Bitcoin Forum

Looks like I lost all my coins because my own stupidity.
Here is a story.Couple of years ago I generated offline wallet from bitaddress.org and printed out my Public/private keys with QR codes.
Then I checked the status of my wallet by using Public key via https://bitref.com/ and I could see all my transactions perfectly fine.
Now I decided to sell some coins just to find out that none of common desktop wallets can import my private key.I tried Exodus,Electrum,Mycelium,they all say the key is invalid.
I tried to enter it by either typing manually or scan QR code, same result.
The private key is 52 characters starts with "L" which based on my research is Private Key WIF Compressed.

I tried all kind of decoding tools like

https://iancoleman.io/bitcoin-key-compression/
http://lenschulwitz.com/base58
https://www.better-converter.com/

But no luck, none of them can recognize my private key.
I still can see all my balance no problem using public key.
Then I tried to repeat same process again and generated new offline wallet from bitaddress.org and tried to import the newly generated private key into desktop wallets and it worked perfectly fine... but not the key I made two years ago where all my coins are ;-(

Feeling devastated... Please help if possible.

Thank you.

Is your paper wallet damaged by any chance? Did you try scanning using the QR code?

On Bitaddress.org, there's a wallet details tab. If you were to enter your private key there, does it show your address? Do it offline of course.

Figured it out. Thank you ,you gave me a direction. I know what was a problem now bit kill me God I don't understand why it happens.
Basically when I scan QR code(And I did it many, many times) there is one small letter "j" that should be capital "J".I found it accidentally by replacing each letter to capital and back.
And again it is not a typo it is faulty QR code picture which poses a questions about how reliable the whole QR code implementation ,mechanism is.

Thank you again.

Is the "J" correct in the printed private key on the paper wallet? Have you tried a different QR-code reader (for instance Mycelium (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.wallet&hl=en&gl=US)) to see if the printout or the app is at fault?

If this was before August 1, 2017, you also own some Forkcoins (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836875.msg56016704#msg56016704) you may want to recover (after moving your Bitcoins to safety).

Yes, capital "J" is correct on a printed key but QR scan gives lower case "j". And yes I tried with Mycelium mobile cam scanner, same thing as my desktop scanner.
The wallet was created on Aug 2018.

Thanks.

QR codes have redundant bits strung around and in between the data that's encoded inside and they can be read from if the primary spots of the encoded data are destroyed, for example if you tear off a small part of the QR code. Each redundant bit is made by doing a (binary) subtraction of the original data minus a fixed, constant array of bits. That way, if any characters cannot be read from the QR code, the missing characters can be obtained by adding the redundant bits to the constant array of bits.

The address generated by bitaddress has a 33x33 QR code, and the private key has a 41x41 QR code. The bigger the QR code size the more redundant bits are stored.

I've never heard of wrong characters being scanned form damaged QR codes. The algorithm ensures that characters can be restored exactly provided that there aren't too many missing characters, or too much of the QR code is missing.

However if some squares were painted black when they should've been white or white instead of black, then that makes it think it's scanning a different code. That's probably where your issue came from (perhaps there were pencil or black pen marks over the white squares?)

Thank you for explanation of how it works. I guess my situation is unique then ;-)
I just did another test literally a minute ago and I confirm 100% that QR scan gives "j" when it is supposed to be "J".
Magic.
Also by quick googling it looks like I am not alone.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=873121.0
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l0ezz/how_do_i_load_bitaddress_paper_wallet_seem_like/

It looks like bitaddress might have a bug generating QR codes or at least it had a bug when I made my wallet in 2018.

Thank you.

For testing this, I just created a paper wallet in bitaddress and then scanned the QR code of the address via electrum.
The private key contains "J" and it was imported into electrum correctly.

https://i.imgur.com/D24KeKX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UxRwmFJ.jpg


I checked this thread. It was a different issue.
The OP opened a topic in bitaddress github (https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org/issues/90) as well and seems that the issue was due to a malicious Chrome add-on.

Ok.
Stupid question.I already moved all my funds from my wallet so it has zero balance now.
Is it safe to post QR code along with private key ?

It is but I still wouldn't recommend it. Are you sure that you are never going to use this key by accident in the future (like having it imported in a wallet and forgetting it is compromised) or someone sending you coins to this address? Have you checked to see there isn't any altcoin balance in it (don't know how many shitcoins were created after 2018, check http://www.findmycoins.ninja/ using your address).

If the purpose is bug fixing then you should contact the developer of bitaddress.org on github and only privately give them the key with the QR so that they can look into it.

Not a stupid question at all. You better ask than actually do something stupid.
And such a move brings no benefit and can cause you bad surprises in the future, hence you better don't do it.

One direction is that it could help others cash in current or future forkcoins that wallet may contain.
And this being said, maybe you check and cash in yourself what you can. There are already posts in this thread about how to check for them or what to do next.

Yep, it happens.
Take a look at https://github.com/PawelGorny/WifSolver -> solver ALIKE