? Shocked

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 07, 2023, 08:18:21 PM

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.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 07, 2023, 06:05:01 AM

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? Shocked

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. Shocked

BlackHatCoiner

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Farewell, Leo

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 05, 2023, 06:36:33 PM

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.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 05, 2023, 06:36:33 PM

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.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 05, 2023, 04:21:27 AM

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 04, 2023, 10:29:24 PM

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.

Somehow I expected you would go with the "neither" option Grin

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. Shocked

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.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 04, 2023, 10:29:24 PM

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 04, 2023, 10:29:24 PM

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.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 04, 2023, 03:39:01 AM

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 03, 2023, 07:17:01 PM

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. Shocked

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.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 03, 2023, 07:17:01 PM

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 03, 2023, 07:17:01 PM

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.

Tofee

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Quote from: Romoe on January 02, 2023, 11:38:28 PM

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.

Tofee

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 01, 2023, 04:27:54 PM

Quote from: Tofee on January 01, 2023, 02:44:44 PM

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.

Quote from: Tofee on January 01, 2023, 02:44:44 PM

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.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 03, 2023, 02:03:46 PM

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.

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 Shocked

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?

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 02, 2023, 07:30:18 PM

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.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 02, 2023, 07:30:18 PM

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.

Quote from: Romoe on January 02, 2023, 11:38:28 PM

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.

Romoe

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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

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 02, 2023, 04:25:34 AM

There are a lot of red flags here which make me think this is a scam... I strongly suspect OP has been scammed and there are no coins to recover, but we can at least try.

you may be right. the only thing is this was back in like 2010. i'm not sure how people sold bitcoin back then. maybe it was accepted to just sell the private key and not actually send bitcoin to the person's address. obviously that seems like a really bad idea today and you would think it would seem like one to people back then too 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. there is also the remote possibility that the OPs laptop got some data corruption and the private key is not correct due to that. that's probably very unlikely but i guess it is a remote possibility.

Quote

You can correct me if I'm wrong (since I've never used PayPal), but my understanding is that there is a time limit of 180 days to open a dispute. PayPal are not going to entertain a dispute for a transaction which is in the region of 10 years old.

Well of course they're not going to let someone dispute something that old. I didn't realize this at first but it seems the OP probably would not even have been able to dispute it 10 years ago either since back then I don't think paypal had a digital goods protection. Now they seem to though: https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/news?item=122644 so that would have been another reason to not be using paypal back then to buy btc. scammer's paradise... Cry

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.

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 02, 2023, 02:34:51 AM

Maybe we need to take a step back and ask some basic questions like why didn't the OP check the private key when he first got it to make sure it was valid?

There are a lot of red flags here which make me think this is a scam, from the "seller" sending OP a raw private key instead of making a transaction, through to the key containing invalid characters. However, there is nothing OP can do about any of these red flags now, and we can only attempt to work with what he has in his possession. I strongly suspect OP has been scammed and there are no coins to recover, but we can at least try.

Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on January 02, 2023, 02:34:51 AM

If the private key cannot be validated then dispute the transaction with paypal get your money back. post on the forum that they tried to scam you. etc. etc.

You can correct me if I'm wrong (since I've never used PayPal), but my understanding is that there is a time limit of 180 days to open a dispute. PayPal are not going to entertain a dispute for a transaction which is in the region of 10 years old.

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on January 01, 2023, 04:27:54 PM

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.

Maybe we need to take a step back and ask some basic questions like why didn't the OP check the private key when he first got it to make sure it was valid?

Quote

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.

If the private key cannot be validated then dispute the transaction with paypal get your money back. post on the forum that they tried to scam you. etc. etc. if the private key validates and is associated to an address that holds the amount of bitcoin you purchased then what you do is move them ASAP.

Now I do understand that at the time of purchase bitcoin was worth very small tiny amount but it's the principal of the thing. Don't trust, verify.

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Quote from: Tofee on January 01, 2023, 02:44:44 PM

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.

Quote from: Tofee on January 01, 2023, 02:44:44 PM

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.

Tofee

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Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on December 26, 2022, 03:59:31 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 25, 2022, 05:17:16 PM

This error is showing up immediately on FinderOuter.Thanks for your response. Wish you merry Xmas.

Then you are entering the wrong string in to FinderOuter. If it is showing up immediately, then it means FinderOuter is simply checking the string you have entered and telling you it has an incorrect checksum. It is not actually attempting to brute force any other possibilities.

Here's what you should be doing:

Open FinderOuter
Click on "Missing Base58"
Paste in your private key to the first box
Swap the invalid characters I and l for the missing char symbol (which is * by default)
Ensure the input type is "PrivateKey"
Click "Find" at the top

If it doesn't find your key, if you could then copy and paste here exactly what appears in the box at the bottom, that would be useful.

Thanks for your response. Wish you and all a very very happy New Year 2023. May year 2023 bring peace, prosperity and good health to all.

Regarding the invalid key which I have is as follows.

The result in FinderOuter is “finished fail”.

The key has checksum error along with several characters not at the right positions. 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.

I am frustrated because I purchased Bitcoins via PayPal with my debit card in 2010/11 and least expected to be scammed on Bitcoins then because they were not worth even Pennie’s as of early days.

