Glad to see I finally caught up with Bitcoin. I knew it was a good idea to save the files and not give up.

And yeah, definitely not comfortable with Python, although it's good to know I can continue syncing later. I should have been in bed three hours ago. I have an interview with Edelman Financial later today. 

Thanks so much for the help!

I did indeed get that gibberish in the key file I had, although I opened the wallet up in Multibit, and it doesn't even give me the option of entering a password, and it states the wallet is not password protected.

EDIT:

This is what I see right now.

https://prnt.sc/11i4pxz

I was able to download an old version of Multibit, and it's synchronizing now. It's not letting me export the private keys, although I think it's because it's still syncing. It doesn't let me enter a password for the wallet (it's greyed out), so I'm hoping that's a good sign. It does show the transaction history for the address, reflecting the current balance.

Edit: Hovering over this yellow square next to the wallet, it reads, "this wallet is not password protected."

Which file should contain the private keys? The wallet.dat file, or the wallet.key file? I tried taking the addresses found in the wallet.dat file, and they didn't seem to work. There's two lines of code in the wallet.key file that looks like "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx+xxxxxxxxxxxxxx+xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

I'm not sure if any of that is my private key.

I rescanned, but I must have done something wrong, because I'm up to September 2015, and the balance still shows zero. There are also no wallets listed in "Receiving addresses."


I did open that .dat file, and I found my public address and a couple of other addresses. I imagine these other addresses are my private keys, correct? What do I do with these once I have them?


EDIT: I tried to update Bitcoin Core, since I had the version from 2017. Thought maybe the new version might help me better, but for some reason, Windows won't let me install it. Says "blocked by your administrator," even though I am the administrator. Is that MalwareBytes doing that?

I opened it with a text editor and I found a bunch of keys when searching "name," but only one (my public wallet address) worked when searching Blockchain.com. Are these other keys my private keys?

By pruned, do you mean the blocks not all being present? I'm a total noob, sorry.


I apparently needed to rescan Bitcoin Core. It's working on that now. If it scans it and opens the wallet, should this mean I now have access to my Bitcoins, or are there more steps I should be prepared for?


I imagine this was my misunderstanding about how the transfer worked. I imagine what they were wanting me to do was create a new wallet within Electrum and pay it from my Multibit wallet? Either way, if they're not compatible, it's a moot point.

Back in 2012-2014, I downloaded Bitcoin Core, and was provided a wallet address. I took this address and went around to different faucets to collect bitcoin. I downloaded Multibit at some point, and loaded the wallet there. I NEVER SET A PASSWORD. I am 1,000,000,000% sure I did not set a password. This was also before seeds of course.

Later on I bought a new computer, and copied the wallet files over, thinking if/when I got back into Bitcoin, I could just restore the wallet and carry on. Boy was I wrong. Everything is asking for a password now, and nothing will load without one.

This is what I have:

FILES:

wallet.dat
multibit-xxxxxxxxxxxxx.wallet
multibit-xxxxxxxxxxxxx.info
multibit.wallet
multibit.key
multibit.info

Plus all the install files. About the only thing I don't have from 2014 are the blocks, which I'm downloading from the servers now.

I have tried following the steps to move the wallet into Electrum, but nothing seems to work.

I've tried installing Bitcoin Core again, but there's no option to open a wallet file from inside the GUI. I went into the directory and replaced the wallet.dat file with mine and restarted Bitcoin Core, but nothing changed. There are no .wallet or .key files to replace.

I'm suuuuper confused as to what I should do? Can anyone explain to me how to fix this? Preferably like I'm five?

Finally got access to my bitcoin wallet. Thanks everyone for the help!

Here's the accompanying thread where the bulk of my discoveries were made, for any future Google searchers.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5330885.0

I tried using Electrum and BitPay. Both ask for a password.

I searched wallet.dat for "name" and came up with two different addresses, but Blockchain.com says "Oops! We couldn’t find what you are looking for."

I have the wallet address I'm trying to access, but I'm unsure how to get it to open. I looked for a place to load the wallet into Bitcoin core, but didn't see an option to do so. I didn't find a .dat or .key file in the directory to replace.

EDIT: I lied. I replaced the wallet.dat file, but nothing changed. There was no .wallet file to replace

I'll give that a look. Thanks.

To clarify, what I did when I got into bitcoin was download the Bitcoin core program, was assigned a wallet, and started using Bitcoin faucets to obtain coins to the address the program gave me. I believe at some point I had that wallet in Multibit, which is why I have multibit.wallet files on some old drives of mine. I also have a multibit.key and wallet.dat files. I NEVER set a password for any of these files, but for some reason, every time I open the .wallet file in one of these newer programs, it asks for a password. (I've even tried making a new wallet and not setting a password, and these new programs still ask for a password.)

I think my problem isn't something to do with forgetting a password, but trying to figure out how to piece everything together to make it all work.

Hey all.

I got into bitcoin back in the early days of 2012 through 2014, and had set up a wallet through Multibit. The problem I'm having is that although I have all the files related to the wallet, I'm not sure how to get access to it. This was before seeds were required, and I never set a password for the .dat file. The problem is, when I last tried to use a program to open the wallet, it asked me for seed words, and wouldn't let me access it. I'm currently trying another wallet called Electrum, but I'm not having any success there either, although for different reasons. I'm just a little confused as to what they want me to enter in the box to restore a wallet. (It mentions private keys, but I'm following the instructions on their website, and I'm not seeing what they show)

Can anyone provide some advice? Maybe a noob friendly wallet that's easy to load Multibit wallets from?

Thanks for the help! I thought these bitcoins were lost forever. Glad to see that pessimistic view was wrong. Now I just need to determine what I'm gonna do with them.