Bitcoin Forum

WE NEED BACK PRIVATE KEYS NOT BACK UP FUNDS
Well funny enough I had this friend I introduced Bitcoin to and after all we said and did, I gave him just a $1 dollar to make his newly account look good. This was actually in the year October 2016. Now it's 30th May 2017 and I just figured out this guy lost his way into Bitcoin and left that account blank  ;D. I took the credentials from him and managed to open his account and it's now $3.95. Wow, what a magic??? Now I want to withdraw all into my current account and I can't even send $2.5. That is the fee for sending is now more than first. First, we had what we used to call Private Key (WIF) and with that, I can sweep all funds into another account. Does anyone have a new way to do so? Please just asking so I withdraw all funds. I know it kinda sounds funny but the solution might help others in future.

Its value has increased so many times, it would be great if you owned more bitcoins at the time, but your numbers are too small, it's not worth your rejoicing, do not try  with little things=)

sweeping a private key is basically generating a transaction whose outputs go to the wallet you're using to sweep the key...  Since you generated a transaction, there will be a transaction fee. Because of the huge mempool backlog, the transaction fees per byte of transaction data are going trough the roof (well, theoretically, it's because everybody is outbidding eachother, and not because of the backlog, in reality, the outbidding is a result of the backlog)...
You could use bitcoin core or use electrum to create a non-HD wallet and IMPORT the private key instead of sweeping it ;)

Maybe if you told us which wallet software your friend was using, somebody could point you to a way to export the private key.

Well I happened to buy $630 last week in addition with $293. Now what I bought last week had dropped off to $590 thus I loosed a sum of $40. I'm quite feeling bitter by like other Bitcoin users will say, YOU NEED PATIENCE so that's what I'm doing now. But I still need to clear that $3.95 off.

At this point of time the amount you mentioned is actually just equivalent to a miner fee. There are many ways wherein you can save from your transactions and that is to make bigger transactions rather than just multiple transactions with little amounts. If you think you can transfer everything from one account to other account without fees then that is no longer possible.

Well unlike you, i bought when it is yet about $1200, so  even its price decreased i still dont mind because i still have profit and i know that it will pump again sooner or later. So i decided not to widthdraw all the funds that i  have yet, i still have to keep it for more days,months or maybe year? I just gonna withdraw it if need but not all, i have to keep enough funds for my future needs.