Bitcoin Forum

A good friend of mine recently past away at the age of 19 and he was heavily involved in the Bitcoin world. He was paranoid of someone taking his efforts so he created an offline wallet to store his bitcoins. The day he was at the hospital he gave me a paper and said this is all you will need to access the coins.  He passed away that same day and I have no idea of how to access.  We have tried Bitaddress.org without success, but I do remember him talking about cold storage, offline only,  etc..   I will Donate 4 Bitcoins BTC to anyone that can help figure out how to access the coins.  The string of numbers look like this (example):
#256232658142
K-JKLSAIB521732

This is how it is written down on the paper.  He said this is all we would need to access the coins.
Any help is appreciated and with success I will Donate 4 Bitcoins BTC
Thanks,
CCG

what software was he using. if you can get his family to allow you to use his computer. all may be revealed.

for instance http://armoryguide.com/restoring-test-wallet/

i am not saying it is armory. im just saying having access to his computer will help you solve the issue, as you can limit it to the software he uses.

as for offering a bounty. i find that to be very steep, alot of people give advice for free. $2000 is alot just for advice. very tempting to many people, but at the same time a needless expense.

do not publish your public key on this website.

You can look up your address on the blockchain explorer and find out how many btc he had. Get a coinbase account at Coinbase.com if you would like to convert to USD

then you can transmit the bitcoins to your coinbase wallet address from the addres of the cold wallet and sell them for dollars.


this is my address if you want to send donation:
    1MPErsnCbTfpbavRLACnFmVFY1Xz6ZVWAG

sorry about your friend, that sucks

look up the address here:
https://blockchain.info/

btw one of those numbers is the address and the other is the private key. Do you understand which is which?

If you want some help, you can contact me via PM.  I don't require any reward, donation, or payment for providing assistance to members of the bitcoin community.

Those numbers and characters that you've posted don't immediately stand out to me as being anything useful, but it is possible that either you modified them too much when attempting to create an example or that they are passwords used in some other process (such as a brain wallet).

actually you should probably PM Danny

I haven't been on this site long but I do know he is considered a trustworthy dude by many.

I am sorry to hear about your friend.  Since Danny offered first to help you I suggest you send him a personal message and if anyone can help you it would be him.

I do have a question for you:  Do you happen to know if your friend was a member of these forums?  If so, do you happen to know his username here?

Franky, I feel that a 4 BitcoinBTC donation is fair. We have jumped into the Bitcoin community and we have been mining for over a month.  If someone can recognize the numbers and it works to be able to access the actual address then I would be happy to share.  I also have given free advice to others and I believe in karma, but in this instance I understand that time is money and I would love to get this figured out.  Danny, those numbers I shared are the right amount just changed them up, but they are the correct amount.  So 12 numbers on the first line, and 8 Capital letters and 6 numbers on the second line.  We have tried bitaddress.org and use the numbers to create an address, but that didn't work.  I haven't tried Armory, but someone on reddit said he didn't think it was Armory. 

I would recommend first trying to get access to his email account.  That will allow you to see what services he had user accounts on, and if he was subscribed to any software mailing lists.  He also may have sent himself a copy of the encrypted wallet.  Check in the Sent and Drafts folders.  Also check Google Drive/Dropbox/Box.com/etc.  See if he had any backup software running on his computer that might have a copy of the wallet file online.

I know you said he mentioned cold storage, but there's cold and then there's cold-ish, and I'm guessing most people actually do cold-ish and keep an encrypted backup file somewhere.

P.S. You said you're offering 4 BTC.  Do you know about how much he has in the wallet?  In could be easily be less than that.

Edit: Also, are you sure it's stored as Bitcoins?  Was he into altcoins at all?  If he was into NXT it could be a NXT password (being on two lines would be weird though).

It would help a lot if he ever mentioned where or how he preferred to store his bitcoins.

The number could be a userID to some website, and the capital letters with numbers could be a password to that same website.

It could also be authentication information (or decryption passwords) to some software he might be running on his computer where he may have his private keys stored.