I tried to sweep key from the key produced by FinderOuter in Electrum but it results in ‘No count’

I feel the entire key is invalid.

If anybody can help me to get contact details of Blackschneider78 who has posted on this forum of having purchased Bitcoins in 2011, via email/PayPal, please do.

Appreciate your suggestions and advice.

larry_vw_1955

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Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.
I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

So maybe this is a dumb question but did you ever check this key when you bought it using paypal? If not then i'm not sure why not.

Quote

Since the privkey has not been activated for many years, is there any possibility of keys invalidity?

activated by who?
Huh

o_e_l_e_o

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Quote from: Tofee on December 25, 2022, 05:17:16 PM

This error is showing up immediately on FinderOuter.Thanks for your response. Wish you merry Xmas.

Then you are entering the wrong string in to FinderOuter. If it is showing up immediately, then it means FinderOuter is simply checking the string you have entered and telling you it has an incorrect checksum. It is not actually attempting to brute force any other possibilities.

Here's what you should be doing:

Open FinderOuter
Click on "Missing Base58"
Paste in your private key to the first box
Swap the invalid characters I and l for the missing char symbol (which is * by default)
Ensure the input type is "PrivateKey"
Click "Find" at the top

If it doesn't find your key, if you could then copy and paste here exactly what appears in the box at the bottom, that would be useful.

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 6452

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on December 25, 2022, 05:17:16 PM

This error is showing up immediately on FinderOuter.

This must be a typo, yes?
Because FinderOuter will just fail the search after exhausting all the permutations.

Romoe

newbie

Activity: 7

Merit: 1

This python script below can create new valid checksum, It probably won't help much. But you should at least give it a try.

Code:

import base58

key = '5JLUSIY1ap3diK5PP2PIuAtdhyHKqyPTDzccqlHfiMcCGd5s8LM' #change this key to your private key

x = key.replace('I', 'i')
y = x.replace('l', 'L')

bytekey = base58.b58decode(y[0:46] + 'z'*5)[:33]

print(str(base58.b58encode_check(bytekey), 'utf-8'))

I can create the code that specific on your case, but I need more information [ex. how many 'I' and 'l' in your key and Where is it located?].
May be a months or a years, If you tried every possible way but still can't find the valid key, contact me at telegram or email on my profile.

Romoe

newbie

Activity: 7

Merit: 1

Quote from: Tofee on December 06, 2022, 10:56:05 PM

I lost my priv keys few years back and recently found while going through old lap top

Did you find it in an original email or it was in the text file you created?
If you find it in an original email, it's high likely that it's a scam because it's wrong from the beginning.

but if it in the text file you created, The mistake might be that you recorded it incorrectly, for example You may alternate lowercase letters with uppercase letters. (Base58 is case sensitive), The more mistakes you make,the more time it takes to find. It may take an hours to find valid key in 3 letters wrong. But for 4 letters wrong, It may take months or even years to find the valid key [Run on one simple CPU 24hr/day]
In this case, I think the first thing to do is you should try to find the private key form your original email.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on December 25, 2022, 04:21:28 PM

It means that the checksum (the last 5-6 characters of the private key) are not valid and do not match up with the rest of the private key. In other words, you still have one or more errors somewhere and have not yet found a valid key.

Is this error showing up on btcrecover? Can you share exactly the command you are running? Does it give you that error immediately or does it perform a search first?

This error is showing up immediately on FinderOuter.Thanks for your response. Wish you merry Xmas.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

It means that the checksum (the last 5-6 characters of the private key) are not valid and do not match up with the rest of the private key. In other words, you still have one or more errors somewhere and have not yet found a valid key.

Is this error showing up on btcrecover? Can you share exactly the command you are running? Does it give you that error immediately or does it perform a search first?

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on December 25, 2022, 05:56:14 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 24, 2022, 05:56:24 PM

Thanks. I shall try with recover. The invalid characters in the key are ‘I’ and ‘l’. Wish you and everybody on this forum merry X’mas. May God bless all.

And you've tried using FinderOuter with those two character replaced by a wildcard, and it still did not find any valid keys?

In that case, when you set up btcrecover, the firs thing I would try would be feeding with a tokenlist file which contains your private key with the "I" and "l" characters replaced with "%*" (without the " symbols), which is the wildcard for any Base58 character. I'd also include the argument --typos-replace %* which will search for a single typo and try every Base58 character in every other position.

If that doesn't work, then you'll have to start widening your typo search, but you will quickly run in to the limits of what is feasible.

Appreciate your response and suggestion.
After several attempts a new error has popped up stating ‘ Invalid key - checksum error’. I am not sure what it means.
Request if any of the members can guide me how to overcome it. — Thanks.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on December 24, 2022, 05:56:24 PM

Thanks. I shall try with recover. The invalid characters in the key are ‘I’ and ‘l’. Wish you and everybody on this forum merry X’mas. May God bless all.

And you've tried using FinderOuter with those two character replaced by a wildcard, and it still did not find any valid keys?

In that case, when you set up btcrecover, the firs thing I would try would be feeding with a tokenlist file which contains your private key with the "I" and "l" characters replaced with "%*" (without the " symbols), which is the wildcard for any Base58 character. I'd also include the argument --typos-replace %* which will search for a single typo and try every Base58 character in every other position.

