A private key - basically - is just a random 256 bit number.
But what you import into electrum is most likely the private key in the WIF (= Wallet Import Format).

And the WIF key contains a checksum. So each wallet can easily check whether it is a valid private key or not by looking at the checksum (last 4 byte).

You can read more about the wallet import format here.

Did you verify your electrum installer / portable executable upon downloading/installing it ?
That is the only way to be sure you have the real electrum.
If you didn't do this, you should change your habits and start verifying the signature of every file handling sensitive information.


Now, back to your problem.
Unfortunately your coins are lost. And it was not a mistake on your site. It seems they have been stolen.

Either someone has gained access to your mnemonic code, or your computer is compromised.
If you can't find out how it happened, assume your computer is infected and consider formatting your hard drive and reinstalling your OS (no cracked versions please, they are ALWAYS infected with backdoors) before storing any sensitive information (e.g. private keys) on it again.

There are 2 things to consider:

1) Legitimacy of the firmware:
Will be checked automatically when you start up ledger live. If you don't get any error message stating that the firmware is non-genuine, you are fine.

2) Legitimacy of the hardware:
You can open the case and check the hardware. There is a guide available from ledger.


Where did you get your nano s from ?
And why exactly does your friend claim it is fake ?

It seems like Smart man is still not banned yet.
His last post was today, and his alt fenyks was banned almost 4 months ago.

My report against one of his post stating the ban evasion still shows unhandled.

Did i miss something ? Is there anything which speaks against ban evasion ?

Leider gibt es davon nicht gerade viele.
Auf Anhieb, fällt mir da nur Monero (XMR) ein.

Außerdem ist nunmal keine Kryptowährung so sicher wie der Bitcoin.

99% aller Coins sind sowieso Shitcoins und/oder Scam. Und die restlichen (sinnvollen) Coins haben ein ziemlich niedriges Market Cap / Trading Volumen.
Das macht es riskanter mit solchen Coins zu hantieren als mit dem Bitcoin, welcher ~70% des gesamten Crypto Market Caps ausmacht.

Mal ganz davon abgesehen, dass Bitcoin nun mal bei den meisten Stellen akzeptiert wird. Andere Cryptos werden nur relativ selten akzeptiert.
Hängt also auch immer mit dem Grund der Transaktion zusammen. Einkaufen geht halt meistens nur mit BTC.


Aber generell stimme ich dir zu. Bei Transaktionen welche komplett vertraulich sein sollen, besser auf Monero ausweichen.

You don't gain any advantages using legacy type addresses, only disadvantages.

For maximum compatibility and lower fees one should choose nested segwit (P2WPKH nested in P2SH).
Each service recognizes these addresses, and besides lower fees transaction malleability is fixed. While this might not be a big issue for an average user, there is not a single good reason to choose legacy over nested segwit.

No, they don't need to.

Please read it again, more carefully:



All supports will be removed once everyone who got scammed forgives you.
If there is at least one person not forgiving you, the flag and support remains valid.

Ouch, that hurts.

Please teach me some knowledge, Mr. 1 received merit in the last 120 days and 39 merits within 900+ posts. I can still learn so much from you.
Unfortunately it seems you (Mr. received a lot of merit) and the newbie with 0 merit are right, i am such a noob who can still learn so much from both of you


Oh.. i forgot, my points are still valid.
Instead of getting an investment and getting rich you decide to ask others to participate with your strategy so that 'everyone earns more' because 'more trades means more profit' 

I am sorry to disappoint you, but i really don't care what you or others with no knowledge regarding bitcoin at all or who are promoting some shady 'services' are thinking.




If they don't break the rules, no one is going to report them.

The mods are not responsible for your mistakes. They don't need to explain what and how you did something wrong.
You should be old enough to figure it out yourself.

Just read the rules and follow them. It is quite easy.

You really like roasting, don't you ?

My points are still all valid. Just because there is an off-topic discussion going on whether shitcoins are shitcoins in which i do not want to participate, i got roasted ?
Oh.. whatever.




You said yourself that these are not bumps, but new information.
Therefore it falls under the multi-posting rule.

Simply just edit your last post, i don't get your problem. If you are the only one participating in your thread it might not be as interesting as you think ?

And that's a personal attack ?

Tons of people here give sell their KYC for even less than 20$ (not in BTC, but in worthless tokens).

A mixer is there to give people privacy. To break the link between UTXO's. While it can be abused by criminals, that doesn't man that it is a bad concept.
Hell, cash is also being abused by criminals.. and still we are using it. Same applies to medicine.




