Bitcoin Forum

Hello dear Bitcoiners community! ;D

I would like to ask something that maybe someone of you know about...

Let's say that 5 years ago you downloaded Bitcoin Core, you have had a password( passphrase)  for unlock your wallet and like that you could see you privatekey with dumprivkey "publickey"

Nowadays, you have a new computer and download again Bitcoin Core, HOW can you with your password(passphrase) you used for lock and unlock your wallet 5 years ago,  find back your private key with dumprivkey " public key"?

when i tap help in the console, there are many things and don't really understand everything,is it possible to find back? does someneone could answer about this?

Thank you!!

Apologize again for my english and the way I written

 Its in your wallet.dat file, did you copy your wallet file into the correct destination from your old comp to new one. Here is where you should copy and place your wallet.dat then open core
C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin

Do the instructions in the post above to load your wallet.dat.
For the console, first enter: walletpassphrase "your_passphrase" 300,
then you can now use dumpprivkey "bitcoin_address";
you should indicate the bitcoin address, not its public key.

I can't understand the question completely, but based from what I get: you're trying to retrieve your private key from a lost wallet.dat just by using the same "passphrase"?.
But some newbies are misusing "passphrase" from "mnemonic seed" from wallets that supports it,
if you're positive that it's from a Bitcoin Core client, then it must be your wallet's passphase and it's not possible if this is the case.

Do you have a copy of your old wallet.dat from the Bitcoin Core on your "5 years ago" computer? ??? If you do not, then you cannot recover your private keys. They are stored in the wallet.dat file... they are not "generated" from the passphrase in Bitcoin Core. All the Bitcoin Core passphrase does is encrypt/decrypt the data stored in your wallet.dat file.

No wallet.dat == no private keys. :-\

In case it isn't clear from the recent comments on this thread, you will need one of the following:

1. A copy of the wallet.dat file from the old Bitcoin Core wallet.
2. A file generated from clicking on the "Backup Wallet" in Bitcoin Core (You may or may not have chosen to name this file wallet.dat)
3. Private keys from the old Bitcoin Core wallet.

Tha password is not the wallet.  The password is just used to encrypt and decrypt the wallet.  If you don't have the wallet, then there is nothing to be decrypted.

Thank you to everyone! I understand very well what you explained, it's more clear in my mind now!

The process from Private key to Public Key is a one-way process.

Password of your wallet is to protect your private key. Anyone has access to your private key can recover your wallet on the other computers without passwords.

In other words, password is the second layer of protection for your private key. If you encrypted your wallet (access to your private key) with password, you have to decrypt it with a correct password (if a hacker only steals your encrypted wallet.dat file, that one has to decrypt it with a correct password to steal your fund).

In contrast, if a hacker successfully steal your private key, that one can instantly access your wallet and steal your money without password.

So it reminds you that secure your private key is a higher priority than your password (they are both important but it is the order of importance if I have to order priorities between them). It is very stupid to setup a hundred-charactered password, ie. but leaving your private key opened to hackers.