Bitcoin Forum

Hello, Does anyone know how I can redeem the private key from a physical bitcoin? I got the coin, I verified the public key is still valid here: https://casascius.uberbills.com/

Now I'm not sure how to enter the private key to "activate" it so I can sell the 1 BTC. Sounds like this used to be possible on Mt. Gox but thats not an option anymore!

Thanks!

You can download electrum here  https://electrum.org/#home and once you launch, import the private key, you should see the BTC balance.

good luck!

I think he is looking for the way to redeem the private key from the coin. He still don't have the private key.
OP, you can follow the way to get the private key from here- https://www.casascius.com
If you have it already, you can follow the above statement to get your BTC.

If it's just a printed private key. You should be able to do it using Electrum[1] (sweeping) as suggested above or Mycelium[2].

[1] https://bitcoinelectrum.com/sweeping-your-private-keys-into-electrum/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUS6Nrff5qY

Here is a yotube video explaining how to redeem the private key from the physical coin:
How to redeem bitcoin from a physical coin by Casascius - English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1yydfYJFwA)

Forget about Mt. Gox, if you have the private key then you can import it into any wallet and the balance is yours.

Haha , forget about Mt. Gox, that was a good one!

You don't "activate" the coin. You redeem it by sweeping the private key into a wallet.

Note that he private key is in the "mini" key format, which is probably not supported by most wallets. If you can't find a wallet that supports the mini key format, then this page tells you how you can decode the private key: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mini_private_key_format#Decoding

It's fairly technical, but hopefully you can figure it out.

I didn't try it but I think you can decode the mini format using bitaddress.org. Go to "wallet details", enter the mini private key and it will show you the public address and the corresponding private key in its WIF format.
Then you can import it into any wallet.

If you have a casascius coin which is still intact and is in good condition, I would advice you to better auction it off in the Collectibles (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=217.0) section instead of wasting your money in redeeming it. An unredeemed 2011 Series 1 casascius 1 BTC coin goes for around 1.3-1.5 BTC in auction whereas when you try to redeem the coin you would be receiving only 1 BTC.

The better idea is to never redeem a casascius coin and to auction them off. Hire minerjones (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=346731) as escrow and post a picture of your coin with your forum name and time,date written in the piece of paper. It would surely fetch better returns rather than peeling the coin and taking out BTC.

If you do peel it, make sure to cash in those forked coins as well (BCH, BSV, etc.).

This. You can use coinomi wallet and you can claim 8 bitcoin forks listed there. Just import the private keys. And if ever don't ever use the private key/public address anymore for security reasons.