If you're checking out mobile wallets and giving out paperwallets... Then I would recommend that you have a look at Mycelium (note: Android only, DO NOT use the iOS version of Mycelium, it hasn't been updated in ~3 years)

It has a lot of features builtin to deal with paper wallets (specifically, QR Code scanning etc). It makes it super easy to scan the private key from a paperwallet and sweep/spend the funds.

Pretty much this...

Without a proper explanation of the OPs "wants" and "needs"... it is pretty much impossible to answer their question in a meaningful way. There is no "one wallet to rule them all".

If OP wants to store $10 worth of coins, then a $50 Hardware wallet or even using an air-gapped old laptop is pretty much overkill... conversely, you wouldn't advise them to store $1000 in a wallet like Coinomi on their mobile phone.

I assume you used this recovery tool: https://login.blockchain.com/wallet/recover-wallet

"Old" blockchain.info 15 word recovery phrases... were for recovering the wallet password to your Legacy wallet. They do not (and can not) restore a seed/private keys.

If the wallet file you now have access to says "watching-only", then you have no way of recovering the funds in that wallet.

I'm not really sold on the idea of using dictionary words for a passphrase, tbh. While it's true you are generating a "24 char" passphrase, you're limiting the effective search space to 26^24 (or 52^24, if you use some uppercase as well)... and, in actual fact, because you're using dictionary words... it's more like 150000^6 (there are only around 150,000 four letter words in the english language)! That is a pretty small number... relatively speaking

Compared with using a random mix of lowercase, uppercase, numbers and symbols... in which case the search space would be 86^24

It's the same with using the first 6 words from a generated seed mnemonic... you're really lowering the search space to just 2048^6.

That's not true, at least for Electrum... Electrum will handle having only one private key/address pair in a wallet and partial spending just fine. If it can't "create" or find a 'change' address in the wallet, it just sends back to an address that already exists in the wallet.

Here we have an Electrum imported wallet with just one private key/address:



This is what happens when we try to send a partial amount:



You can clearly see that Electrum just sends the 'change' back to the address that is contained in the wallet.

I think it could be the old blockchain.com "balance not updating" bug... or (and what I think is most likely) the OP has been the victim of a scam.

From the screenshot and transaction data provided, you can see the amount they supposedly received was the ~0.021 amount that went to: 1EBqWSNEasMQYnAUzE2heauDtdbgSyr16P... This amount was then sent out 16 hrs later (along with what I assume is the rest of the contents of the wallet) in this transaction.

So, it's likely the OPs wallet has been empty for over a week


@PACIFICADOR, if you didn't send those funds a week ago to the address 1HdYoGXCCH1Pkaa7sTq4B1RyswsqAeukBw, then your wallet has been compromised and you should stop using it before you lose any more bitcoin!

Can you be a bit more specific on what exactly "a hell load of time" is? For some people, given their setups/hardware, this could be 30 seconds... for others 10 minutes.

Also, is this once the GUI is nicely loaded and the main wallet window is open? If so, it might be a network issue. Check the "network" icon in the bottom right corner:


If it isn't showing any 'bold' black dots/lines, you're not connected to any peers (and can't receive any blocks etc)...

you can also check "Window -> Information" and check the "Network section" to see how many connections you have:



and also you can see the 'speed' of those peer connections using "Window -> Peers" and look at the ping times.

At which point? When you're running pip... or when you're running python?

Are you able to take a screenshot of the command you're entering and the output and then upload it to an image hosting service (like imgur.com or lightshot)?

Nope... the system is basically "free to play"... You don't pay to sign up, there are no deposit/withdrawal fess (outside of standard network fees). So, you just pay the 30% commission on your profitable trades... and that would appear to be the money making part (at least for people who don't have or have exhausted their credits).

If you think about it, a lot of tiny wins = a fairly decent amount of 30% commission... Supposedly, if you end up in the negatives, the commission stops... BUT, that's only from your initial starting point I think. So, every "win" that you get == guaranteed earnings for the owner. Even if you just suffered a few losses.

Will be interesting to see how long my credit lasts...

