Topic: me lose bitcoins (Read 1428 times)
Did you make a transaction from the blockchain.info wallet? If you did then your bitcoins are probably in a change address in the new wallet and restoring your armory private keys wont do anything. Check your email for a blockchain.info backup, or try to regain access to that account. If you setup dropbox sync, you will have a backup there.
A good idea is to always keep your private key written down somewhere, so if a wallet fucks up, you can still access your Bitcoins.
Rootkeys!!
That rings so many bells for me, you cannot imagine! Thanks for the refresher.
Sorry again for my ignorance, but since I actually moved the coins from the Armory wallet, would a restore of the rootkeys not just bring back my empty Armory wallet?
Or is it the case that if the coins are still held in this inaccessible online wallet on Blockchain then I might be able to restore the coins into a new Armory wallet with these same rootkeys?
Thanks again Merelcoin, I will get my old laptop out this evening and try to fire it up to see if I can get access to Armory. If that fails then I will install Armory/Bitcoin Core on my current laptop and try to restore the rootkeys there. And if that fails I’ll come back here seeking more help from you and “goatpig”.
It’s only 11.19 bitcoins to be precise, but yeah it’s a lot of money. Every time I see a jump in price I do a little calculation of what these bitcoins would be worth, just to annoy myself!
That rings so many bells for me, you cannot imagine! Thanks for the refresher.
Sorry again for my ignorance, but since I actually moved the coins from the Armory wallet, would a restore of the rootkeys not just bring back my empty Armory wallet?
Or is it the case that if the coins are still held in this inaccessible online wallet on Blockchain then I might be able to restore the coins into a new Armory wallet with these same rootkeys?
Thanks again Merelcoin, I will get my old laptop out this evening and try to fire it up to see if I can get access to Armory. If that fails then I will install Armory/Bitcoin Core on my current laptop and try to restore the rootkeys there. And if that fails I’ll come back here seeking more help from you and “goatpig”.
It’s only 11.19 bitcoins to be precise, but yeah it’s a lot of money. Every time I see a jump in price I do a little calculation of what these bitcoins would be worth, just to annoy myself!
Depends on what you did... The reason i asked for the address in my first post was in order to establish some dates on which inputs/outputs were generated. if you knew the address holding the bulk of the funds, and no coins moved after you created a blockchain.info wallet, you would have imported the private key. If the funds moved on the exact date you created a blockchain.info wallet, you probably swept your private key (emptying your armory wallet). Since you didn't have the address, i worked under the 'best case scenario'.
There basically are 2 possibilitys:
1) you swept the private keys into a new blockchain.info wallet. In this case, you'll find an empty armory wallet, and there's not much you can do... You really need to find your blockchain.info wallet identifier and password, restoring the armory backup won't do you any good.
2) you imported the private key into a new blockchain.info wallet. In this case, the coins can be controlled (outputs can be generated) by the blockchain.info wallet (whose credentials you've lost) AND by any armory wallet that was restored with your rootkey.
I'm hoping for the second scenario... You have a 50/50 chance (as far as i know)
Rootkeys!!
That rings so many bells for me, you cannot imagine! Thanks for the refresher.
Sorry again for my ignorance, but since I actually moved the coins from the Armory wallet, would a restore of the rootkeys not just bring back my empty Armory wallet?
Or is it the case that if the coins are still held in this inaccessible online wallet on Blockchain then I might be able to restore the coins into a new Armory wallet with these same rootkeys?
Thanks again Merelcoin, I will get my old laptop out this evening and try to fire it up to see if I can get access to Armory. If that fails then I will install Armory/Bitcoin Core on my current laptop and try to restore the rootkeys there. And if that fails I’ll come back here seeking more help from you and “goatpig”.
It’s only 11.19 bitcoins to be precise, but yeah it’s a lot of money. Every time I see a jump in price I do a little calculation of what these bitcoins would be worth, just to annoy myself!
That rings so many bells for me, you cannot imagine! Thanks for the refresher.
Sorry again for my ignorance, but since I actually moved the coins from the Armory wallet, would a restore of the rootkeys not just bring back my empty Armory wallet?
Or is it the case that if the coins are still held in this inaccessible online wallet on Blockchain then I might be able to restore the coins into a new Armory wallet with these same rootkeys?
Thanks again Merelcoin, I will get my old laptop out this evening and try to fire it up to see if I can get access to Armory. If that fails then I will install Armory/Bitcoin Core on my current laptop and try to restore the rootkeys there. And if that fails I’ll come back here seeking more help from you and “goatpig”.
It’s only 11.19 bitcoins to be precise, but yeah it’s a lot of money. Every time I see a jump in price I do a little calculation of what these bitcoins would be worth, just to annoy myself!
