Bitcoin Forum

About 6 months ago, I sent 2 Bitcoins from a paper wallet to Coinbase and sold the two Bitcoins for $1000 a piece.  I believe I discarded the paper wallet with the private keys on it because the wallet was spent.

If I had access to those private keys, would I have access to those Bitcoin Cash and all future forks?

Also...is this an argument to NEVER discard private keys even if the wallet is empty?

No, you would only get BCH from those keys if there was BTC in them at the time of the fork.

I try to save all mine, you never know. There may be a small amount of satoshis left in your addresses that could be worth $50 one day.

You will get Bitcoin Cash coins only of you had owned Bitcoin on August 1. Since you spent your coins 6 months back, and the balance in your wallet was zero on August 1, you don't qualify for the free Bitcoin Cash Airdrop. BTW, isn't it possible to generate the private keys again? Were you using an online wallet, such as the one from Blockchain.info?

I also try my best to keep all of them, especially one day when you discover some alt-coin's air drop too late and it may save you some money (true story... Like CLAM coin)

Well, I guess much better for you to save the private key still, if you know to yourself that you're gonna use it someday. Unless you're not gonna use it, I think that would be fine if you discard it.

Sorry for your loss.  Nah, why bother keeping those keys?  I've deleted wallets & private keys before with no regrets and they wouldn't have helped with bcc anyway, as was pointed out.

No harm in doing it though, if it's convenient for you.

In this particular case it doesn't matter, but it is extremely sensible to hang on to them.

At some point in the future you may need to prove you had control over those coins at that point to please the tax man or whatever. The only way you can prove it is with those private keys.

I've dug out all of the ones I could possibly find and they're stored away in a history file.

I think it does not matter if you do not use that account anymore. But remember, something that has been sold can not be taken anymore.

It is just unsafe if you store all your private keys especially if you store it digitally. You might mix empty with have content and if it gets hack, you lose your bitcoin. I destroy empty privates keys of empty addresses since I create new address for new transactions.

Appeciate for the answer because I also wondered this topic since I did the same thing 4 months ago, I gave my paper wallet to another person and he spent it instantly. Does that mean, the guy spent my wallet, has the access to the bitcoin cash?

Think of a fork as creating two chains with a shared history up to the point where the fork happened, if you had 1BTC in a address at the time of the fork you would have 1BTC on one chain and 1BCH on the other in that address after the fork because that address would be valid on both chains. While the chains have a shared history, after the fork they are effectivly two seperate chains all the way back to the first block.

Now if you spent that 1BTC before the fork that address would be empty, as such after the fork it would still be empty on both chains. The credit on the new chain is not from having BTC in an address at any time before the fork or else you could send your 1BTC from one address to the next and multiply your BCH to infinity. If however the other guy didn't spend all of the BTC in that address and there was some left over during the fork that address would have an equal amount of BCH on the new chain after the fork but arguably at that point it wouldn't be yours anyway because you weren't the holder of the BTC and the BCH goes to the holder of each address (or specifically its private key).

Actually your case is 100% similar to what OP asked. You should not confuse yourself with paper wallet. It is nothing but a paper containing btc address and its pvt keys. So when you gave paper wallet to that person, you actually gave btc address containing BTC. Now when he spent those BTC, he actually transferred BTC from address on paper wallet to some external wallet address, say X.
Now coming to BCH. The cut-off date for BCH was Aug 1. If those BTC remained on X address on Aug 1, then the owner of that address (person having pvt keys or password in case of web wallet) will have equivalent BCH.  But if BTC moved further from X to say Y and so on before Aug 1, BCH will be paid to one having BTC on Aug 1.

for not only this fork (bitcoin cash) but also for any other future fork or even any future airdrop coins that happen to be giving away some coins for free to bitcoin hodlers, you will only need coins at a specific block height.

this means if you want those free coins you should only keep your empty private keys for a little while.

for example the longest chain is at height 481420 as of writing this. if an air drop happens in this week it won't be at a block height 481200! instead it will be at 481500 for example. so if you spend your coins today, you can discard the private key in a week for example.

i can't think of any other reason for keeping them for any longer though

You'd receive BitcoinCash or any other future forks only if that address had bitcoins in it. But since it was empty it would get you nothing.
BCH was given to people with addresses which HAD balance in bitcoins and they were given the exact same amount in BCH.

