I have lost my Bitcoin, is there anything I can do?

[Palleball]

I don't have much hope, but I might as well ask.

Several years ago, I bought 1 BTC. I used MacWallet. When transferring a bitcoin from one of my wallet adresses to another within the same program, something went wrong and corrupted the wallet and I lost the coin. (I think the private key was never written to my wallet.dat upon creation, or some other bug like that). I was aware of it being an alpha program, so it's my fault. I'm not blaming anyone else.

Anyway… Today, a Bitcoin is worth so much, that I thought I might as well ask you if there's anyting that can be done. I found some backups of differnt kinds, some .dat files, some long string I'm not sure what it is. Well, basically "backups" that I think have no value but if they do… Would anyone care to help me out? There are short strings, long strings and I've written down a password. I don't know what any of these things are, nor where I should begin.

I'm on a Mac.

[1714031999]

1714031999

[1714031999]

1714031999

[1714031999]

1714031999

[1714031999]

1714031999

[Welsh]

It depends on what happened if there's still value in the addresses then it could be possible to salvage it with the -salvagewallet on Bitcoin core. I'm not familiar with macwallet but I would suggest trying to get it to work with Bitcoin core. It could just be that Macwallet is corrupted itself, so by importing it into another wallet in might work straight off. If not there's a few things you can do in the command line of bitcoin core such as -salvagewallet.

[Palleball]

It depends on what happened if there's still value in the addresses then it could be possible to salvage it with the -salvagewallet on Bitcoin core. I'm not familiar with macwallet but I would suggest trying to get it to work with Bitcoin core.

I don't know what that means. Keep in mind, I know nothing about Bitcoin. I just bought the coin for fun and then my wallet went corrupt and I didn't know what to do, and I just forgot about it.

Where do I start?

[achow101]

Post your debug.log file.

[Palleball]

Post your debug.log file.

Thank you for answering. I don't have a debug file. I kind of gave up a few years ago, and just accepted that it was gone. But now I've found some backups. They are all either .key or .wallet files. Except one which is a text file with a 704 alphanumerical sequence in it. As well as a shorter sequence (looks like this c8d46023-25d8-59de-86a0-5d1b4db68df1, but another sequence. I changed it for illustration, just in case it should be kept secret).

[bob123]

At first you could look at the size of the files. I guess if its less than 1 kb there probably won't be any chances of getting your private keys.
You may find out how the encryption in macwallet worked at the time you were using it. There are tools online which can help you to decrypt you file.
Afterwards you might find any information if you open the file in a hex editor. Or try to import it into a new version of macwallet with restore option.
You also could try some tools which try to restore all kind of wallet files on your pc. But this should be done without internet connection (for security reasons).

[Palleball]

At first you could look at the size of the files. I guess if its less than 1 kb there probably won't be any chances of getting your private keys.
You may find out how the encryption in macwallet worked at the time you were using it. There are tools online which can help you to decrypt you file.
Afterwards you might find any information if you open the file in a hex editor. Or try to import it into a new version of macwallet with restore option.
You also could try some tools which try to restore all kind of wallet files on your pc. But this should be done without internet connection (for security reasons).

Do you have any examples of such program that can restore wallet files? I know MacWallet used bitcoinj.

[HCP]

I know that MultiBit was using BitcoinJ... Maybe make some copies of your .wallet files and see if you can open them with MultiBit Classic (https://multibit.org/release-info/classic/v0.5.19.html)... Not sure if you can open "random" wallet files with MultiBit HD (https://multibit.org/releases/multibit-hd/multibit-hd-0.5.1/)

NOTE: both versions of MultiBit are outdated and are no longer maintained and don't come with any official support.

Hopefully, the BitcoinJ "wallet file" format should be relatively consistent across applications, as the apps use BitcoinJ functions and "ProtoBuf" to read/write the wallet files.

