Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys,

I need your help, if someone can help me to solve one issue.

My cousin passed away a few months ago and I got his laptop from his wife. She asked me to get all of his private data from it and sell it. I have found a "bitcoin" folder there and a text file in it. It says little to nothing to me except a few text lines like "@32capital letters and numbers@" and a B64 string. I will not give the exact figures as due to the risk of losing all of it. I am not sure if there are any bitcoins there, but if someone could help me to figure out what could the 32 characters, separated by @@ mean and how can be associated with this B64 I would be glad to share with whatever I find there.

I could be wrong, but maybe this is from Blockchain.info old wallets. See if your string looks similar to this?:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/119979/decoding-a-base64-wallet-from-2014

Also, regarding your 32-character string. Could you show us a few characters from it? It could possibly be either a Bitcoin address or a blockchain.info wallet ID (which I believe should have 36 characters if you include the 4 dashes).

To get all the private key data is not from the folder file, but from aplication, bitcoin core wallet.
If that PC doesn't have Bitcoin core wallet yet, you may install from: https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/ and run it.
You can disable network actifity on core wallet, if still catch the blockchain.
Then go to console, and write "dumpprivkey", that maybe have password you have to pass it before.

Have you seen the wallets folder there?, I assume that text file is json setting file of wallet, not as key like your guess.

The base64 string that you found might be an encoded version of a private key/seed.
After decoding, you might end up with a hex string which could be for derriving a WIF.

If you are not familiar with python you can also use bitaddress.org to convert that string into WIF format.

1) Were the words in understandable English, or were they incomprehensible letters and words?
2) What is the date that file was created/modified?
3) What is the file extension? Is it txt or did you open the file using Notepad and it worked for you?
4) Are there any additional files, names of wallets, or any additional information?

I think you opened an encrypted/encoded file, so your answers to these questions may help us a little.
If the words are in English, make sure they are in this list
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/bip-0039-wordlists.md

OP, why don't you ask your cousin wife if his husband had bitcoins and did they have some missing bitcoin now after his death and did he ever told if where he kept his private keys in case he is no more in the world. Don't force her to tell you the private keys, Only just for the information if they are missing bitcoins ?


Yes, but there were no @ sign in those addresses or did he replaced the --dashes with @ sign  ???

Yeah, if the OP can provide a few characters it may be helpful in guessing if this was a private key or something else but i really doubt that it is anything related to private Key.

Yes, string looks the same

1. These are not words it is @77911F37HC........@
2. File created in 2012 and last modified in 2013
3. It is a .txt file
4. There is no other information there. Except if this is somehow password-encrypted, his wife might know the password as he always used the same password for everything It is kids' names with dates.

At first, I thought is was AES encryption, but my best guess it would require IV and 32b keys, but there is no key in a text file. I really doubt that he could do some advanced encryption as he was not a computer geek.

Wow, if it's from 2012 and there really ARE still Bitcoin stored back from that date, it could be worth a lot. Given last modified 2013 it could also be mostly sold at the first massive surge back then.
I will not be able to help much in recovering it (but you will most likely find the right folks here or in the tech section). Just wanted to say BE SUPER CAUTIOUS with whom you share any information with.
Never share your private info or any of the data stored in said files with anyone and most importantly don't fall for people trying to take the convo to telegram or similar other platforms.
All the best with the recovery.

Based on the information you shared so far, I take it that you don't know if your late cousin was into bitcoin or owned any of it? Did he never talk to you about it or mentioned that he purchased or received BTC at some point in this life?

What about his wife? Ask her if she knows if he owned any bitcoins. Perhaps he did at one point in the past but he sold it all to get money he needed for other expenditures. I think that most people with significant crypto wealth get their partners involved and explain to them how to access the coins if it comes to the worst.