Bitcoin Forum

I have BTC in a Muiltbit (v 0.5.14) showing in balance.

When I try to export to Electrum the key I’m finding (following instructions in other threads) does not start with a 5, L, or K. When I paste the ‘key’ i do get into Electrum there’s a greyed our box stopping me from exporting. I have the correct password.

Also. Whilst the balance in Multibit is showing I have BTC, the Spendable amount shows ‘0’.

I’ve attempted to send a v small amount from Multibit to my trading account but it’s stuck with just one view by a peer. I think this is due to Multibit, hence my desire to move to the Electrum wallet.

Any help appreciated, I just want to cash in the BTC I’ve had kicking around since 2013.

When you export the key, try this time to export it without protecting it with password^*
This will make the result file contain one or more keys probably starting with K, then having a space and a date. The key without space and date can go into Electrum^**

* Please keep in mind that this operation exposes your private key and if you have malware on your computer you'll lose your funds.
** Please make sure you download Electrum from electrum.org and you verify it before the first use ( https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/ )

Thanks for your reply, yes I tried that and the key still comes out not looking like a key - lots of letters and characters, is this a different type of key? Or mini key?

I opened the key file in Notepad. Could this be the problem?

Maybe you are opening the wrong file. Export to a new folder and be careful with the steps. You have an explanatory image here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5269031.msg55003671#msg55003671
The file should be OK to be read with Notepad and should start with readable text:

It's probably password protected. You need to export the file unencrypted for the private keys to be in plaintext.

I was looking at the wrong file. D’oh. Now have something that looks like a key and will do the sweep from Electrum, have never done that before... thanks for your help.

How long should it take for the sweep to confirm into Electrum?

Since the fees are quite big nowadays, it could have been better to import instead of sweep (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2302219.0).
Sweep is a new transaction and the confirmation time depends greatly on the fee you've paid for that transaction. If you can find the tx ID, if you paste it into [ https://bitcoindata.science/plot-your-transaction-in-mempool.html ] you may get a somewhat idea of how far you transaction is.

FillMeUp, sweep makes sense, because then your seed serves as a backup - but you could also save time and fee if you just made an import of your private key/s - you would have instant access to your BTC, and it's completely free.

If you do not want to place a link to your transaction (for privacy reasons), you can only write how much you paid for the transaction (check sat/bytes for fee).

One small digression - but it will be interesting for the OP and all those who answered similar questions in 2017 ;)

Import vs sweep private key in Electrum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2302219.0)