Also, assuming you have the encryption password, it's possible you may be able to dump the private keys out of the .wallet file or the .key file using my Python scripts (https://github.com/HardCorePawn/multibit_recovery). No guarantees though, MacWallet may have used different encryption settings

[Palleball]

I know that MultiBit was using BitcoinJ... Maybe make some copies of your .wallet files and see if you can open them with MultiBit Classic (https://multibit.org/release-info/classic/v0.5.19.html)... Not sure if you can open "random" wallet files with MultiBit HD (https://multibit.org/releases/multibit-hd/multibit-hd-0.5.1/)

NOTE: both versions of MultiBit are outdated and are no longer maintained and don't come with any official support.

Hopefully, the BitcoinJ "wallet file" format should be relatively consistent across applications, as the apps use BitcoinJ functions and "ProtoBuf" to read/write the wallet files.

Also, assuming you have the encryption password, it's possible you may be able to dump the private keys out of the .wallet file or the .key file using my Python scripts (https://github.com/HardCorePawn/multibit_recovery). No guarantees though, MacWallet may have used different encryption settings

Can I run it on a Mac? I'm getting some Google ProtoBuf error, but perhaps that's solvable on my side?

I tried importing all my old wallet files that seemed corrupt at the time several years ago. And you were right, it did open in MultiBit! And out of all my created wallets, one of them showed this: https://imgur.com/a/MEexo

I really have no idea what I'm doing here, so I don't want to screw up. Where do I go from here?

[HCP]

I tried importing all my old wallet files that seemed corrupt at the time several years ago. And you were right, it did open in MultiBit! And out of all my created wallets, one of them showed this: https://imgur.com/a/MEexo

I really have no idea what I'm doing here, so I don't want to screw up. Where do I go from here?

The first thing you should do is send all your coins to 1HCPsAddress for safe keeping!

But seriously, given that MultiBit Classic is really old and outdated, sending your coins from MBC is actually a bit difficult. It's fee system is really "broken" and only allows for a max fee of around 50 sats/byte... Which in today's Bitcoin network can often mean slow confirmation times and stuck transactions.

What you can do, however, is export your private keys from MBC and then import (or "sweep", see below) them into another wallet like Electrum. Electrum is also a light weight SPV wallet like MultiBit was (no need to download the full blockchain), is actively maintained and has a good group of knowledgeable users here who can assist with any issues.

You can get Electrum here: https://electrum.org/#download

You can find a good, easy to follow video tutorial (created by MultiBit) on how to export your keys and import into Electrum here: https://youtu.be/LaijbTcxsv8




On the slightly more technical and involved front, personally, I would recommend creating a "seeded" HD wallet in Electrum ("standard wallet -> create a new seed") before you start. Then, once you have that setup, you should export your keys and then "sweep" the contents of the MBC private keys into your new Electrum wallet.

That way your coins are actually moved into new addresses with new "more secure "private keys (ie. They haven't been potentially exposed during export like your MBC ones now have) and your coins will now be protected with the 12 word seed mnemonic, making recovery a LOT more simple!

To sweep, you simply open the Electrum wallet and select "Wallet -> Private keys -> sweep" and follow the directions.

If you need any more advice or help, just ask

[Palleball]

I tried importing all my old wallet files that seemed corrupt at the time several years ago. And you were right, it did open in MultiBit! And out of all my created wallets, one of them showed this: https://imgur.com/a/MEexo

I really have no idea what I'm doing here, so I don't want to screw up. Where do I go from here?

The first thing you should do is send all your coins to 1HCPsAddress for safe keeping!

But seriously, given that MultiBit Classic is really old and outdated, sending your coins from MBC is actually a bit difficult. It's fee system is really "broken" and only allows for a max fee of around 50 sats/byte... Which in today's Bitcoin network can often mean slow confirmation times and stuck transactions.