If that doesn't work, then you'll have to start widening your typo search, but you will quickly run in to the limits of what is feasible.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on December 24, 2022, 08:00:53 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 17, 2022, 11:23:45 AM

As far as the private key is I feel I have been scammed. The key is an invalid key.

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 11:39:38 AM

As per advice from this forum members, I tried to repair the key with FinderOuter but the result came as failed.

Given that you say your private key starts with 5 and has 51 characters (as it should), then it sounds very much like that one or more characters in your private key is incorrect.

Have you tried substituting every character in FinderOuter for a wildcard one at a time and running it? Beyond that, the next thing I would suggest would be to use btcrecover. It supports raw private key recovery. You would feed it your private key, along with telling it to search for x number of typos, and let it do its thing. Note that 3 typos gives around 220 billion possible combinations, while 4 gives around 2.6 trillion, so the process might not be quick (or even possible, if you have more typos than this).

Thanks. I shall try with recover. The invalid characters in the key are ‘I’ and ‘l’. Wish you and everybody on this forum merry X’mas. May God bless all.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on December 17, 2022, 11:23:45 AM

As far as the private key is I feel I have been scammed. The key is an invalid key.

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 11:39:38 AM

As per advice from this forum members, I tried to repair the key with FinderOuter but the result came as failed.

Given that you say your private key starts with 5 and has 51 characters (as it should), then it sounds very much like that one or more characters in your private key is incorrect.

Have you tried substituting every character in FinderOuter for a wildcard one at a time and running it? Beyond that, the next thing I would suggest would be to use btcrecover. It supports raw private key recovery. You would feed it your private key, along with telling it to search for x number of typos, and let it do its thing. Note that 3 typos gives around 220 billion possible combinations, while 4 gives around 2.6 trillion, so the process might not be quick (or even possible, if you have more typos than this).

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 6452

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 11:39:38 AM

-snip-
Yesterday, I was watching a YT video of Bitcoins in early days of 2009 to 2011 era and the presenter was speaking about P2PK and P2PKH. Since the keys was received in early 2011, I presume the keys belong to P2PKH address.

Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with the private key's invalidity.
It's all about the script type of the transaction of which the P2PK may have incompatibility with some wallets like Electrum.
The private key should work, still valid today, the issue would be failing to sync (find) the transactions if the outputs are P2PK. (Bitcoin Core will work just fine)

P2PKH on the other hand are the common "legacy" transactions that we see today, there shouldn't be any issue syncing those.

BlackHatCoiner

legendary

Activity: 1512

Merit: 7340

Farewell, Leo

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 11:39:38 AM

Thanks for your response. I received the private key by email which starts with 5 and has 51 characters.

I tried to sweep the key in electrum standard legacy wallet but it gave ‘invalid key’ error.

Can you write exactly what Electrum returns you during import? A private key is invalid if it either isn't correct WIF (e.g., doesn't start with 5, isn't 51 characters, checksum isn't valid etc.) or if it's outside the range of valid private keys (which is between 1 and a little less than 2^256 - 2^32).

Provide some log (or just the specific Electrum error if it isn't just "invalid key"), and we can verify about it being inside the allowed range.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: BlackHatCoiner on December 23, 2022, 10:45:08 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 09:14:13 AM

If anybody can advise or suggest me what is the difference between
1. P2PK and its corresponding privatekey
2. P2PKH and its corresponding privatekey.

P2PK stands for "Pay-To-Public-Key", which is when you create a script that pays to public key. P2PKH stands for "Pay-To-Public-Key-Hash", which is when you pay to the hash of that public key, and not the public key per se. When you send coins to an address, you pay to the hash of a public key. P2PK is not used anymore (while it's perfectly valid), because P2PKH is smaller in size, and therefore cheaper.

From standard wallet software, P2PK was never available (and if it was, it wouldn't be recommended). P2PK was used in the early days, because the first Bitcoin binaries were coded such so that the coinbase reward was sent to public key. I don't believe there was a specified reason for this selection.

For example, this transaction is P2PK: 0e3e2357e806b6cdb1f70b54c3a3a17b6714ee1f0e68bebb44a74b1efd512098. (it is labeled as "P2PK". mempool.space usually puts the address there, and P2PK doesn't have an address, but a public key, so it leaves it empty)
On the other hand, this transaction is a P2PKH one, which spends two P2PK outputs: 7940cdde4d713e171849efc6bd89939185be270266c94e92369e3877ad89455a.

If you didn't mine coins in 2010/2011, then your money are sitting in a P2PKH output. It is likely that it's an uncompressed legacy address, which requires a WIF private key that starts with "5".

Thanks for your response. I received the private key by email which starts with 5 and has 51 characters.

I tried to sweep the key in electrum standard legacy wallet but it gave ‘invalid key’ error.
After several attempts to sweep the key in specter and sparrow legacy wallets, I received the same error.
Then I tried Bitcoin core v 23.0 Bitcoin-qt blank wallet and again I get the error of ‘invalid key encoding - error -5’.

As per advice from this forum members, I tried to repair the key with FinderOuter but the result came as failed. I tried Python script posted on this forum but that did not work.

