Fell into the Watched-Only trap - open to strategies to locate my wallet

[mcr192]

Hi All,

Long story short I bought 0.25 BTC in 2013, and had it stored in BlockChain Wallet on ioS and Web wallet until 2016 when I transferred it to another address of mine where it remains 'UNSPENT'
(Transaction is here --> https://blockchain.info/tx/90a1e3169427cab8c8c027197304c0ae84fdaa872365358f9cafcfc63ef43720)


Only recently I tried to move this to a Hardware wallet and realised that despite my Blockchain Wallet on Web and ios stating a balance of 0.2486BTC, it is marked as Watch Only as I've somehow managed to only import the public key so it's as good as staring through a seethrough bank vault at someone elses money right......

I have tried every blockchain wallet identifier I have, even had to use btcrecover with a long list of my old passwords to get into the oldest account, I don't seem to have the new address listed anywhere other than watched-only so I cannot access the private key.


Support on Blockchain can't provide help much, so I'm open to suggestions of how I could try and identify where the address I transferred to came from (13m3WY43UuJJa2LD2dsBSsaShJwJpQzgjJ) - so I can recover the private key.


I have an old Coinbase account, which has never had a transaction - I don't recall using any other wallet provider, there is nothing in my browser history or email history around the time of the email confirming that I transferred 0.25 BTC into the other address.


I've got the passwords and recovery phrases for my 2 blockchain wallets but neither have that address listed other than watched only, I have emails with my wallet.aes.json from the wallet I transferred the BTC from but assuming that's no help.

Am I up crap creek, as it were? Or can anyone think outside the box as to how I could try and locate what wallet I might have transferred it to.
Would there be any activity logs on Blockchain Wallet of when I imported the wallet so I can try and narrow the search to what emails and pages I was on at that time?

Cheers all, royally screwed myself here, it's only 0.25BTC but it would have really helped me fix up my new house!

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[kahc]

The address that you transferred the BTC to, does it belong to the same Blockchain wallet you sent from?

[mcr192]

No, I can't find any trace of the address in any of my blockchain Wallet of Coinbase accounts.

That's the problem right, it's all designed for you to not be able to track who owns the address.

Even if I could just work out which exchange or wallet service has the address, I could get access to my account with them!

[bL4nkcode]

Sorry to hear that but you can't spend funds on watched-only address, all you have the private keys or the seed of this address https://blockchain.info/address/13m3WY43UuJJa2LD2dsBSsaShJwJpQzgjJ
Since it's the receiving address of the transaction you posted above.

[kahc]

No, I can't find any trace of the address in any of my blockchain Wallet of Coinbase accounts.

That's the problem right, it's all designed for you to not be able to track who owns the address.

Even if I could just work out which exchange or wallet service has the address, I could get access to my account with them!

Since that is the case, the only way to find out if the coins are lost forever is if you attempt to spend the funds on the watch-only address by trying every private keys you have. Including the archived ones in your blockchain wallet.