What you can do, however, is export your private keys from MBC and then import (or "sweep", see below) them into another wallet like Electrum. Electrum is also a light weight SPV wallet like MultiBit was (no need to download the full blockchain), is actively maintained and has a good group of knowledgeable users here who can assist with any issues.

You can get Electrum here: https://electrum.org/#download

You can find a good, easy to follow video tutorial (created by MultiBit) on how to export your keys and import into Electrum here: https://youtu.be/LaijbTcxsv8




On the slightly more technical and involved front, personally, I would recommend creating a "seeded" HD wallet in Electrum ("standard wallet -> create a new seed") before you start. Then, once you have that setup, you should export your keys and then "sweep" the contents of the MBC private keys into your new Electrum wallet.

That way your coins are actually moved into new addresses with new "more secure "private keys (ie. They haven't been potentially exposed during export like your MBC ones now have) and your coins will now be protected with the 12 word seed mnemonic, making recovery a LOT more simple!

To sweep, you simply open the Electrum wallet and select "Wallet -> Private keys -> sweep" and follow the directions.

If you need any more advice or help, just ask

Thank you very much. As it turns out, the wallet is corrupt. :-( Just as I remembered it a couple of years ago when I abandoned it and thought "ah, screw it, my wallet doesn't work, and a BTC isn't worth that much anyway".

When I try to export the keys from MultiBit it just kind of doesn't do anything. And when I click on the "Check private keys" I get:

----------------------------------------------------------------
Private key check FAIL for the wallet "". There are 1 private keys that do not match their receiving addresses.
The following addresses do not have correct matching private keys: 12dP3YaDxBkxLRseGWxp2TPRRfys1j6CBF.
DO NOT SEND BITCOIN TO THESE ADDRESSES AS IT WILL NOT BE REDEEMABLE.
----------------------------------------------------------------

I'll just keep dreaming about what I'd do with 7 000 dollars right now :-) Unless there's anything else I can do.

[HCP]

Normally, I would have said that it depends on whether or not the private key is actually broken, or the receiving address is wrong.

But according to b.info that "12dP3YaDxBkxLRseGWxp2TPRRfys1j6CBF" address is the one that contains all the coins. So if, as MBC suggests, the private key isn't matching that address then it might be difficult to recover the coins.

It is possible that it might just be an "uncompressed" vs. "compressed" address issue. In which case, if you can dump the private key from the wallet or key file and put it into bitaddress.org, you'll be able to see which addresses it actually matches up with.

Dumping the keys might be possible... Not exactly a "one click" solution... But if you're familiar with Python and command line scripts it shouldn't be too difficult: https://github.com/HardCorePawn/multibit_recovery

[taichinhhanaHN]

ou can provided you still have acces to your registered email id and hold the registered phone number.

down load the app on the new phone . login with email - passwod.

if you had set the 4 digit pin, put in . in case you have forgotten pin you can get a new pin in 24 hrs after you lock your pin .

hope this helps.

[Palleball]

Normally, I would have said that it depends on whether or not the private key is actually broken, or the receiving address is wrong.

But according to b.info that "12dP3YaDxBkxLRseGWxp2TPRRfys1j6CBF" address is the one that contains all the coins. So if, as MBC suggests, the private key isn't matching that address then it might be difficult to recover the coins.

It is possible that it might just be an "uncompressed" vs. "compressed" address issue. In which case, if you can dump the private key from the wallet or key file and put it into bitaddress.org, you'll be able to see which addresses it actually matches up with.

Dumping the keys might be possible... Not exactly a "one click" solution... But if you're familiar with Python and command line scripts it shouldn't be too difficult: https://github.com/HardCorePawn/multibit_recovery

Thank you. Turns out there's no private key for 12dP3YaDxBkxLRseGWxp2TPRRfys1j6CBF in that wallet file. So the program I used at the time must have screwed up. And I screwed up by transferring funds to that wallet without having checked that the private key was correct.

So I guess that's that. 7k dollars.