Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone:D
I was messing with my Bitcoin, encrypting my wallet.dat and securing myself....
But At one point I ended up replacing the original with the encrypted and had to start all over.
Luckily a friend replaced the few bitcoins I had, But!
Is it possible to regain the others or are they lost for good?
All help with be muchly appreciated, The best answer will get BTC from me<3

If you have the older wallet, your BTC are saved.

First, save your new wallet, then replace it with the old one. Then run bitcoin client with -rescan option. It will process the blocks and check again for your transactions.

You can do this any time as long as you do not lost your wallet.dat(s).

i don't see your problem.

amplify, please.

Krystn!  Hello!  ...this sucks that it happened ...I'm thinking...

Thank you<3

Will I loose the coins I've gotten since?

You need the wallet to be able to use the coin that that wallet had. You lose it, you are unable to recover the coins that it contain.

I have a copy! i encrypted it other places first, but I removed the one in the client which made a new wallet.dat;

Then where is the problem? You have to make sure you have all the wallets where you have coins. As long as you don't lose them/overwrite/delete/whatelse it's ok

Use my abovementioned steps to recover your old wallet.dat money, then send them to your new wallet.dat address. Just be sure you do not throw away any wallet.dat which may still have some Bitcoins in.

Wallet.dat basically contains "passwords" to your Bitcoin addresses. In the public log of blocks, there are transactions targeting your address, that's how you got your first BTCs. Your bitcoin client just needs to "rescan" the log to show you the Bitcoins you have at these addresses.

The information that you "own" some BTCs at some addresses is stored in all-people public accessible log of blocks. Your wallet has passwords which can "claim" that you own your addresses. That's why you can get BTC to an address without running bitcoin client at all, for example.

So:

1. keep somewhere your receiving address from current wallet.dat
2. backup current wallet.dat
3. restore old wallet.dat
4. run bitcoin -rescan
5. you will see your "old" BTCs, send them to address from step 1.
6. restore new wallet.dat
7. run bitcoin -rescan
8. you should see new BTCs you got from friend plus a transfer of old BTCs from old wallet
9. use the new wallet.dat only

Let me know if this worked for you ...

Keep in mind that the Bitcoin network has a giant ledger that keeps track of which accounts have which coins.
Your wallet.dat file is your proof that you are the owner of certain accounts.

"-rescan" option will look at the whole ledger (called the Block Chain), looking for coins that belong to your current wallet.dat file.

if you have two different wallet.dat files and you are trying to get the mess straightened out, simply record the "Bitcoin Address" of one wallet, and then open Bitcoin using the OTHER wallet, and pay all your coins to the first one.

Sending a small tip your way, I don't have much But I hope It helps you.
Thank you for the Great advice.

Wow! Definitely not a SMALL tip. Thanks a lot!

<3