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Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: matthewh3 on December 24, 2012, 06:53:47 PM



Title: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: matthewh3 on December 24, 2012, 06:53:47 PM
I just created this new address in my blockchain.inf/MyWallet - 12LFYVWKz5wWaofhHGnB5EXtkJwGV2yGAy - as you can see it has the word GAy at the end.  Can I get the private key for that address and sell it, is that possible.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: DannyHamilton on December 24, 2012, 06:58:26 PM
Unlikely that anyone would want to spend much on a private key that you know.  Too much risk that you will keep a copy and steal their bitcoins in the future.

If you'd like to know what the private key for that address is, you'll need to use some tool for dumping out the contents of your blockchain.info wallet file.  I'm not sure if pywallet works on blockchain.info wallets, but I think it might.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: DannyHamilton on December 24, 2012, 07:01:10 PM
Just took a quick look at the blockchain.info site and I see they claim that you can:

Quote
"Import / Export Private keys"
So perhaps they have a utility on the site to do that?  I don't use blockchain.info, so I'm not certain.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: DannyHamilton on December 24, 2012, 07:04:17 PM
There really isn't a need to post this discussion twice.  Once is enough.

I just created this new address . . .


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: hamdi on December 25, 2012, 12:24:48 AM
there is VANITYGEN with which you can easily generate such an address yourself within some minutes.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: Vitalik Buterin on December 27, 2012, 12:27:16 PM
there is VANITYGEN with which you can easily generate such an address yourself within some minutes.

Indeed.

Address: 1B4abbxq4u9H3wSfdVMQKLTN4hwNrNoGAy
Privkey: 5JwNgB82mbPAXuFEG6vH5NQqNFzHqmUUdsmriEoRRWjbUcnGZ8C
Address: 1NnK4w4Bcu7ZhF6qerTNCZNUnVDbZNSgay
Privkey: 5JKYm6Y7bHbRZQjFEpUjhnsL7vgsgnapx3VV3bHFkZtCB6UYevX
Address: 1Dd7oB3J2rxAkoyi1p1gnR3BywDPPqZgAY
Privkey: 5JnE8KcE3awJ6BkBNW4Hq2EAX5EtvHR6PgaHyGaYV5eFQytfrLS
Address: 1KrTy5aYqZtXcCCr4vWA4FoFUHzf7M2gay
Privkey: 5JK19N953E2KNFQXGcfJUYDKoF8zZpdGEZ3dAJbDk5KTELo2GTU

And also, there's no way to "sell" the private key to a given address. You have the privkey too, so the buyer would not risk accepting coins to that address as you can also spend them. You can sell the service of helping to generate a private key by using a setup based on elliptic curve math to generate the key together, so you don't have all the information needed to spend from the address while your customer does, but you would have to generate a new address to take advantage of that.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: Pieter Wuille on December 27, 2012, 01:32:51 PM
In Bitcoin-Qt, you can go to the console, and type 'dumpprivkey 1Bdkskhfu8982r89' (without the '', and with your own address, of course.


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: DannyHamilton on December 27, 2012, 03:55:04 PM
In Bitcoin-Qt, you can go to the console, and type 'dumpprivkey 1Bdkskhfu8982r89' (without the '', and with your own address, of course.
Clearly.  Of course that isn't what was being asked:

I just created this new address in my blockchain.info/MyWallet . . .


Title: Re: Can you get the private key to individual address
Post by: Pieter Wuille on December 27, 2012, 04:55:03 PM
Clearly.  Of course that isn't what was being asked:

I just created this new address in my blockchain.info/MyWallet . . .

I should learn to read more than just the post title!