I know that now its probably too late, but I would highly suggest that you verify[1] the Electrum installer that you got. The #1 in crypto - and perhaps in real life as well - is to always suspect that something is wrong and double-triple check it, even if you are sure of it! You never know if you actually went to the "real" Electrum website, or if you went to one that leads to a fake website where the installer is secretly sending your private keys / seed words to someone who is about to steal your coins. Since you referred that your friend has "a few Casascius Coins" I would for sure verify the installer just to make sure that you're 100 % safe.
As for the Casascius Coins themselves, the keys that you see on them are recognized as "mini private keys"[2] and such not all wallets out there accept this kind of "format". Electrum, as you might have concluded, does accept them. You could have followed this[3] guide to help you on that end. Do remember that this is not the only method available - you can also sweep[4] the existing BTC contained in your Casascius coin to your existing deterministic Electrum wallet. If I had any Casascius I would probably use this method since once you scratch the coin the "mini private key" is exposed and one never knows who's going to eventually see that.
Also, very important, you may be edible to claim other Bitcoin forks! I'm talking about BCH, BTG, BTX (and others). Luckly, there's an incredible guide[5] made by LoyceV that sums the claiming process very easily.
[1]https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-how-to-safely-download-and-verify-electrum-guide-5240594
[2]https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mini_private_key_format
[3]https://bitcoinelectrum.com/importing-your-private-keys-into-electrum/
[4]https://bitcoinelectrum.com/sweeping-your-private-keys-into-electrum/
[5]https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/loycevs-bitcoin-fork-claiming-guide-and-service-2836875
Topic: Redeeming a Casascius Bitcoin (Read 59 times)
I have a friend that bought a few Casascius Coins loaded with 1 BTC each. They are all encapsulated and graded by ANACS as MS63 and active. Since he wasn't familiar or comfortable with importing the private key, he brought one to me to crack open and help him redeem it.
Nervous as hell, I carefully used a named hammer to tap around the edge of the case, holding it perpendicular to the ground, on my vice. The case opened easily and I extracted the coin. I used my finger nail to carefully peel back the hologram sticker to reveal the private key. It was intact and very legible.
I tried to import the private key to an Edodus wallet and received an error "checksum invalid". And the rabbit hole begins....
I won't make this a long story, it took me reading and searching all night to figure out the easiest way to redeem this coin. I searched here first and didn't find much info, which I thought was strange. My first attempt to import the key was to a blockchain.com wallet. I read it would recognize the mini key. I imported the key successfully but the public address didn't match and the balance was zero. Heart stops!
It was the Exodus team that lead me , finally, to an Electrum wallet. The private key on the Casascius Coin is in mini code format. There are ways to extract the full key, however, I've never done that before so I was very hesitant and unclear to the process. The Electrum wallet was downloaded and I imported the mini key. BAMMM, 999.98678 mBTC and the correct public address, whew
I want sure where the best place to post this was, so, I decided here. I hope this saves someone the headache and heart ache that comes with owning one and not knowing where to go to redeem.
Nervous as hell, I carefully used a named hammer to tap around the edge of the case, holding it perpendicular to the ground, on my vice. The case opened easily and I extracted the coin. I used my finger nail to carefully peel back the hologram sticker to reveal the private key. It was intact and very legible.
I tried to import the private key to an Edodus wallet and received an error "checksum invalid". And the rabbit hole begins....
I won't make this a long story, it took me reading and searching all night to figure out the easiest way to redeem this coin. I searched here first and didn't find much info, which I thought was strange. My first attempt to import the key was to a blockchain.com wallet. I read it would recognize the mini key. I imported the key successfully but the public address didn't match and the balance was zero. Heart stops!
It was the Exodus team that lead me , finally, to an Electrum wallet. The private key on the Casascius Coin is in mini code format. There are ways to extract the full key, however, I've never done that before so I was very hesitant and unclear to the process. The Electrum wallet was downloaded and I imported the mini key. BAMMM, 999.98678 mBTC and the correct public address, whew
I want sure where the best place to post this was, so, I decided here. I hope this saves someone the headache and heart ache that comes with owning one and not knowing where to go to redeem.
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