Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

 
By accident i put most of my BTC on my Electrum BTC wallet but its on " Watching Only". Wich mean that i can only send bitcoin to  this wallet but no spend BTC FROM this wallet.

I looked on the internet if their was of chance for me to send my BTC to an another electrum wallet or walletBTC.COM but i literaly coulnd't find anything to help me out.

Is there a way for me to get those BTC back by anymeans to another wallet or are they stuck in this wallet forever ?

Thanks

I know the feeling...

have a look into the thread I initiated on the same subject

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5211785.msg53482701#msg53482701

To spend from a watch only wallet you need to have access to either the associated private keys or the seed phrase which goes with the addresses you are watching.

The only way to create a watch only wallet on Electrum is to import either individual addresses or a master public key to it. Where did the addresses/public key you imported come from? Are they from another wallet you control? Did someone give them to you?

The fact is that I dont have or lost many other the seed neither the private key. Or My seed are lost in my full docs.

The things is that accidently made my wallet into a "watching only" by accident. I used a cryptomixer site to mixe my bitcoin. They gave me the adress to send the btc so they can be mixed then i receveid the mixed on the "watching only" wallet on the adress that i gave the cryptomix site.( criptomixer.bz)µ

Since then i dont have any private key on  the watching only wallet and i cant enter any seed oridk how to do it.

You haven't answered my question. When you create a watch only wallet you have to input either an address or a master public key (most probably it was an address). Where did you get this address from? Did you generate it yourself in another wallet?

If you don't have your private key or your seed there is nothing you or anybody else can do and your bitcoin is lost forever. You should search thoroughly in your "docs".

Where did you get this website?

It's not the cryptomixer site this is the right URL https://[banned mixer]/ and here is the announcement thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1484009.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1484009.0)

If you don't have the seed or private key your bitcoin is lost forever. There's no way to retrieve them back it is not the same as PayPal.

What I see here is you are trying to promote a fake cryptomixer?

There is no way to accidentally make a watch only wallet.
A watch only walley is a wallet which you inserted only your public addresses or public key, which are the information you need to receive coins.

If you had the private keys, the information need o spend coins, you would have created a normal wallet.

You were scammed by that mixer probably,  which gave you  only the public keys information.

You can check your  email again and see if they gave you the private keys as well. If that's the case you can retrieve your funds. If you don't have the private keys, your money is lost forever.

I think the private key i used if the one that i took from another wallet so can move my BTC. The thing is that i cant put a seed or a private key on my watching olny wallet. I don't know where i can put these to takeback my wallet or at least make it a standard wallet.

I dont try to promote anything i'm just new to the btc, but i acutally think i go scammed. Yeah i knowthe URL of the cryptomixer site looked weird but at this point i wasnt paying very much attention to that.

Now i'm stuck with my watching only wallet where i cant do anything with it because i can enter any private key or seed or smth, i don't know what to do:/

If you have the private key or seed, you can create a new wallet with that private key or seed. Once you do this, you can spend your coin.

There's no scam happened based from your replies, if it is a scam then the bitcoins shouldn't be sent to your watch-only in the first place.

You can create another Electrum wallet by clicking "File->New/Restore" and make an "imported wallet" using that private key that you believe where the address from your watch-only wallet came from.
When creating a wallet, select: 'Import Bitcoin addresses or private keys' then paste the private key (click "info" to know what to add based from the address type).

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-edit-
This sounds like an improvised scenario due to the inconsistencies (you're scammed, but received the funds), please clear this up.
Take note: Electrum developers don't have access to stored funds and wont be able to directly help recover lost funds.

I think i definitly lost my private key but still have all my seed safe (i think). But when i try  to put a seedon the watchingonly wallet, i i simply cant clic, cant clic on "seed" right under "password", like anyother optinon, the case is grey.

I saw a comment saying that i could create an imported wallet with the seed but it creates a "watchingonly" wallet and i cant even find the key to restore the wallet so i dont really know.

How do you creater an "importer wallet", i cant find the selection in option to create one.

Thanks anyway for they even if im still stuck.:/

"seed" is a set of words that look like this (from BIP-39 test vectors):
if you have a similar thing and use that, you shouldn't get a watch only wallet. if you are entering something and end up with that, then that thing is NOT a seed phrase.

Ignore it. Click on file - - - - > New/Restore - - - > any name - - - > - - > standard wallet - - - - > I already have a seed - - > enter your seed.

If all the words are correct then you will be able to continue. else check all the words.

How did you create a watch only wallet?
Verify you have downloaded the wallet from the correct link (electrum.org.  Verify signature) and that it is updated with the latest version.

If you still have the other wallet, then just open it and use it. Private keys can be in multiple wallets at once. Just because you can see your funds in Electrum doesn't mean they aren't accessible from elsewhere.