Yesterday, I was watching a YT video of Bitcoins in early days of 2009 to 2011 era and the presenter was speaking about P2PK and P2PKH. Since the keys was received in early 2011, I presume the keys belong to P2PKH address.

I am trying to figure out which wallet would be able to recognize my keys and point me in the right direction.

Once again, thanks for your prompt response.

BlackHatCoiner

legendary

Activity: 1512

Merit: 7340

Farewell, Leo

Quote from: Tofee on December 23, 2022, 09:14:13 AM

If anybody can advise or suggest me what is the difference between
1. P2PK and its corresponding privatekey
2. P2PKH and its corresponding privatekey.

P2PK stands for "Pay-To-Public-Key", which is when you create a script that pays to public key. P2PKH stands for "Pay-To-Public-Key-Hash", which is when you pay to the hash of that public key, and not the public key per se. When you send coins to an address, you pay to the hash of a public key. P2PK is not used anymore (while it's perfectly valid), because P2PKH is smaller in size, and therefore cheaper.

From standard wallet software, P2PK was never available (and if it was, it wouldn't be recommended). P2PK was used in the early days, because the first Bitcoin binaries were coded such so that the coinbase reward was sent to public key. I don't believe there was a specified reason for this selection.

For example, this transaction is P2PK: 0e3e2357e806b6cdb1f70b54c3a3a17b6714ee1f0e68bebb44a74b1efd512098. (it is labeled as "P2PK". mempool.space usually puts the address there, and P2PK doesn't have an address, but a public key, so it leaves it empty)
On the other hand, this transaction is a P2PKH one, which spends two P2PK outputs: 7940cdde4d713e171849efc6bd89939185be270266c94e92369e3877ad89455a.

If you didn't mine coins in 2010/2011, then your money are sitting in a P2PKH output. It is likely that it's an uncompressed legacy address, which requires a WIF private key that starts with "5".

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

If anybody can advise or suggest me what is the difference between
1. P2PK and its corresponding privatekey
2. P2PKH and its corresponding privatekey.

As stated earlier in my post, the key I have since 2010/2011 has couple if charectors not included in base58 but when I try to repair with FinderOuter or with other Python scripts, they are not successful.

I tried contacting another person named DarkSchneider78 who posted on this forum but my posts has been deleted.

Any suggestions/advice including critics are appreciated. Critics are most welcome because it gives me an opportunity to learn from my mistakes.

Wishing all of you a very very happy X’mas. May God bless you all and your family & friends. Thanks

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: Romoe on December 19, 2022, 01:24:57 AM

How did you find your private key? Did you find it in an old email? or Was it handwritten?
if it's handwriting You might write it down wrong at some point.

The private key that starts with '5' and has total 51 Char is Uncompressed WIF private key pattern.
This type of key always has a checksum in the last position to check that all characters of the key are correct. When you try to import the key and got 'Invalid private key', It may be caused by having some characters wrong.

If you write it down no more than 3 character wrong. you can recover it with this python script below.

Code:

import base58
import itertools

Damage_key = '5Kax3UAwGmHHuj6fQD1LDmKR6J3SwYyFWyHgxKAZ2cKRzVCRETY'  #change this key to your private key


Pos_3_change = list(itertools.combinations(range(1,51),3))
Base58_3_change = list(itertools.product('123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz', repeat=3))

def key_recovery():    
    for a in Pos_3_change:
        for b in Base58_3_change:
            private_key = list(Damage_key)
            private_key[a[0]] = b[0]
            private_key[a[1]] = b[1]
            private_key[a[2]] = b[2]            
            try:
                base58.b58decode_check(''.join(private_key))
                print(''.join(private_key))
            except:
                pass
    print('complete...')

key_recovery()

You can adjust the code above to suit your case. Hope this help. if you have any question, there's an email and telegram contact in my profile, feel free to ask.

Thanks. I shall give it a try.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18771

Quote from: Tofee on December 18, 2022, 01:33:00 PM

I wish to contact this person as I am also in similar situation. Any suggestions is appreciated. Thanks

You can PM that Reddit account, but it has been inactive for 2 years, so chances of a response are very slim.

There is an account on this forum with the same handle which was active 2 months ago. You could try PMing them as well, although no guarantee it is the same person: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/darkschneider78-1355666

The other suggestion from that Reddit thread is to go via your PayPal history to obtain the details of the person who apparently sold you this private key. Have you tried that approach?

Romoe

newbie

Activity: 7

Merit: 1

How did you find your private key? Did you find it in an old email? or Was it handwritten?
if it's handwriting You might write it down wrong at some point.

The private key that starts with '5' and has total 51 Char is Uncompressed WIF private key pattern.
This type of key always has a checksum in the last position to check that all characters of the key are correct. When you try to import the key and got 'Invalid private key', It may be caused by having some characters wrong.

If you write it down no more than 3 character wrong. you can recover it with this python script below.