As BurtW has mentioned, if your friend was a bitcointalk.org member, he may have participated in some discussions that would shed light on what the information on that paper represents.

Was the information on the paper printed with an inkjet printer, or was it hand written?

Coiner8, yes it is Bitcoin.  I know how much was in the wallet. 4 BitcoinBTC is a fair deal for help with this. I feel that If I go 4 Bitcoin then someone that might recognize the keys and be able to help. Over the last month I have mined for Bitcoin, PeerCoin, BetaCoin, ShaCoin, etc..  So I do understand all the AltCoins. 
Thanks

paranoia will kill ya.  i keep telling people.

Mac or Windows computer?

Do you know the address, or any transactions he made that we can get the address from?

He had a few different wallets. He keep a Chromebook that was never online in a Safety Deposit Box.  He gave me this paper wallet with those string of numbers. I know he didn't like going online.

There is also the possibility that ccg is trying to steal from someone's wallet. We don't know him from Adam so how can we be sure? The 4BTC bounty makes me suspicious that he either a) doesn't value the coins because he stole them rather than earned them or b) he has no intention of paying out. Also what kind of person hands over some weird numbers that will unlock his wallet without any sort of explanation as to how to use them?

That is is his cold storage and that is probably user name and password for the  chrome book

could be

Seriously? It's not a bounty. It's a donation. Do you wan't me to send you the website remembering my friend. Not all people bad. Let me publicly post information trying to do something wrong. I am sorry you think that. Also, we mine coins currently and I feel that a 4 Bitcoin Donation would draw more interest in trying to help me out. I am more than happy to privately talk to you regarding any information you want.  I never thought of asking him while he was in the hospital to show my how to access them. People have more courtesy than that, or at least I do.  You need to trust people a little more. Yes, when I first jumped into the Bitcoin Community (because of my friend) I was Scammed out of a Big Chunk of money out of China. Am I still upset about this, Yes.  But not all people are bad. If you can help, I would be happy to donate to you.
Thanks for the input.
CCG

Hello CCG. What your now deceased friend left you is the private keys to his BTC collection.
You are going to need to import it into a wallet. I personally use electrum as I find it is the best for me.

If you need a hand importing the private keys and moving the BTC around I would be willing to help you.

PM me if you still need a hand. :)

What makes you think those are private keys?  They sure don't look like private keys to me.  If you can't even tell what a private key looks like, why should anyone trust you to be able to help?

Rest assured I will NOT be helping you with this privately or publicly. I've said my peace and will bow out of this thread now.

Do you have the Chromebook or not?

Yeah check chromebook who knows if it's the password of his some wallet.

Wont be able to access the Chromebook for a couple of weeks. He kept it in a Safety Deposit Box and the bank won't holds it for 30 days with a proof of death.  Hopefully it will show something.

Do you know if he always stored his Chromebook in a safety deposit box with his bank? If so, it seems (to me at least) a probable solution as a cold storage method with the two strings being the password for the computer and the other for his wallet.

It doesn't look like any private key I've ever seen, nor does it seem to be a seed necessary for recovery of a wallet.

Then, we wait.  While we wait can you find out his user name on this forum?  Perhaps simply log on from the computer he did use to go online.  Perhaps he used the auto fill in feature on the browser.  It would be very valuable to find this as we can then look at all of his posts.

Yes, he was a member on all the forums. Good idea.
Thanks

Was his name john by chance.

Haha. Maybe John K's name wasn't actually John? Why wouldn't your friend give you more details on how to retrieve them?

Good point. Was he from Malaysia ?

I think he gave you password to his computer in bank deposit box only, so you can access the coins only if he is dead.

I wonder if #256 is a hint? :-)

He was going in for Surgery and no one was expecting him to pass away.  All he said was this is all you need to access the coins. He probably thought I knew how to access them.  I didn't even think of asking him about it. 

I'll be honest with you -- the information you have posted thus far isn't really useful. It's definitely not a public or private key which is normally associated with Bitcoin. A string of numbers like that certainly isn't indicative of any common encryption (BIP38) that is used to encrypt addresses. Is there anything you are leaving out?

