Hello!
When I first started playing with bitcoin, I set up a bitcoin core wallet with a ten word passphrase. I sent funds to the wallet, and then I couldn't get it out. Passphrase lost. I reinstalled bitcoin core to start over again. (dumb move on my part) Now there is a zero balance, but the new wallet is still encrypted. I'm guessing with the original wallet's passphrase. (I'm on a mac) That bitcoin is gone for good, right? There's no reason to try and unlock the passphrase it if it has a zero balance?
When I first started playing with bitcoin, I set up a bitcoin core wallet with a ten word passphrase. I sent funds to the wallet, and then I couldn't get it out. Passphrase lost. I reinstalled bitcoin core to start over again. (dumb move on my part) Now there is a zero balance, but the new wallet is still encrypted. I'm guessing with the original wallet's passphrase. (I'm on a mac) That bitcoin is gone for good, right? There's no reason to try and unlock the passphrase it if it has a zero balance?
If you can figure out the pass phrase for the wallet, you will be able to recover the coins. So you should try to remember everything you can about it.
Even though it shows a zero balance?
Since Bitcoin Core can't access the wallet (and you reinstalled it) it does know what keys are in there so it can't compute the balance so it shows zero. (If you know any of the addresses you can check the balance using a different web site.). If you can access the wallet it can then rescan and recalculate the balance.
Ah, cool! I do have addresses, and i've seen them on the blockchain. I guess now I need a script to swap the words around? I was learning btcrecover, but i didn't think it would've been worth the effort since it showed zero balance.
It depends how complicated your passphrase is and how much you remember of it.
Just to make sure, it isn't the fact that you overwrote your wallet. You lost your coins because you lost your passphrase. You can't decrypt a wallet by reinstalling Bitcoin Core, it would be absurd.
i agree. i reinstalled so i could have a usable working wallet. since the wallet.dat isn't overwritten when reinstalling, it's become an unusable (locked) application that remains on my computer. i've moved on to electrum.