Code:

import base58
import itertools

Damage_key = '5Kax3UAwGmHHuj6fQD1LDmKR6J3SwYyFWyHgxKAZ2cKRzVCRETY'  #change this key to your private key


Pos_3_change = list(itertools.combinations(range(1,51),3))
Base58_3_change = list(itertools.product('123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz', repeat=3))

def key_recovery():    
    for a in Pos_3_change:
        for b in Base58_3_change:
            private_key = list(Damage_key)
            private_key[a[0]] = b[0]
            private_key[a[1]] = b[1]
            private_key[a[2]] = b[2]            
            try:
                base58.b58decode_check(''.join(private_key))
                print(''.join(private_key))
            except:
                pass
    print('complete...')

key_recovery()

You can adjust the code above to suit your case. Hope this help.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Tofee on December 17, 2022, 11:23:45 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

Thanks for your response. Finally finderouter has worked. As far as the private key is I feel I have been scammed. The key is an invalid key.

I assume you already try replace all character which isn't on Base58 with "*" before attempt brute force with FinderOuter?

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: 2double0 on December 07, 2022, 01:11:11 PM

Why buy private keys when you can get one with a wallet?
Is it like you bought it from some dark web source to get an 'advantage' of some Bitcoins in it as advertised by some dark web seller? Don't go for such deals if that's the case.
And if you are skeptical about your wallet being a part of a possible hack, why not move your coins to a different wallet?

You have misunderstood ops point and there is no where in his post that he mentions that he bought a private key from anywhere, you can

do well to reread the message again before you make your contribution.

You're wrong, read this OP's reply.

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.

Quote from: ?? on ??

But just to give you an insight into what ops is asking, he said he want to recover his old bitcoin core wallet that he just recovered the private keys from an old computer but the wallet root is responding to an error message, which might be as a result of human mistake .

Also wrong,
1. Bitcoin Core 23.0 was latest version when OP create this thread.
2. OP wanted to recover key he bought about a decade ago, not old Bitcoin Core wallet file.

I am obliged to all who responded to my post and thank everyone for your response.

I also found another post of someone stating purchase of bitcoins in 2009-2010 and receiving an email with private keys, advising the email recipient to delete the email after storing the key at a safe place.

###https://www.Reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7de7fa/i_found_out_i_bought_bitcoin_in_2009/ ###

posted by u/DarkSchneider78 .

I wish to contact this person as I am also in similar situation. Any suggestions is appreciated. Thanks

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Tofee on December 14, 2022, 10:58:04 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

--snip--

Hi there, thanks for your response. I did try the commands you provided and I got the error after ./FinderOuter command.

‘No usable version of libssl was found
Aborted (core dumped)’

Looks like I am doing something wrong. Please let me know my faults. Thanks.

I never see this error. But it's possible certain library isn't installed on your OS. I'm not sure which one is needed, but i have these installed on my Debian VM.

Code:

libssl-dev
libssl1.1
openssl

Thanks for your response. Finally finderouter has worked. As far as the private key is I feel I have been scammed. The key is an invalid key.
Thanks for the support to all who have responded to my request.

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 6452

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: nrhs05 on December 14, 2022, 12:43:37 PM

I've used a QT that is forked from BTC, and I know with newer versions of it they migrated to default new wallets to be descriptor wallets so bitcoin QT might do it to???

Yes it is.
But OP's wallet isn't descriptor because the error that he'll get would be "Only legacy wallets are supported by this command" regardles of the prvKey's validity.

nrhs05

sr. member

Activity: 268

Merit: 250

I've used a QT that is forked from BTC, and I know with newer versions of it they migrated to default new wallets to be descriptor wallets so bitcoin QT might do it to???, i dont want to try loading it up to check lol.

So if bitcoin qt does the same (not sure if it does) then create a new wallet, uncheck descriptor, wallet and import the keys into that new wallet as you cant use the importprivkey with a descriptor wallet afaik. looking more at your error message it might not be that though. worth a try i suppose either way easy enough to test.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Tofee on December 12, 2022, 11:20:34 AM

--snip--
Unable to execute the application. Please let me know where am I going wrong. Thanks.

Based on command you mentioned, it looks like you download the source instead. You should download ready to run binary instead from link mentioned by @nc50lc.

Code:

unzip FinderOuter-0.16.0.0-Linux64SCD.zip
cd FinderOuter-0.16.0.0-Linux64SCD
chmod +x FinderOuter
./FinderOuter

Hi there, thanks for your response. I did try the commands you provided and I got the error after ./FinderOuter command.

‘No usable version of libssl was found
Aborted (core dumped)’

Looks like I am doing something wrong. Please let me know my faults. Thanks.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: nc50lc on December 12, 2022, 01:07:09 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 11:57:34 PM

Quote from: nc50lc on December 11, 2022, 11:27:30 PM

-snip-

Thanks for your suggestion. I am unable to use the tool as I don’t know the installation commands on Linux/Ubuntu/Debian OS. I have downloaded and unzipped it but was unable to run it. A request to that effect was posted by me on this board. Thanks.

There are pre-compiled binaries in the repository's releases link: https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases
Those are ready to run aside from the "Source Codes".

Follow step 3 in the 'readme' to learn how to run it:

Quote

Provide execute permissions chmod 777 ./FinderOuter
Execute application ./FinderOuter

For better security, run it on an offline machine.