Not exactly... my expectation was to lose everything... that hasn't quite happened as yet. So, it's more "Sales Brochure vs. Reality"


No worries... I'll do semi-regular updates as and when I can... not quite sure how I'm supposed to get 17% ROI/month... but "fingers crossed!"

It has been a while since I first used the 4.0.0a0 beta that I compiled, but I really don't recall setting (or even seeing) that option... is it enabled by default? I'd assume from the "advanced" name that it isn't and my memory is just bad.

I'm sorry, but I'm really confused. You keep making contradicting statements... and then you call valid responses to your comments "nonsense".

You said "we get wallet.dats"... people say, you should take precautions "just in case"... and you should only be using the "hash" extract... you say "yes, we don't get wallets and with hash we can't hurt customer, don't write nonsense"??!?

Then you, in the same post, say "actually, we DO get wallet.dats... and we want to check them."

I'm not sure if it is just a language barrier and/or bad translations somewhere, but it seems to me you are just talking around in circles and confusing good advice with people insulting you.


Summary:

- If you are receiving and inspecting wallet.dat's, common sense would dictate that you should do so in a "sandboxed" environment (ie. stand alone, non-network workstation or VM etc)
- If you are just trying to brute force passwords, you should only be receiving the "hash" from the client, and not their wallet.dat
- All those "HUGE REWARD!" wallet.dat's being sold are scams

Based on that (very circumstantial) "evidence", no.

While I suspect that you might be correct (or that the incrediable user is just a paid shill)... unfortunately there is no solid evidence to indicate those 2 accounts are in fact linked or controlled by the same person. Certainly no where near enough evidence to warrant me (or anyone else) tagging that user as being an alt of a scammer.

Unless you have further proof, there isn't much else we can do here. Gopls65 has already been flagged and tagged...

Looks as though you're going to get your wish, as the workflow looks like it is being changed in the upcoming v4 release of Electrum...
No, I'm just a moron that forgot about ticking boxes in the prefences... thanks nc50lc! - See next post!


Now on the initial "send" tab, there is just a "Pay" button:



Once you click on that, you are presented with the "Create Transaction" window that lets you set the fee, RBF (and even LockTime! ) and shows all the relevant details, such as the inputs and outputs etc:



Once you click "Finalize", you then see the final transaction size and details and can export, save, combine, sign+broadcast etc:

Like, I appreciate that the OP is attempting to learn... and trying to demonstrate the results of those attempts. So, full credit to them for that.

But, unfortunately, as stated above, what they have posted here is just poorly explained nonsense and of no real relevance... and is likely to be very confusing for other beginners.

Nah, I'm pretty confident that's not him...


I had been quietly sitting on this hoping to have a bit more 'data' to throw at an update... but you've kinda forced my hand so, here we go...

---

Soooooooo, after a number of months of "The Platform"™ being close to release... it finally arrived in early April. Ladies and Gentlemen (and attack helicopters)... I give you <!play drumroll.mp3>:

---

The Platform™

Firstly, it's in a "closed beta" at the moment... so only previous users of Arakne are able to register... and I can't remember if the Arakne Telegram group was closed and the new BotHIVE.io one was opened, or the name was simply changed... but there is still a Telegram Group.

I got a "fee credit" for my losses from Arakne:



So currently (with some trading)... apparently my "total portfolio" is now just over the 0.1BTC that I initially started this journey with:



Although, it does need to be noted that "credit" fee balances cannot be withdrawn:



So, in effect... I only have my "bankroll" available (which is the money that is actually on BitMEX) and I'm still down ~0.065 BTC:



As before, you are required to create keys on BitMEX, only this time they're IP locked to BotHIVE.io systems:



Different from before, you now have to have a "fee balance" on the BotHIVE.io system, so they can deduct the 30%(!!?! ) commission from your trades... there are some rules around withdrawal of this balance:


Min withdrawal is 0.0004BTC

---

The Bots

Currently there are TWO bots available... Arakne is not one of them

We now have "Manticore":





And "Aethon":




You can choose to use either, or both, of the bots, but if you want to run both, each bot must have it's own BitMEX account as each account is only allowed 2 API keys, and they have to be unique for each bot etc.


