Creating a transaction does not involve the private key so what do you intend to test with that? Signing a transaction is where the private key comes into play. It is easier to sign an arbitrary message and verify the signature.

You can install a wallet such as electrum 1.9.8 (not 2.0.x coz that won't work for this) or bitcoin core on your offline system. Then import the private key and sign a message with it. Then verify the signature. This should tell you whether the private key "works" or not.

Relevant:


You don't need to download the blockchain for this purpose.

There is a qr code plugin that you can enable (the plugins option is in one of the menus, can't remember offhand which one but you'll find it if you look). It allows you to display transactions as qr codes. If you have a web cam on your offline system it can read the transaction that way.

You can convert a mini private key into WIF format (begins with 5,L or K) using the wallet details tab on bitaddress.org. You can download that site and run it offline. All the site's contents are in one html page.

BTW I recommend upgrading to electrum 1.9.8.

It's a 2 of 3 wallet so you need 2 extended private keys or two electrum wallet seeds if those extended private keys were created by electrum. So you have the seed for your electrum wallet so that's one. Do you have the extended private key behind the public key from that site? Do you have the extended private key of the seller?

If you don't have 2 out of 3 extended private keys you will need to create a partially signed transaction and then email it to the seller for him to sign and broadcast.

There is no paypal in Pakistan.

I'm locking the topic now because it's just attracting trolls.

You have to sign up to localbitcoins and follow the instructions on my ads linked above. You will see the price and other details over there.

You leave your fingerprints everywhere so it wouldn't be very secure.

Discussion on creating keys using fingerprints:

http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/16370/generating-encryption-keys-from-biometric-fingerprint-templates

Changing the password is not the same as resetting it. Now you have lied and been caught. This makes you look even worse.

Yes exactly you are just starting out and you don't need a cold wallet.

Use the wallet on your phone or PC. It should be sufficient for a newbie.

Are you the same person as this guy:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1012475.0

It seems quite a few people have stumbled upon 8 word mnemonics that they don't know how to use

Reminds me of Dave of wallet recovery services talking about how different people would send him the same stolen wallet to brute force and of course non of them had any idea what the password might be.

Google authenticator is based on a standard called TOTP. Authy and others that are compatible with google authenticator operate according to that standard.

The best 2FA for crypto world is multisig.

These instructions are for 1.9.8.

If you know the password and have the encrypted seed you can recover your wallet as follows:

You haven't told us your operating system. Find the electrum folder and rename it to something else. Location of the folder:

https://electrum.orain.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Where_is_my_wallet_file_located.3F

Now when you run electrum it will try to create a new wallet. Just go through the motions to create a wallet.

With electrum running go to the console tab and enter the following:


Replace <yourseed> with the encrypted seed (don't include "Seed:" ) and <yourpassword> with your password.

It should output 32 hex digits which is your seed decrypted. Now create a new wallet file to house your restored wallet:

- File menu > new/restore. Pick a directory and enter a file name for the new wallet file and then click save. It will then show the usual wallet creation/restore "wizard".

- Select to restore a wallet and paste in your 32 hex digit seed.

- In future to open this wallet file use file > open.

If you are on Linux you don't have to use the electrum console. You can use python directly from the command line. I'm not sure whether electrum on other OS installs python. Does it?

Looks like he's suffering from this bug in 2.0.x

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=998480.0

His wallet file is empty and does not contain any json object or other data.

Did you note down the 25 word mnemonic when creating the wallet? If in future you lose access to your phone you can recover your wallet using that mnemonic. That's your failsafe. After you recover the wallet using the mnemonic it ceases to be a 2fa wallet.

Do you see familiar addresses in the wallet once you do a restore? Do you see *any* addresses at all?

Oh and btw 2.0 is backward compatible with 1.9.8 seeds so you don't need to transfer to a new wallet. If you have a copy of the wallet file from 1.9.8 then that will work too.

You are having trouble with your wallet file so I suggested that you restore from seed. When you do that you won't have any labels. So you need to backup your labels separately and then import them into your new wallet file.

Electrum android is abandoned and doesn't work. IMO it should be removed from the electrum website.

Transactions involving small amounts of bitcoin are not allowed because they are considered spam that wastes resources on the blockchain. The smallest amount you can spend is 5430 satoshis.

There have been 3 point releases so far and there are still reports of bugs with 2fa and stuff. I think it needs to be tested some more. Of course with open source software the users are the testers so I don't want to discourage them but at the same time I can't call it stable!