Thanks for responding. Folder is FinderOuter-master - ls - CHANGELOG.md Doc License Readme.md Src
cd Src
FinderOuter FinderOuter.sln Tests
Sudo chmod 777 ./FinderOuter
command not found

Unable to execute the application. Please let me know where am I going wrong. Thanks.

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 6452

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 11:57:34 PM

Quote from: nc50lc on December 11, 2022, 11:27:30 PM

-snip-

Thanks for your suggestion. I am unable to use the tool as I don’t know the installation commands on Linux/Ubuntu/Debian OS. I have downloaded and unzipped it but was unable to run it. A request to that effect was posted by me on this board. Thanks.

There are pre-compiled binaries in the repository's releases link: https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases
Those are ready to run aside from the "Source Codes".

Follow step 3 in the 'readme' to learn how to run it:

Quote

Provide execute permissions chmod 777 ./FinderOuter
Execute application ./FinderOuter

For better security, run it on an offline machine.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: nc50lc on December 11, 2022, 11:27:30 PM

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 04:36:17 PM

I did try twice but did not work. Thanks for your suggestion. I think this private key is made before Bitcoin adopting modified Base58 characters.

Sorry, it's quite funny that you're always coming-up with assumptions like the "400 hack attempts" and now "Bitcoin used to have different Base58 characters".
I understand that thinking the latter is normal if you do not know Bitcoin's history.
But the former... do the address in question perhaps shows 400+ inbound transactions in blockexplorers?
Because that's normal for old dormant funded addresses, people tend to send dust to them for variety of reasons, but none for hacking attempt.

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 03:20:31 PM

Thanks for the response and advice.The one charecter that does’nt fit the Base58 chart is ‘I’. I tried replacing the charecter with valid character but it does’nt work.

You can also try to swap the similar valid characters like "u" and "v" or "k" and "x" which look similar in some fonts/handwriting.

You can also use the tool that I've suggested to automate the process, replace the possible wrong characters with "*".

Thanks for your suggestion. I am unable to use the tool as I don’t know the installation commands on Linux/Ubuntu/Debian OS. I have downloaded and unzipped it but was unable to run it. A request to that effect was posted by me on this board. Thanks.

nc50lc

legendary

Activity: 2618

Merit: 6452

Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 04:36:17 PM

I did try twice but did not work. Thanks for your suggestion. I think this private key is made before Bitcoin adopting modified Base58 characters.

Sorry, it's quite funny that you're always coming-up with assumptions like the "400 hack attempts" and now "Bitcoin used to have different Base58 characters".
I understand that thinking the latter is normal if you do not know Bitcoin's history.
But the former... do the address in question perhaps shows 400+ inbound transactions in blockexplorers?
Because that's normal for old dormant funded addresses, people tend to send dust to them for variety of reasons, but none for hacking attempt.

Quote from: Tofee on December 11, 2022, 03:20:31 PM

Thanks for the response and advice.The one charecter that does’nt fit the Base58 chart is ‘I’. I tried replacing the charecter with valid character but it does’nt work.

You can also try to swap the similar valid characters like "u" and "v" or "k" and "x" which look similar in some fonts/handwriting.

You can also use the tool that I've suggested to automate the process, replace the possible wrong characters with "*".

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: Bitarock on December 11, 2022, 04:06:08 PM

Hi, i would try replacing it with every letter in base58 chart until you get a match.

I did try twice but did not work. Thanks for your suggestion. I think this private key is made before Bitcoin adopting modified Base58 characters.

Bitarock

newbie

Activity: 28

Merit: 0

Hi, i would try replacing it with every letter in base58 chart until you get a match.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Thanks for the response and advice.The one charecter that does’nt fit the Base58 chart is ‘I’. I tried replacing the charecter with valid character but it does’nt work. Appricate suggestions. Thanks.

Pmalek

legendary

Activity: 2730

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Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

What makes you think that and how did you come up with that number? Why 400 and not 200 or 500?

Quote from: Bitarock on December 09, 2022, 12:15:25 AM

Hi, i see that you may need extra assistance you can contact me here: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Never under any circumstances share any sensitive information with this person or anyone else who contacts you privately. Do not click on any links or believe promises of magical software that will recover your coins just like that. Discuss the problem in public only. This does not apply to the FinderOuter software that nc50lc mentioned. I am only talking about things people could send you in private.

CoinPal was a legit service back in the days, but it didn't work the way you described above. You can take a look at this YouTube video to see how the purchases used to work. The one thing CoinPal used to send to its customers via email is a transaction ID that could be entered into a blockchain explorer to check the transaction data online. But they didn't send private keys.

nc50lc

legendary

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Self-proclaimed Genius

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

Also, can anybody suggest me what needs to do if few of the digits in privkey are not in base 58 table. I shall check Base 58 table and retry.

You can try FinderOuter tool by Coding-Enthusiast: https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter

Follow these steps to use it to find the possible correct characters:

Open FinderOuter and go to "Missing Base58" tab.
Select the options at the right-hand side - "*", "Private Key" and "AddrUnComp".
On the left-hand side, paste your private key in "Base-58 encoded string" and replace the characters that aren't Base58 with *
for example: 5J1F7GH*dZG3s*CKHCwg8Jvys9xUbFsj*nGec4H1**Ny1V9n*6V
In the text box under it, paste your address.
Then Click "Find!" and it will start to fix your WIF private key; it will use most of your machine's CPU process while working.
Results will be displayed below.