So.. please give me an example.
All you do is to allege it is possible, but you can't even 'trace' my simple example:

1 dirty UTXO: A
1 clean UTXO: B

Transaction:
A (1 BTC)+ B (1 BTC)  -->  C (0.5 BTC) + D (0.5 BTC) + E (0.5 BTC) + F (0.5 BTC)

Now, please tell me.
Which UTXO's are clean and which are dirty after this transaction ?


If you can't even answer this question for such a simple example, stop claiming it is possible the way you describe.




You do realize that ChipMixer does not take any fee ?
It is completely Pay what you want.

You keep on claiming things without even properly understanding the technical details of bitcoin.
Generally tracing UTXO's is possible yes. But if properly mixed, there is no link between pre- and post-mixing. And if the user isn't super retarded, there won't be a possibility to further trace the money.

It is not just up to him, but everyone who got scammed has to forgive the act:

In this case you could simply edit your last post to include the new trades / information.

Are you really just trying to argue about that ?

Please first read the forum rules:


So, if it is not a bump it falls under this category.

I never accused you of scamming.
All i did was pointing out that this offer is sketchy and that there is a possibility of user losing funds.

Especially since you were not able to properly answer questions. Combined with your super logic of 'more people doing the same trade means more money for all of us' that raises flags.

It would be way more profitable to simply gather investments and get rich fast, but you decide to offer this 'service' here, promoting it and wasting your time contributing in bounties which earn you a few $ per hour.
This simply doesn't make much sense.




If it is spam, report the posts.
I am sure the moderators will delete them if they indeed are just spam.




Did i miss something ?

Sorry, but i won't engage in off-topic discussions where XRP and EOS are considered to not be shitcoins.




They got deleted because they violated the forum rules. And no, i did not report each of them.

Ich denke, wenn die Ausgangsfrage war, ob man den private key aus einer Adresse gewinnen kann, dann war meine Antwort schon technisch genug   

Bezieht sich ja (von uns beiden) eh alles auf legacy Adressen.
P2SH, P2WPK nested in P2SH, P2WPKH und P2WSH wurden ja auch komplett außen vor gelassen. 

Ich denke für Neulinge ist es wichtig eine gute Balance zwischen Einfachheit/Anschaulichkeit und Technischer Erklärung zu finden.

Why even pay for a TLS certificate if you can get them for free ?

Free certificates from a trusted CA: https://letsencrypt.org/

Nein, das ist nicht möglich.

Sonst könntest du ja den private key aus irgendeiner Adresse generieren um so an die Coins zu kommen.
Dann wäre das ganze Prinzip von Bitcoin kaputt.


Die Generierung folgt so ab:
Zufällige große (256 bit) Zahl = Private key.
Private key + Rechnungen auf ellipitischen Kurven -> Public key.
Public key 2 mal hashen -> Adresse.

Du kannst beim generieren nur in die eine Richtung gehen (Private key -> Public key -> Adresse).
Andersrum funktioniert es nicht, was auch gut ist. Denn darauf, dass es nicht geht, basiert die Sicherheit von Bitcoin und asymmetrischer Kryptographie allgemein.



Moderne wallets generieren private keys auf eine etwas andere Art.
Sie verwenden keine zufällige Zahl für jeden private key, sondern einen Seed (der wiederum eine große zufällige Zahl ist).
Dieser Seed wird dann sozusagen mit einem 'counter' addiert um einen private key zu erlangen.

Das hat den Vorteil, dass du nur ein Backup von dem einen Seed brauchst um alle deine Private Keys generieren zu können.
Dazu wird dieser Seed meistens in einen Mnemonic Code umgewandelt (12 / 24 Wörter), was es einfacher macht ihn sich aufzuschreiben.
24 Wörter sind nun mal einfacher aufzuschreiben und weniger fehleranfällig als 64 zufällige Zeichen

So, in your opinion it is fine to promote a scam if you don't operate it yourself ?

He could.

But the address is only used for one single transaction.

Note that a public key is not an address. The address is being 'derived' from the public key.
And with a master public key (xpub) you are able to derive multiple public keys using a counter (and therefore multiple addresses).

While the master private key (xpriv) would be stored in cold storage, you could derive a new address for each transaction on the online webserver using the xpub.


A customer would not be able to determine the full balance, simply because he only knows that one address which is used for this single transaction.




From a privacy point of view it doesn't matter where your private keys are stored. There is absolutely no difference.
But from a security point of view, it definitely is favorable to store them in cold storage.

I don't see a single disadvantage in directly receiving coins to the cold storage. Except maybe for the fact that it takes a bit longer to access them in case you want to spend them.

It is not about who is smarter, but who is more retarded (the target or the scammer).

IMO most scams around here are so blatantly obvious and no one would fall for it if they at least applied basic knowledge regarding securing their coins and common sense.
But unfortunately greed > common sense.