If you're talking generally. I guess why dispose of it? Like maybe one day someone will send you money by mistake lol. :D

When the wallet is empty, you can discard them with no remorse. Do in the future someone will launch a coin such airdrop to all addresses.... meh, directory.io

Yes, always keep private keys, even if empty.


The man said it himself :D

If you can find yourself on directory.io it's safe to say that you won't have any coins or any forktastic windfalls either to play with.

I don't get this attitude. You might need to prove a chain of custody some day. It's no hassle to keep the private keys.

Here's the correct answer. This data isn't important as of today, but someday if you have to comply with some AML or KYC regulation, it may be useful to prove the origin of your funds.

it depends what purpose of the wallet you created, is it for less or many people, if you using it for selling something there is a risk that you accidentally give the wallet address to your customer/friend. And if you ask, can you receive future airdrop, if you leave your wallet empty of course you got empty LOL

forget the old private keys if the address is empty. It makes no sense to keep it! I dont at least!

check out my link in profile by the way :)

Since bitcoin split occurred on August 1, Bitcoin Cash appeared on that day only in those wallets that had bitcoins and only in view of the number of these bitcoins. Divided digital currency could not appear if the wallet was empty on August 1. As for private keys of empty purses, I would keep this information separately in a safe place.

Good question. I see many good answers but they are both yes and no. Can you mark a response as the solution to your question?

Currently I see no point at keeping spent addresses, but now I am doubting...

This should be the main reason to keep your private keys safe.

I wouldn't say it was a loss. I invested $2500 in Bitcoin and accumulated 5.05. I sold 2.5, removing the principal off the table. And I still own 2.55 which is pure profit.

Hey man, I saw Bitcoin go from 1200 --> 200 and stay that way for a long time. So when it hit $1000, I saw it as an opportunity to sell my principal and know that the remainder is pure profit.

I still have 2.55 BTC which is t bad.

Yes, it is better to not discard your private keys even after spend all the Bitcoins you have on such address. You may receive other payments there, so that the money could be then stolen...

Yeah I believe yours is the correct answer if you are an investors and a traders you should know that you need a file of your past transactions, it is not that complicated to keep a private key and you can always store it in cloud storage or hardware wallet.

Hmm. That's a very good point too. I've seen quite a few people either copy and pasting an old address, or services sending to an old address. That would be an exceedingly stupid way to lose your money when it's so easily guarded against.

I always keep my old private keys.  I was very glad I did way back when CLAMs came out and I could get some free coins :)  However, I also keep a spreadsheet of all my old addresses (NOT including the private key) and make notes on what they were used for.  I encrypt my old wallets (I make new ones every once in a while and only import privkeys that I'm currently using) and back them up in multiple locations.

No you won't get bitcoin cash. You will only have bitcoin cash when on August 1, when the fork happened, you have bitcoins in your address that you'll get bitcoin cash. From what you said, you already spent the bitcoins six months ago, meaning your wallets were empty already and you did not have any bitcoins in it on August 1.

don't worry about it. everyone does the same when price goes up like that. i have also sold some coins above $1000. it is a healthy move to take some profit out, just in case.

but i have also taken an additional step which i think you did not. and that step was to buy back the same amount when price took a dip again. that way my total bitcoin never changed but i still got a nice profit (fiat) out.

Pardon my ignorance, but in what situation would this be useful? In the tax example above, you either paid the appropriate taxes and filed as such or you didn't. How would showing control of a private key play into this scenario?


How does exhibiting control over an address prove the origin of the funds, unless the funds were generated through mining? Multiple people can have access to a single private key, and control over said address doesn't prove anything about where the funds came from.