Of course, it wont display any result if it can't find any valid private key with the characters that you've given.

Bitarock

newbie

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Hi, i see that you may need extra assistance you can contact me here: [email protected]

BlackHatCoiner

legendary

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Farewell, Leo

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 10:07:50 PM

Then I searched google how to buy bitcoins and those days it was a link which directed me to coinpal with PayPal link.

Your story sounds very strange, and you must have been victim of fraud. First of all, CoinPal didn't give private keys. No legitimate business does. CoinPal, as far as I've read, was a service which asked you to submit a Bitcoin address, pay the Paypal invoice, and have the bitcoin received. Secondly, there's no way a legitimate business told you to "destroy the email". Emails from large email-corps don't get deleted either way, they sit on the email server's just in case.

Have you deleted those emails? There's a chance you used a fake CoinPal site.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

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Quote from: ABCbits on December 07, 2022, 07:13:50 AM

Few suggestion,
1. Check whether all character on your private key is in Base58 symbol chart, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding#Base58_symbol_chart.
2. If you copy the private key, be careful you may copy invisible character which cause the error.

On a side note, which software did you use to generate private key? Very old or unpopular wallet software may have implementation bug (such as wrong checksum calculation when generating WIF).

Thanks for reply. Is there any possibility of finding the date of modification of the Base58 symbol chart omitting certain characters exclusive for use of bitcoin private keys and the corresponding version of the bitcoin core to that effect, as few characters in the keys not existing in the chart.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

Merit: 14

Quote from: 2double0 on December 08, 2022, 03:47:17 AM

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 11:35:39 PM

Those days there was an exchange called MTGox. But, I didn’t know how to trade hence did not take interest in it.

Back then, some users were also transacting here P2P but with escrow, and risks were ridiculously less then because of no value of Bitcoin at that time. There also emerged an exchange named Magic, and then in 2011, we got VirWoX that allowed its users to exchange Linden (Second Life) Dollars for Bitcoins. Your case also belongs to 2011, right?

Yes, you are right. Bitcoins was not worth even Pennie’s in those days. More over since the internet speed was in kb, hardly mining was worth. My case was in earliear days when people never gave any value to bitcoins. News spread about people loosing their assets only after MTGox was hacked.

2double0

legendary

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Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 11:35:39 PM

Those days there was an exchange called MTGox. But, I didn’t know how to trade hence did not take interest in it.

Back then, some users were also transacting here P2P but with escrow, and risks were ridiculously less then because of no value of Bitcoin at that time. There also emerged an exchange named Magic, and then in 2011, we got VirWoX that allowed its users to exchange Linden (Second Life) Dollars for Bitcoins. Your case also belongs to 2011, right?

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

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Quote from: NotATether on December 07, 2022, 10:17:48 PM

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 10:07:50 PM

I was reading yahoo finance about bitcoin white paper and felt that this maybe the future. Then I searched google how to buy bitcoins and those days it was a link which directed me to coinpal with PayPal link. I never knew anything of bitcoin address and bitcoin wallets. I proceeded with PayPal payment link and purchased with credit card. Little did I know anything at all except reading the white paper. After payment process, I received an email which stated to store the private keys in a safe location and to destroy the email. All the above happened more than a decade ago. So I thought that having private key is the confirmation and final step of the purchase. I was not aware that I need to have a wallet address and confirm the delivery. My fault is my loss. Thanks for reply.

Yeah, times have changed now. Nobody's going to send you private keys in an email anymore when you buy Bitcoins. Instead they will usually keep it in an "exchange account" for you and you have to withdraw it to your own wallet software.

Those days there was an exchange called MTGox. But, I didn’t know how to trade hence did not take interest in it.

NotATether

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Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 10:07:50 PM

I was reading yahoo finance about bitcoin white paper and felt that this maybe the future. Then I searched google how to buy bitcoins and those days it was a link which directed me to coinpal with PayPal link. I never knew anything of bitcoin address and bitcoin wallets. I proceeded with PayPal payment link and purchased with credit card. Little did I know anything at all except reading the white paper. After payment process, I received an email which stated to store the private keys in a safe location and to destroy the email. All the above happened more than a decade ago. So I thought that having private key is the confirmation and final step of the purchase. I was not aware that I need to have a wallet address and confirm the delivery. My fault is my loss. Thanks for reply.

Yeah, times have changed now. Nobody's going to send you private keys in an email anymore when you buy Bitcoins. Instead they will usually keep it in an "exchange account" for you and you have to withdraw it to your own wallet software.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

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Quote from: NotATether on December 07, 2022, 01:04:26 PM

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate your help and concern.

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.
I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

Any particular reason you purchased a private key with bitcoins inside it instead of the bitcoins themselves? At least that's what I understand how you bought it.

You shouldn't buy private keys from anyone, that is an unsafe method of transfer.