Thanks for your reply merelcoin.
The wallet that held the bitcoins seemed to just disappear, so not only can I not access the wallet, but I don't even have the address.
Or are you referring to the original address on Armory? The physical location of Armory and the old wallet would be on an old laptop, which I still have, but cannot access. I might be able to dig out the address though, as I did keep most codes and keys.
It might help if I explained what I have here, which I thought was the private key - there are 4 lines of text, and each line has 9 x four letter sequences. Each 4 letter sequence separated by a space.
Does that make any sense?
The wallet that held the bitcoins seemed to just disappear, so not only can I not access the wallet, but I don't even have the address.
Or are you referring to the original address on Armory? The physical location of Armory and the old wallet would be on an old laptop, which I still have, but cannot access. I might be able to dig out the address though, as I did keep most codes and keys.
It might help if I explained what I have here, which I thought was the private key - there are 4 lines of text, and each line has 9 x four letter sequences. Each 4 letter sequence separated by a space.
Does that make any sense?
So basically,
you have no info about the lost blockchain.info wallet. You don't know your identifier, your password, the address,.... But you do know you just exported your key from armory and imported it in blockchain.info. So it's rather useless trying to recover your blockchain.info credentials, this only leaves the route i proposed: try to re-export the private key and import it in a different (desktop) wallet like core or electrum.
You say you have a private key consisting of 4 (lines) * 9 (blocks) * 4 (letters per block) = 144 letters. Or maybe those are 4 private keys consisting of 36 letters.
There are several formats to export your private key in. I'm not an expert, so i looked at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key and https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org-v3.2.0-SHA256-ad4fd171c647772aa76d0ce828731b01ca586596275d43a94008766b758e8736.html
I don't see a format that contains 144 characters tough, neither do i see one that contains 36 letters. Like i said: i'm not an expert on this, so maybe somebody else knows a private key format that is consistent with your description?
Maybe it's an armory backup instead of a private key export? I know that if you create a paper backup from armory, standard, you get 4 fragments (maybe those are your lines?
) each fragment is a piece of ascii text divided in groups of 4 letters (sounds familiar???). It might be worthwile to reinstall bitcoin core + armory on your new pc and try if you can recover your wallet with those 4 lines??? What do you have to lose (exept time, diskspace and bandwith)
Is there any chance you can get the physical files from the disk of your old laptop? 12BTC is more than $8.000 at current rate. It might be best to contact goatpig and see if he can give you some tips and tricks on how to handle this?
To tell you the truth, i haven't used armory in a really long time (don't have it installed on my pc either), so i'm defenatly not an expert in this. If i were you, i'd try to find out if those 4 lines are a fragmented backup, maybe try to salvage the original harddisk, try to boot into the old laptop and generate a fresh private key export (like the link in my previous post), and if those two options don't work: try contacting goatpig and see if he's willing to help you out.
Good luck!
EDIT: rootkeys!!!!!! I just remembered: an armory rootkey is represented as 2 or 4 lines containing 9 blocks of 4 ascii characters!!!
http://www.bitcoinarmory.com/tutorials/armory-basics/restore-wallet/
I guess the chance is pretty good you have 1 or 2 rootkeys, so you can create a new armory wallet on a new pc, wait for it to sync, click restore -> single sheet backup -> 4 lines backup -> paste your rootkey...
Thanks for your reply merelcoin.
The wallet that held the bitcoins seemed to just disappear, so not only can I not access the wallet, but I don't even have the address.
Or are you referring to the original address on Armory? The physical location of Armory and the old wallet would be on an old laptop, which I still have, but cannot access. I might be able to dig out the address though, as I did keep most codes and keys.
It might help if I explained what I have here, which I thought was the private key - there are 4 lines of text, and each line has 9 x four letter sequences. Each 4 letter sequence separated by a space.
Does that make any sense?
The wallet that held the bitcoins seemed to just disappear, so not only can I not access the wallet, but I don't even have the address.
Or are you referring to the original address on Armory? The physical location of Armory and the old wallet would be on an old laptop, which I still have, but cannot access. I might be able to dig out the address though, as I did keep most codes and keys.
It might help if I explained what I have here, which I thought was the private key - there are 4 lines of text, and each line has 9 x four letter sequences. Each 4 letter sequence separated by a space.
Does that make any sense?
could you tell us the address where the bitcoins are at this moment?
If you exported your private key from armory and imported it into blockchain.info, it should be possible to repeat part of this process (if you still have access to the armory wallet).
I found this tutorial:
http://docs.bitshares.org/muse/migration/howto-exporting-wallet-clients.html
Afterwards, you can download electrum (or bitcoin core), and import the exported private key, and you should be OK
But before doing anything, it might be a good idear to check if the coins are still in the correct address, and if we're talking about 1 private key, or multiple.