I don't think there will be any issue, but this is where I was stuck last time I took a paper wallet, I realized you need to spend it on a whole and then again make one, what I was uncomfortable was with the fees and every time I put my private key in the exchanges or other wallets I was scared to loose it, but since you don't have any money left then it won't really matter, unless you were expecting a payment. Bch was only if you had coins which is aperent you didn't have so no need to worry.

Private keys are the most sensitive part of your wallet.If you leak it to any third person,you will surely loose all your coins.
Even after spending your coins,i still retard you to keep private keys as secret because you will ever need it again.

Your private keys are used as your signature to sign your transactions from your wallet and so whether your wallet is full or empty you have to keep your digital signature (private keys)  secret because if it gets into the wrong hands they can easily steal your funds.

Bitcoin Cash didn't airdrop coins to every address that has ever held coins. They just copied the UTXO set. The one reason I can think of to hold onto private keys that have held coins in the past is in the case of an airdrop like CLAMS. It's possible that your addresses held coins at a time when a snapshot of the UTXO set took place, meaning you could claim some altcoins.

Actually, it is not necessary to keep private keys secure even after spent unless you are going to use that wallet again in the future. However, if you have used that wallet address to verify your identity then you are required to keep it secure forever.  For example, we use signed message from the Bitcoin wallet address to verify the account on Bitcointalk so if your private key is compromised and if you have quoted that wallet address anytime on this forum then it is likely to lose your account because anyone can gain control of your account by signing message from that wallet address and compromised private key.

On the second issue, we are eligible for Bitcoin cash only if we have the balance in our wallet before 1 Aug and not for the total received amount. That means if you hold 1 Bitcoin before 1 Aug in your wallet for which you have a private key, then you can claim the equal amount of Bitcoin cash and not the whole amount you have received or spent so far in that wallet.

As people have said, you couldn't have got bitcoin cash for it because the addresses were empty at the time of the split. Only in case of  a coin like Clam, which rewards you for having an used address, will it help.
There is a danger of retaining the private key in an unsafe manner. In case of a wallet which is deterministic, people who have access to your private key might be able to get access to other addresses in certain cases.

I also keep all my private keys for the wallets I sweep. You keep the receipts for tax purposes, so why not keep the private keys for your old paper wallets? It is not going to take up a lot of space and you might get some fool, who transfers bitcoin to a old address.

If I get audited, I want proof of all the transactions I made and the profits I made. The legislation might change in the future and if you cannot provide this evidence, you might be charged with some strange crime in the future. < tax evasion >

Disclaimer : I am a hoarder ^smile^

Lols you cannot fool the blockchain by getting an old BTC Wallet  with private keys to get some BCH. Hehe. If you want BCH you should have a BTC balance from your wallet.

I don't think you should it would be unbeneficial not to hold on and you would never get your bcc if you had done that. So keep them for airdrops and giveaways like bcc. Keeping them will cost you nothing so its well worth it.

But it's true that there have been forks where an old BTC wallet can net you some free coins. I remember a couple years ago, there were a bunch of people on the forum buying old addresses. There was a website where you could check CLAM balances of old addresses you controlled, and people were bidding on them (either to dump because people were willing to sell them cheap, or to hold speculatively).

I never paid much attention at the time; I probably should have. I bet I could have gotten some free bitcoins out of it.....

i think you can read the answer from other member that said you can not get free bitcoin cash if you don't have balance btc in any of wallet. if you have btc even for small amount, then you deserve to get free bitcoin cash and even you can get bitcoin gold by free too. i think its depend on you if you don't want to safe your old wallet if that wallet is empty. i think we can safe our private keys which only have balance inside the wallet and the old wallet can we save into other places.

Tremendously amusing proposition. Obviously not a scam.  I will purchase.

Tremendously amusing post. Obviously a spam.

You won’t be able to receive Bitcoin Gold since you spent the BTC before the fork happened.

But it will be good not to discard private keys after spending. You never know whether other airdrops happened when you still have the BTC balance.

Well the first thing is that your wallet should have bitcoin at the time of split or fork( i.e august 1) to claim you Bitcoin Cash, if you don't have at that time you can't get Bitcoin Cash.
I think you don't need the private keys in this scenario because you already sold it before the fork.