Bitcoin Forum

I am new to bitcoin.  Got some bitcoin in White Santa Christmas exchange.  All I have is a piece of paper that has a mnemonic seed and private keys.  I have no idea what to do next to access the bitcoin. Any help appreciated.

Glad to hear you received some Bitcoin via gifts.

FIRST OF ALL: Some people may start to send you a message and may ask those seeds or private keys, NEVER give it to someone especially on random people on the internet.

Is their any indicated which Bitcoin wallet? If so, you can use those mnemonic seed to restore the wallet.

Do you know the person who gave it to you? If so, the best way is to direct to ask him/her to help you to access those Bitcoin.

I'm not familiar with this term. Could you clarify what you mean? Did you buy the bitcoins, and if so, how did you pay for them?


If you paid for bitcoins and didn't verify whether they were sent to a wallet you control, there is a chance you were scammed. Receiving seeds or private keys this way is considered insecure, since the person who gave them to you still has access to the bitcoins.

If the mnemonic seed you received truly contains bitcoins, you can access them by importing the seed into a Bitcoin wallet like Electrum (https://electrum.org/#download). Only download from electrum.org, and verify the GPG release signature to make sure you're not downloading coin-stealing malware.

If you're having trouble importing the seed, see the FAQ (https://bitcoinelectrum.com/frequently-asked-questions/#why-wont-electrum-accept-my-seed-when-i-attempt-to-restore-my-wallet-from-it).

Thanks for the reply.  I have been warned about sharing that info, so I will not do so.  I will try to get the information re the wallet (again a word i am unfamiliar with).  The only thing that I see on the paper that may tell me is a link to www.monero.how.  Not sure what this is.

If your computer might have malware, for example if you're downloading pirated software or just random unsigned software from the Internet, then you shouldn't try to access your coins on such machine, the risk of having your coins stolen is too high. Instead you should install a live Linux OS on a USB drive and use it to access the coins.

I am also a bitcoinbeginner, thanks for your post, and there is a community which named bitcoin beginner in reddit, maybe you can get some help from it

You do not need to go anywhere if you are part of this community. The members here are prompt in replying to any queries as soon as a topic is created.

glad you post the question. I got help from the replies below. thank you guys ;)

That's a link to an altcoin website containing some news, price and tutorials about that altcoin, the altcoin is called "monero" and it has nothing to do with bitcoin. Even though there are some similarities if you have questions about bitcoin and want to learn about it (including information about private keys and mnemonic) that site is not helpful.

A wallet is a means by which you access an address and initiate transactions. There are different types of wallers and they operate on different software specifications. You'll need a rough idea of the wallet to be able to import your address, for example some only accept certain address types, so if your mnemonic words are a certain number; 12, 15, 18, 21 or 24, you should know which wallet is best to import it on.

An address basically has a private key and a public key.
• The private key is used to sign transactions,
• The public key is used to receive as it determines the public address,
• The mnemonic or seed or recovery phrase is a representation of the private keys.

You have the private key and seed phrase which is enough to import an address. Download (from the original website) a compatible wallet, preferably non custodian and follow the instructions to import an existing address for which you already have a seed.

I doubt that the OP asked an honest question, because if someone gave him a BTC - then it would be logical to explain to him at least some basics, and not to write him a link to some altcoins site on the same paper. To me this seems like one of the methods to promote your site without the intention being too obvious, but some things are hard to hide no matter how you mask them...

I second that as well, and lately there have been quite a lot of newbies shilling for one project/coin or the other, and this is prolly something of that nature. One wouldn't gift another bitcoin without telling them what they can do with it, how they can spend it and the ways they'll prolly lose it to scammers, the thing is this shills try to mention Bitcoin at the beginning of their shilling post, to glue your attention; before stealthily mentioning their real motive of making the post, we've seen this time and again.

You received bitcoins right then you have no jobs to do with the monero, all you need to do is just import the bitcoins into wallet like others mentioned.

Or if you just want to shill for the unfamiliar exchange then it will not get any attention here, better try to promote them in a legit way if you want traffic for your website not with legit questions which itself a soam, to be honest.