Alternative way of claiming a fork? E.g. with private keys?

[PeskyWabbit]

Hello everyone,

I understand there are some Bitcoin forks coming up.

My crypto currency is in an online wallet (coin.space) and I don't want to purchase a hardware wallet. Neither do I wish to keep transferring my funds from here to there trying to keep up with this stuff.

If my online wallet doesn't support the fork can I can claim funds from any upcoming forks in another way? E.g. Could I use the private keys from my online wallet somehow.

Thanks

[1715154894]

1715154894

[1715154894]

1715154894

[1715154894]

1715154894

[mocacinno]

First of all: there's a middle ground here... Online wallets are insecure (imho), you're not the (only) one controlling your private keys, so you're not the (only) one controlling your funds.

If you're not ready to buy a hardware wallet, a desktop wallet on a clean PC will usually be a step up (safety wise) compared to an online wallet.

As for your question: if you can export your private keys from your online wallet, you can probably import them in the fork's reference wallet... However: this might not always be a good idear, for example, not all forks might have replay protection, so importing your private keys into the fork's wallet and spending those forked altcoins might end up costing you your unspent outputs on the bitcoin network!

[PeskyWabbit]

Thanks for your insight, mocacinno

[BlockchainCoder]

could I use the online wallet to apply all those hard fork in December and January? I have been known that for example the Coinomi bitcoin.com could help to claim for the hard fork, and seems easy to do, is that ok to perform the claim in a online fork? Is there anyone has a user experience to do this way? which one is the best? many thanks!

[Xynerise]

could I use the online wallet to apply all those hard fork in December and January? I have been known that for example the Coinomi bitcoin.com could help to claim for the hard fork, and seems easy to do, is that ok to perform the claim in a online fork? Is there anyone has a user experience to do this way? which one is the best? many thanks!

Do not use online wallets.
A lot of hacks have occurred this way.

You can import your private keys to Coinomi wallet and use that instead.
Coinomi runs on your phone so it's safer than using online wallets.