EDIT: Something fishy is definitely going on here. OP has a post dated back to March 16 claiming he operates a few Antminers. This guy definitely knows what a paper wallet is and how it works. This whole story seems very bizarre and fabricated. Not sure what his motive is but it's probably some kind of scam.

I'm out

Were those the only two things he wrote on the paper?  Did he really remember all those seemingly random characters?

It would be a funny turn of events, if OPs friend sold all his BTC and gave the money already away and is now only trolling his friend.

THE MASTER TROLL. TROLLING TILL THE LAST SECOND!

Come to think of it, i'll do that on my deathbed too!

Could these be coupon redemption codes from one of the exchanges or casinos ?

Was he really doped up coming out of surgery and just wrote down nonsense thinking he was remembering some private key or password?

No, he gave it to me before. He was my best friend and we were involved in lots of things. His health wasn't always the best, and he gave me his paper wallet and told me that If anything ever did happen to him that I could get the coins with the information on it.  I never thought anything of it. Never thought he would pass.  He has a Chromebook that has 10x the amount of coins in that then what he gave me.  I know its worth it to pursue and I hope by talking about it something might pop up that I can remember.

Nothing fishy here at all. I can go over long details of how we got involved in the Bitcoin world because of my friend that past.  He had bought Bitcoin when they were around $3. He was paranoid of storing them online because he was involved in some dark web stuff. Why bore you with all the details of how all of this has come around. I am not leaving anything out.  This is all he gave me and said it would be all I need. If I never can figure it out, oh well life goes on, but if someone recognized something like this and could help I would reward them with 4btc.  Heck I would probably give them 5.  My dad and his business partner decided to jump into this bitcoin world recently and we have a lot of miners running. Yes, the other post on here was to help someone. Also, my friend was a member on most forums either as (ReadyEddy, or Level28Wizard).  I just thought of that other name writing this, so I will check on here.  Anyways, this is not a scam, and actually have website to verify, but why.
Thanks,
CCG

I don't think he kept anything online. He was paranoid that he would get hacked and lose all his coins. Guess looking at it now, I wish he would of sold them all and enjoyed what time he had left. Anyways he talked cold storage a lot. I will keep digging.
Thanks, worth a shot

If the wallet is offline, its likely in a password protected zip, sitting on a thumb drive/flash media somewhere.

What does the family have to say ? .. And now that I think about it.. why was it not offered to them ?

It is definitly something on the Chromebook. Unless you get it, I wouldn't make my self crazy about, what the Random letters and numbers could mean.
So, be Patient, when you get the Chromebook, you will find out by your self, what the note means.

So, of course, these are not the actual numbers. 

But maybe the actual numbers are brain wallets?  Have you tried each one (of the actual numbers) and maybe the two together, basically all combinations, as brain wallet inputs to see if you get a key pair to some BTC?

Dial the first number and when prompted enter the other one.  An operator will tell you the private key.

I'm out of ideas.

This is such a beautiful story! I can clearly see that you and dead friend were close, much closer than he was with his family. That said, please make sure that NONE of the bitcoins ever reach their slimy asses.

Also, after the 30 days passes, the bank will be handing over to you, some random guy (but we all know you two were friends). the notebook that currently sits in the safe deposit box, for that's where I would keep it - at a bank.

If you haven't figured out the gist of this post, great, for then more may follow.

BTW: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45298.

mmm... pineapples ! :P

I agree with Pineapples! The family gets about 90% of his coins.  I was his best friend.  He was going to be my best man at my wedding. What he gave me is only about 10% of what he actually had. I hope when his family gets the chromebook out of the safety deposit box (yes, I am helping with this) that there is some software or something on it that I will be able to figure this out.  Thanks

I could go into great details of my relationship with him and his family if that would please the masses.  We grew up together and by the way the bank is going to allow the Family to access the safety deposit and I am going to help them with everything. I was currently involved in his life as he moved out to go to college. At 19 were you closer to your friends or your family. It sounds like you don't recognize or can help me with this.  Thanks for taking time to post.