Topic: MESSAGE FROM GRAVITATE CASH OUT COINS NOW - page 7. (Read 10313 times)

BHcoin did something kind of similar on their CoA cards. This is for the original PBC coins.

Edit: It didn't seem that weird at the time. If someone stole your coin, they couldn't access the private key without the cipher is what I thought was going on. 

Holy hell, what?  So he turned the key into a puzzle?  What kind of wizardry is that.  Are you serious?

Yup, on purpose. At least for the specific number I bought this is what I was told would work. I never tried it but it's worth a shot to anyone trying to redeem these coins.  

Edit: Can anyone confirm receiving similar instructions from gravitate? Please post any variations.

WTF?  Are you serious?  Where did you get that?  Did he screw up printing the private key like that on purpose or by accident?

I do not know what the heck blockchain.info is doing with the improperly formatted private keys you are entering there but using the "WIF checksum checking" dialog on this page:

http://gobittest.appspot.com/PrivateKey

We find:

L4iBNP5mEeoYznpS4Mhwe5ruZTmWWyitK5TyCvrqB7nHd8Yv3L6F has a valid check sum (2767919C)

L4iBNP5mEeoYznpS4Mhwe5ruZTmWWyitK5TyCvrq
L4iBNP5mEeoYznpS4Mhwe5ruZTmWWyitK5TyCvrqB
L4iBNP5mEeoYznpS4Mhwe5ruZTmWWyitK5TyCvrqB7
L4iBNP5mEeoYznpS4Mhwe5ruZTmWWyitK5TyCvrqB7n

all fail the checksum test as is expected.  All of these should have been rejected as they are not properly formated WIF private keys.

BTW since this starts with an "L" you should use the compressed public key format and the corresponding compressed version of the Bitcoin address, which you did.

ALSO I found that if you use the "Wallet Detail" tab here:

https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org-v2.4-SHA1-1d5951f6a04dd5a287ac925da4e626870ee58d60.html

It will give you both the compressed and uncompressed bitcoin addresses, which in your case are:

13DQcF6FwiqNqzN38CP5Ux6KqpfHYv4VCe  (compressed)
12X1rVtFnzYAZKskBakfAZYPF4HeqkgUSq   (uncompressed)

And it properly rejects all the incorrectly formatted keys you generated by hacking off the tail of the WIF formatted key.

Is this picture from a PBC coin? Try this,

1. write it out in reverse (bottom right- left) (middle right- left)(top right-left)
2. add a 5 on the front
3. Swap the the last 2 digits
4. Swap the 15th digit with the last digit
This is your private key

This picture clearly shows that the private key starts with a 5 and that is followed by letters and numbers.  This means that the private key is (probably) in the "Wallet Import Format".  This means that the key is base 58 encoded.  This means that the only allowed characters are the following 58 characters:

     123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz

Notice that 0 (zero), O (the capital letter O), I (the capital letter I), and l (the small letter l) are all missing.  So your private key will not contain those characters.  Also there is a checksum in the WIP format so if you type the private key into a good private key decoder it will immediately be able to tell if there is an error because the check sum will fail.

Obviously if you see any of the illegal characters then transpose them to legal characters "0" and "O" to "o" for example then try again.  

Assuming you get a good checksum you will then have a valid WIP encoded private key.

Since the encoded private key starts with a 5 it should correspond to an uncompressed public key.  However since there were some issues in the key pair generation and encoding just try both the compressed and uncompressed forms of the public key to form the Bitcoin address.  Does not hurt to try.

The private key you get can give you two different Bitcoin addresses as I stated above.  First try the correct version, the uncompressed version
 (since the private key started with a 5).  If that does not work then with some contortions you can calculate the compressed version of the same public key and the corresponding Bitcoin address. If neither of those is the correct Bitcoin address on the coin then you are out of luck.

Reference:  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet_import_format

I remember redeeming my 0.01 a while back.   You may want to try either using a magnifying glass or enlarging a high res photo.    In the font used a lot of characters looked the same.    Im not saying your coins arent empty, because it appears a lot of them have been, but at $45 a pop, it's worth a shot.

Where were you when Gravitate was generating private keys.....??

These:

Private key WIF
Privatekey WIF compresses
Private key Hexadecimal
Private key base64
Private key BIP38

are just forms of private keys.  A single private key (a 256 bit random number) can be stored/transported/encoded in one of these forms.

These:

Public key
Public key compressed

Are the two forms of public keys.  A single public key (a single point on the elliptic curve) can be stored/transported/encoded in one of these forms.

These:

Public address
Public address compressed

Are the two forms of Bitcoin addresses that correspond to the two forms of public key above.  A bitcoin address is the check summed triple hash of the corresponding public key.  They do not represent new forms of public keys.  They are hashes of public keys.

In other words:

The private key on the coin will be stored on the coin in exactly one and only one of these forms:

Private key WIF
Privatekey WIF compresses
Private key Hexadecimal
Private key base64
Private key BIP38

You need to decode the private key in the correct form.  There will be only one correct choice.

Then from that one private key you can generate exactly two different forms of the one public key:  compressed or uncompressed.

From these two forms of the one public key you will get exactly two forms of the Bitcoin address.  The compressed public key form will give you the compressed Bitcoin address form and the uncompressed public key form will give you the uncompressed Bitcoin address form.

One private key -> one public key -> two public key forms -> two bitcoin address forms.

There are 4 options for public keys
Public key
Public key compressed
Public address
Public address compressed

There are 5 private key options

Private key WIF
Privatekey WIF compresses
Private key Hexadecimal
Private key base64
Private key BIP38

All from 1 random 256 bit number

What exactly did you mean by this statement?

A private key is just a random 256 bit number.  A private key maps to exactly one point on the specified secp256K1 elliptic curve.  The point on the curve can be expressed in only two ways:  the full form with the full x and y coordinates of the point and the short form with just the x coordinate and a sign bit.

Then these two forms of the point can be encoded into exactly two different Bitcoin addresses.

Are you saying you found a way to get more than the two possible Bitcoin addresses from your private key?

If it we're me , I would not crack open a graded coin unless you have it sent back to be reslabbed and the title changed to something that reflects that the coins were nothing but a scam?

Yeah this would be a good time for gravitate to chime in here.  Vizique seems to have done everything that was asked to get a refund and hasnt gotten any response it seems.  Bad position because if you do crack them like you said, then what....

I have had all the Microsoul coins I have graded which is adding to the investment made over face value

So am I to crack anacs slabs, peel coins and then what...

If they are empty, I have ruined a coin for nothing, and haven't seen anyone who has got an empty coin getting their funds

If they aren't empty I have needlessly ruined a coin (if they were going to be swept wouldn't they have already?)

This is such a mess

Yes, and with the small amounts (0.01 - 0.05) who would want to peel them anyway?

And those who do find out would definitely contact Gravitate first.

So it could be possible,. That the public addresses were intentionally not the same as the private keys in hopes to not have anyone peel the coins. So when people fine out, play stupid and just repay the people .....   Hence ... The Long Con..

OK, so it looks like we've been screwed.

So Mathew, going to come here and pay at the address supplied? Or do I come to you?

Viz

this is the ultimate long con.. create coins with little value at the time, fuck up a few times then try to wash hands...

I wouldnt be surprised if all the coins get swept within a few months.

At what point do mistakes turn into a scam?
Private keys not matching isn't something to be taken lightly...

Keeping in mind that there aren't any back-ups, so those funds are non-retrievable. (Or so gravitate can claim.)

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Sorry to hear DumbChump and MJ. Hope you guys get a refund.