back then you probably use bitcoin-qt (??) and I think you would start with wallet seed
if somehow you can remember the seed you can simple use it again to restore your wallet
but if you still have an intact uncorrupted wallet.dat unlocked unencryted,
you might be able to just download new version bitcoin core and use that wallet file
lets wait for more experience bitcointalk member to share their views
but meanwhile if you have wallet file, make sure you make backup double triple copies of it
Topic: Lost private key years ago... - page 2. (Read 1506 times)
Just read how long they should be.
Public Key (130 characters [0-9A-F]):
Public Key (compressed, 66 characters [0-9A-F]):
Private Key WIF
51 characters base58, starts with a '5'
Private Key WIF Compressed
52 characters base58, starts with a 'K' or 'L'
Private Key Hexadecimal Format (64 characters [0-9A-F]):
Private Key Base64 (44 characters):
The public key it gave me was 34 characters? This matches the length of mine.
The private key it gave seems to be 'WIF compressed'
Anyone know what format the bitcoin wallet of 2010 will have used? Was it just ASCII?
Public Key (130 characters [0-9A-F]):
Public Key (compressed, 66 characters [0-9A-F]):
Private Key WIF
51 characters base58, starts with a '5'
Private Key WIF Compressed
52 characters base58, starts with a 'K' or 'L'
Private Key Hexadecimal Format (64 characters [0-9A-F]):
Private Key Base64 (44 characters):
The public key it gave me was 34 characters? This matches the length of mine.
The private key it gave seems to be 'WIF compressed'
Anyone know what format the bitcoin wallet of 2010 will have used? Was it just ASCII?
Thanks.
How many bits/bytes is a private key? 256?
The random private key it generated was -snip- (I don't plan to use this wallet!)
what encoding is that? My ASCII string looks nothing like that.
How many bits/bytes is a private key? 256?
The random private key it generated was -snip- (I don't plan to use this wallet!)
what encoding is that? My ASCII string looks nothing like that.
you can try this https://www.bitaddress.org/ do it offline preferably
save the page locally or download zipfile from github (link at the left bottom corner of that page)
pick wallet details tab and you can try any format of private key there
if it is valid and show your exact bitcoin address then congrats... that's your key
save the page locally or download zipfile from github (link at the left bottom corner of that page)
pick wallet details tab and you can try any format of private key there
if it is valid and show your exact bitcoin address then congrats... that's your key
Hi bitcointalk
Well, this has been quite a rough ride for me lately. I had some bitcoin back in April 2010 (when it was $0.003!) mined a block, got sent a few from a friend when we were speculating that this 'might catch on'
Well little did I know how much he was right.
This leads me to a slight problem.
7 years have past in which I have forgotten all about the bitcoins and then I hear the news about the fork. Do buy back in at the low and still hold them now but this is a tiny fraction of what I did have.
Enter frantic HEX dumps of all the flashdisks and hard drives that I have that may have sometime contained the file. Seems I do not have it, but did seem to find the following, but the data is very fragmented.
Wallet address which I checked on the block explorer and it matches my recollection of the payment value.
A set of very fragmented transaction ID's that match those on block explorer.
And a possible private key.
The private key I have extracted as HEX and now have it as ASCII. How many characters should it be?
I have 39 bytes of ASCII which seems a bit too long as that's 312 bits.
Is there a way I can rolling window these keys and see if any of them are correct?
Thanks!!
Well, this has been quite a rough ride for me lately. I had some bitcoin back in April 2010 (when it was $0.003!) mined a block, got sent a few from a friend when we were speculating that this 'might catch on'
Well little did I know how much he was right.
This leads me to a slight problem.
7 years have past in which I have forgotten all about the bitcoins and then I hear the news about the fork. Do buy back in at the low and still hold them now but this is a tiny fraction of what I did have.
Enter frantic HEX dumps of all the flashdisks and hard drives that I have that may have sometime contained the file. Seems I do not have it, but did seem to find the following, but the data is very fragmented.
Wallet address which I checked on the block explorer and it matches my recollection of the payment value.
A set of very fragmented transaction ID's that match those on block explorer.
And a possible private key.
The private key I have extracted as HEX and now have it as ASCII. How many characters should it be?
I have 39 bytes of ASCII which seems a bit too long as that's 312 bits.
Is there a way I can rolling window these keys and see if any of them are correct?
Thanks!!
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