It should be obvious that there has been some "back testing" going on as these graphs appear to have been started in January 2019... so as usual, the ROIs claimed are quite unbelievable.

You can see from the screengrabs that I have chosen "Aethon", simply because Manticore looked way to aggressive/risky for my already depleted bankroll.

Bots are "customisable":


Settings "explained":










I honestly don't really understand any of it... so I'm running with just the default "AI" settings... I'm not really buying the 17% ROI either

---

Trading

Trading results have been "positive"... albeit small gains... and it's difficult to work out %'s etc (I'll explain why below):



Daily PNL:



Trade History:



Order History:

---

Frustration

The UI/UX, while "adequate" is pretty horrible imo... like putting the close dialog window "X" icon at the bottom of the screen??!? (note: not at the bottom of the dialog, but the bottom of the screen! refer to: this screenshot) WTF??!?

Also, due to the Owner being a bit paranoid about "Copy Trading", there are some new rules regarding setup and use of API keys. You are only allowed exactly TWO API keys per BitMEX account. One "Order+Read" Key and One "Read-only" key... as mentioned, these are also IP locked to the BotHIVE systems.

The upshot of this is that I can't create a "Read-only" for something like coinmarketman.com (which actually had really nice graphs and showed my complete BitMEX history)... I tried, and the BotHIVE system deactivated the bot because I had more than 2 API keys! and I can't use the existing "read-only" API key because it is IP locked

Now, BitMEX does provide the ability to export histories in CSV, but unfortunately, coinmarketman.com does not support importing data via CSV etc So, it appears that I will have to manually use the CSV download from BitMEX and work all this shit out myself.   >

Anyone got any recommendations for a site like coinmarketman.com that accepts imported data via CSV?

In the meantime, here is an ugly chart from Excel that mimics the one from coinmarketman.com which shows the (lack of) "performance" of my initial 0.1BTC since I got drunk and foolishly commenced this experiment.


THINGS TO NOTE:

- The first streak of grey in Dec was after the first hiccup and Arakne was shutdown while the dev attempted to "fix it".
- The long streak of grey from early Feb to Early Apr was when Arakne finally got shutdown permanently because it was obviously "broken". During this time, "The Platform"™ wasn't running either.
- The short streak of grey from the last week happened because apparently their IP got banned by BitMEX, so all the bots got shutdown... without bothering to tell the users! I think I missed some good trades in the last week too!  >   The devs tell me that it's now setup to automatically email users should this happen again.

---

TLDR;

Dev of Arakne Bot that wiped out 67% of my 0.1BTC investment has finished creating his bot platform website and given closed beta access to previous Arakne users. I've been running it for about a week. It's made some very small gains (~1.1%). The UI is a bit clunky.

No, that is the least most important thing here. If you're not here to read, learn, understand and contribute... and just want "EARN EASY MONEYS NOW!!!111!11!!!1!" then you are in the wrong place and likely to get scammed and/or very frustrated and discouraged.

No, but the Google Drive explorer shows that it is indeed a .zip file containing a Visual Studio project... however, the dir labelled "THIS IS THE EXE FILE" gives the appearance of attempting to encourage just running the .exe...

Pretty much EVERYTHING in this post...

It broke my brain trying to read the explanations and definitions... and the code is very primitive.

Is it a bit cynical to think that this is:

a. an attempt to gain merits by trying to look clever/knowledgeable
b. an attempt to spread malware
c. both

Not only that... but the code is pretty bad as well. The "decrypt" button doesn't actually do anything meaningful in terms of "decryption"! All it does is display the value contained in the "output" global that is populated with the random "address" that is calculated when you click the "Generate" button!

OP, I understand that you're attempting to learn (and pass knowledge on to others), but unfortunately it would appear that your understanding of this topic is relatively poor.

There is no encryption/decryption when generating private keys (and deriving public keys and addresses from the private keys)... although they can be stored in an encrypted manner. Also, you make no use of a "key" at all in your "encryption"... you are simply generating a SHA256 "hash".... this is not the same as using the AES-256 cipher to encrypt data with a key that can then be decrypted with the same key.