Your watch only wallet will forever be a watch only wallet - you can't enter a private key or seed phrase in to. You need to create a brand new wallet from scratch and import either a private key or a seed phrase to create a spending wallet for the same funds. Follow the instructions above from nc50lc to import a private key to a new wallet, or the ones from hugeblack to import a seed phrase to a new wallet.

Don't post your seed or private key here.

Sadly i still havethe problem. I dont think i'ill find the seed of the watching only wallet. Can take a old wallet and sent it to or is that impossible ? When itry to se,d BTC from the wallet, i can select preview but not sign or broadcast. Why is that?

If you have the original wallet file, that contains the private keys for the address(es) you have received BTC to, then you will be able to send using that wallet file.

Again, if you DO NOT have the private key(s) or a way to recover the private key(s) for instance, by restoring using the seed mnemonic (aka 12 words) or by using a version of the wallet file that has the private keys in it... then you will NOT be able to access those BTC.


Because you don't have the private keys in the wallet to be able to sign the transaction (and you cannot broadcast an un-signed transaction). ::)

I managed to find the private key i used to import the money to the "Wacthingonly" wallet but i need all the private key no ? I can"t move the money from the wacthing only at all.

If i can't i guess will give up my wallet.

Please read the replies above.

A watch only wallet will always be a watch only wallet. You will never be able to spend funds from a watch only wallet.

If you have found the private key, then you need to create a new wallet, import your private key, and then spend the funds from that new wallet.

Open Electrum, type a new wallet name in the box and click next, select "Import Bitcoin address or private keys", paste your private key in the box, and click next.

Your private key will need to be in WIF format (starting with a 5), and this is assuming your address is in legacy format (starting with a 1). If this isn't the case, let me know and I can talk you through those steps too.

What you used for creating a watch-only wallet was not a private key.
For creating a watch-only wallet, the only thing you need is public key.
How did you get that address?

If you have only a public key, you can do nothing.
If you have the private key, as o_e_l_e_o said, create a new wallet, select "Import bitcoin address or private keys" and then enter your private key.

In fact, the key i found is the one that has been used to send to BTC to the "watching only" wallet and it's not a private one like i though.

After looking up all my wallet, i couldn't find the one that I used to send the BTC the wallet. Is there a way that with the public key i have from the transaction or the adress that the BTC got sent to to recover something ?
Or at least get find something that could help me.


Even though i know read the informations you gave me and i thank you all for that but i dont think i will ever seen these BTC again.

Not a chance with the current technology,
if that's possible, then re-used bitcoin addresses will be at risk of getting hacked by random people.

The public key cannot be used to recover the private key, unless you have a "no-bullshit" quantum computer.
Much more the address, you have to find a solution to reverse SHA256 and RIPEMD160 in order to get just the public key to get into the next step (previous sentence).

OK lets sum up.

All you have is your public key. It was generated in another software, not Electrum. You never said which one. Do you still have the wallet software that you used to generate the original public key? What happened to it, why can you no longer open or use it?

You thought you had your private key and a seed but as it turns out you have none of that.
When you created the original wallet did it not give you a private key to write down? a seed with 24 words. Did you not write this down anywhere, save it on your PC in a file or somewhere online, on your mobile, etc? 

It seems you are still very confused as to the differences between private keys, public keys and addresses.


A private key... (in WIF format) starts with a "5", "L" or "K" and looks something like:


A public key... well that's generally just a string of HEX and looks something like:


Public keys can also be encoded as Addresses and begin with "1", "3" or "bc1" and will look something like this:


Which of the above do you have? private key? public key? or address? ???

The key that i have is a public one (start with bc1....) and this one come's from a wallet i created but I turned the wallet into a "Watching only" one i dont even know how, i know i already said that but i'm clearly a newbie so yeah, my bad.

 The key (public) is a receiving one from the wallet where my money is but reading at your comments, i don't think i'll be able to move these BTC from the wallet since i can't find the seed or pirvate key i had for this wallet.

As you yourself said, you can do nothing if the only thing you have is a public key.
If you don't have the private key of an address, you don't own the funds stored in that. What proves that you are the owner of bitcoins stored in an address is private key. From now on, be more careful. Never deposit to an address which you don't have its private key.

So you mean that you created the wallet on Electrum and then created a new wallet and accidentally put the bc1(Public key) and created it as another wallet(Which is watch-only wallet).

Can you try to check this path if you are using windows.

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Electrum\wallets (or %APPDATA%\Electrum\wallets)

For Linux and Mac.

~/.electrum

If it shows multiple files inside that folder Usually "default_wallet" or any name you might be accidentally created another wallet.
You can restore them back by going to restore/new and then browse the wallet file folder and check them one by one and maybe you can find the bc1 address(where you received the BTC) to any wallet file from the wallet folder.