best practices for restoring old wallet.dat (2011)

[lordbyron2883]

i have what i believe is an unencrypted wallet.dat from 2011 generated by the original bitcoin client.  can anyone recommend the steps i should take in order to check it out safely, then transfer btc (if any) to an encrypted wallet with a paper backup going forward? 

[1715124617]

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[1715124617]

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[1715124617]

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[jackg]

i have what i believe is an unencrypted wallet.dat from 2011 generated by the original bitcoin client.  can anyone recommend the steps i should take in order to check it out safely, then transfer btc (if any) to an encrypted wallet with a paper backup going forward? 

I'd suggest you look at the bitcoin core released at that point if you simply just want to transfer out the coins as all you need to do is access the private keys and transfer the coins into a new wallet.
The older versions of core are findeable from the bitcoin website. here

Alternatively, you could try installing the current version of the core and seeing if the -updatewallet command works (however, as the wallet file is 6 years old, it may not).

[HI-TEC99]

The latest version of Bitcoin core can open wallet.dat files created in 2011. I tested it and it works.

You can check if any of the addresses from your wallet.dat file contain Bitcoins by copying them from Bitcoin core and searching for them in this website. You don't need to wait for Bitcoin core to sync.

https://blockchain.info/

Although bitcoin.org has some old wallets available for download it advises against syncing them because of known security flaws.

https://bitcoin.org/bin/insecure/README.txt

The releases in this directory contain known security flaws and should not be used.

Do you mean you want to transfer your Bitcoins to an encrypted Bitcoin core wallet or an alternative like electrum?

[lordbyron2883]

thanks for the advice.

my plan was to use armory to make a paper backup offline wallet, as i was under the impression that would be the best method for secure long terms storage.