I was reading yahoo finance about bitcoin white paper and felt that this maybe the future. Then I searched google how to buy bitcoins and those days it was a link which directed me to coinpal with PayPal link. I never knew anything of bitcoin address and bitcoin wallets. I proceeded with PayPal payment link and purchased with credit card. Little did I know anything at all except reading the white paper. After payment process, I received an email which stated to store the private keys in a safe location and to destroy the email. All the above happened more than a decade ago. So I thought that having private key is the confirmation and final step of the purchase. I was not aware that I need to have a wallet address and confirm the delivery. My fault is my loss. Thanks for reply.

Quote from: NotATether on December 07, 2022, 01:04:26 PM

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate your help and concern.

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.
I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

Any particular reason you purchased a private key with bitcoins inside it instead of the bitcoins themselves? At least that's what I understand how you bought it.

You shouldn't buy private keys from anyone, that is an unsafe method of transfer.

Please refer https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.49611.

Please read the above referenced link to understand how I fell for it. My fault.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

2double0

legendary

Activity: 2618

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Why buy private keys when you can get one with a wallet?
Is it like you bought it from some dark web source to get an 'advantage' of some Bitcoins in it as advertised by some dark web seller? Don't go for such deals if that's the case.
And if you are skeptical about your wallet being a part of a possible hack, why not move your coins to a different wallet?

NotATether

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bitcoincleanup.com / bitmixlist.org

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate your help and concern.

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.
I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

Any particular reason you purchased a private key with bitcoins inside it instead of the bitcoins themselves? At least that's what I understand how you bought it.

You shouldn't buy private keys from anyone, that is an unsafe method of transfer.

NeuroticFish

legendary

Activity: 3668

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Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.

This sounds like a scam to me.
Only you should know the private key, since that's the only "thing" that allows spending coins.
If the seller also knew the private key then:
* there's a high probability he gave you from start a bad/invalid key
* if by chance the key was good, there's a good chance that meanwhile the seller has checked back and spend those coins/sent them to his own wallet.

When you buy bitcoin you should get your own wallet (if you are not knowledgeable about this and it's a meaningful amount of bitcoin then you should use hardware wallet) and give the seller an address of yours where he will send the coins. The coins are really yours only if they (are confirmed and) show up in a wallet only you can spend from = only you have the private keys.

Quote from: Tofee on December 07, 2022, 08:21:05 AM

Since the privkey has not been activated for many years, is there any possibility of keys invalidity?

Sorry, that's not how bitcoin works.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

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Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate your help and concern.

This key was received on purchase of bitcoins via PayPal about a decade back. Then, there was very little knowledge sources available online.
I presume more than 400 attempts has been made to hack my bitcoins.

Since the privkey has not been activated for many years, is there any possibility of keys invalidity?

Also, can anybody suggest me what needs to do if few of the digits in privkey are not in base 58 table. I shall check Base 58 table and retry.

Thanks to all.

ABCbits

legendary

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Crypto Swap Exchange

Few suggestion,
1. Check whether all character on your private key is in Base58 symbol chart, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding#Base58_symbol_chart.
2. If you copy the private key, be careful you may copy invisible character which cause the error.

On a side note, which software did you use to generate private key? Very old or unpopular wallet software may have implementation bug (such as wrong checksum calculation when generating WIF).

NeuroticFish

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Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!

Quote from: Edwardard on December 07, 2022, 12:16:43 AM

First check the validity of your priv. key on bitaddress.org . On the website go to wallet details tab and import the key in a plain text format. If it returns a valid bitcoin address, your key is correct otherwise some letters might be wrong. The error code you just mentioned usually occurs when one or more letters in the priv. key is invalid, might be a human error from your side.

OP, beware and make sure you don't enter the private key anywhere online. That's the recipe for disaster (ie getting your keys stolen).
If you want to make this kind of tests, learn to get the source and open it in an offline (and safe) environment.

My guess is also that you've probably mistyped something or confused some letters.

Edwardard

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Quote from: Tofee on December 06, 2022, 11:25:50 PM

Thanks for your reply. I have strictly followed all the points mentioned in that post but still I am getting the error. I don’t have a clue. Let me know if I am missing any other points. Thanks

First check the validity of your priv. key on bitaddress.org . On the website go to wallet details tab and import the key in a plain text format. If it returns a valid bitcoin address, your key is correct otherwise some letters might be wrong. The error code you just mentioned usually occurs when one or more letters in the priv. key is invalid, might be a human error from your side.

Tofee

jr. member

Activity: 45

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Thanks for your reply. I have strictly followed all the points mentioned in that post but still I am getting the error. I don’t have a clue. Let me know if I am missing any other points. Thanks

Charles-Tim

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Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform

If the private key starts from 5, it supposed to be 51 characters, the characters are correct, but I do not know if the private key is valid, it can be invalid from typing error.

Maybe you do not get the right format of importing it. Read this: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/5941/how-do-i-import-a-private-key-into-bitcoin-core.

If not solved, Bitcoin Core users would be able help.

Tofee

jr. member

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I am a novice as far as bitcoin is concerned. I lost my priv keys few years back and recently found while going through old lap top. However, I am unsuccessful as When trying to import private key in Bitcoin core v0.23.0 I'm getting:Invalid private key encoding (code -5). Private key starts with 5 and has total 51 digits.

I have created blank wallet in bitcoin-qt and encrypted with passphrase. I request your help. Thanks

Topic: Invalid private key error (Read 1518 times)