If you exported your private key from armory and imported it into blockchain.info, it should be possible to repeat part of this process (if you still have access to the armory wallet).
I found this tutorial:
http://docs.bitshares.org/muse/migration/howto-exporting-wallet-clients.html
Afterwards, you can download electrum (or bitcoin core), and import the exported private key, and you should be OK
But before doing anything, it might be a good idear to check if the coins are still in the correct address, and if we're talking about 1 private key, or multiple.
Sorry for the massive story, but I feel the background info is needed to portray me as less of an idiot than I actually am.
I’m not a techy person, but I read about bitcoins a few years back. I became fascinated with the story and related economics, and decided to “invest” in some bitcoins when the price was pretty good. After squandering some and losing others (MtGox), I found myself with around 12btc left over, and safely tucked away offline. For this I used the program “Armoury” - very slow and clunky, but it was recommended at the time.
Just over a year ago Armoury became corrupt on my laptop and keep freezing. But I needed to send some bitcoin rather urgently, so I read up on it and came across Blockchain, which seemed to be the go to place for online storage. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time and ended up creating 6 online wallets, 5 of which were empty, but the 6th and final one I managed to restore all 12 bitcoins into.
Yippeeeee.
Armoury had been stalling on me for a few weeks and I was worried that the bitcoins were lost, so to see them there on the screen all alive and present, in my shiny new online wallet, well it made me feel smug and secure in equal measure. So I sent off the required amount of bitcoin and went to bed that night sleeping like a very contented baby. Alas, when I logged into my account the next day the remaining bitcoins (just over 11) were nowhere to be seen.
I was back and forth with an online support guy at Blockchain and he seemed to think I could still get the bitcoins back if I imported the original private key again. I tried a million times to import using the QR code, and also typing out the sequences manually, but I kept getting the message that the wallet was not valid.
What put it to bed for me was the fact that I managed to regain access to 5 out of the 6 wallets that I created – the 5 empty ones. The one that actually holds the remaining bitcoins eludes me to this day. Therefore I let it go, and put it down to an expensive lesson learned.
Bitcoins have trebled in value since, so I think it’s worth my time and effort to try again to get them back. I keep reading that Blockchain are reputable and secure – in so far as an online wallet can be secure – and I also keep thinking about what the support guy was telling me about the private key thing. He kept asking me was I sure that the QR code was the private key, not the public one. I don’t think it is the public one, but this was all so long ago I’m not so sure anymore.
Anyone out there willing and able to help me? I’d be happy to fire you over a bitcoin and a massive sloppy virtual kiss if you managed to help me get them back!
Cheers a million
I’m not a techy person, but I read about bitcoins a few years back. I became fascinated with the story and related economics, and decided to “invest” in some bitcoins when the price was pretty good. After squandering some and losing others (MtGox), I found myself with around 12btc left over, and safely tucked away offline. For this I used the program “Armoury” - very slow and clunky, but it was recommended at the time.
Just over a year ago Armoury became corrupt on my laptop and keep freezing. But I needed to send some bitcoin rather urgently, so I read up on it and came across Blockchain, which seemed to be the go to place for online storage. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time and ended up creating 6 online wallets, 5 of which were empty, but the 6th and final one I managed to restore all 12 bitcoins into.
Yippeeeee.
Armoury had been stalling on me for a few weeks and I was worried that the bitcoins were lost, so to see them there on the screen all alive and present, in my shiny new online wallet, well it made me feel smug and secure in equal measure. So I sent off the required amount of bitcoin and went to bed that night sleeping like a very contented baby. Alas, when I logged into my account the next day the remaining bitcoins (just over 11) were nowhere to be seen.
I was back and forth with an online support guy at Blockchain and he seemed to think I could still get the bitcoins back if I imported the original private key again. I tried a million times to import using the QR code, and also typing out the sequences manually, but I kept getting the message that the wallet was not valid.
What put it to bed for me was the fact that I managed to regain access to 5 out of the 6 wallets that I created – the 5 empty ones. The one that actually holds the remaining bitcoins eludes me to this day. Therefore I let it go, and put it down to an expensive lesson learned.
Bitcoins have trebled in value since, so I think it’s worth my time and effort to try again to get them back. I keep reading that Blockchain are reputable and secure – in so far as an online wallet can be secure – and I also keep thinking about what the support guy was telling me about the private key thing. He kept asking me was I sure that the QR code was the private key, not the public one. I don’t think it is the public one, but this was all so long ago I’m not so sure anymore.
Anyone out there willing and able to help me? I’d be happy to fire you over a bitcoin and a massive sloppy virtual kiss if you managed to help me get them back!
Cheers a million
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