Moving coins from wallet to wallet

[co1nb0y]

I have some funds in a legacy wallet (Bitcoin-QT) that I setup in 2011 when I started mining. Now I would like to move the funds to Electrum wallet for speed, disk-space and security reasons.

What would be the best way to do so?

1. Should I export the private key from Bitcoin-QT and sweep in Electrum? I tried one time but amount of btc was mismatch. Didn't look deep into it.

2. Transfer funds between addresses but it is not free as I have to pay miner fee.

Is there any other (free) way to do it?

Thanks.

[Welsh]

You could import the private key on a offline computer probably the best way if you don't want to pay the fees, but will take a little bit longer. There's no real best way really. It depends on whether you can justify the fee. If it's only a small amount then it's probably just easier to import the private key.

[Xynerise]

Just

Code:

dumpprivkey

of the addresses, then import the private keys into Electrum.
It's not an on-chain transaction so you don't need to pay fees.

[co1nb0y]

Just

Code:

dumpprivkey

of the addresses, then import the private keys into Electrum.
It's not an on-chain transaction so you don't need to pay fees.

I did try that and copied the privkey in electrum but IIRC the amount from source key did not match. I may be mistaken but I would definitely try again.

Thanks for your assurance.
 

[xYakult]

Just

Code:

dumpprivkey

of the addresses, then import the private keys into Electrum.
It's not an on-chain transaction so you don't need to pay fees.

I did try that and copied the privkey in electrum but IIRC the amount from source key did not match. I may be mistaken but I would definitely try again.

Thanks for your assurance.
 

Probably the amount shown in your Bitcoin-QT is the wrong one, you can check the real balance of your addresses on any block explorer like blockchain.info or btc.com

[co1nb0y]

Just

Code:

dumpprivkey

of the addresses, then import the private keys into Electrum.
It's not an on-chain transaction so you don't need to pay fees.

I did try that and copied the privkey in electrum but IIRC the amount from source key did not match. I may be mistaken but I would definitely try again.

Thanks for your assurance.
 

Probably the amount shown in your Bitcoin-QT is the wrong one, you can check the real balance of your addresses on any block explorer like blockchain.info or btc.com

Thanks for the pointer. I was being nervous as I had read somewhere that if something goes wrong when moving private keys, one could lose the funds.

I will try again.

Thanks.

[xYakult]

Just

Code:

dumpprivkey

of the addresses, then import the private keys into Electrum.
It's not an on-chain transaction so you don't need to pay fees.

I did try that and copied the privkey in electrum but IIRC the amount from source key did not match. I may be mistaken but I would definitely try again.

Thanks for your assurance.
 

Probably the amount shown in your Bitcoin-QT is the wrong one, you can check the real balance of your addresses on any block explorer like blockchain.info or btc.com

Thanks for the pointer. I was being nervous as I had read somewhere that if something goes wrong when moving private keys, one could lose the funds.

I will try again.

Thanks.

Dont worry as long as your computer is not infected by malwares you won't lose your funds. To be more safe for you, you can transfer your coins to a new address once you are done sweeping your private key/s

[co1nb0y]

Dont worry as long as your computer is not infected by malwares you won't lose your funds. To be more safe for you, you can transfer your coins to a new address once you are done sweeping your private key/s

Thanks for the pointer, much appreciated.

[co1nb0y]

how do I actually sweep private keys into electrum?


I pasted priv key in the dialog box but don't know how to save.

[Xynerise]

how do I actually sweep private keys into electrum?


I pasted priv key in the dialog box but don't know how to save.

Sweeping a private key into another wallet requires you to create a new bitcoin transaction that send the bitcoins from that wallet to a new one with the private key held on the new wallet. So obviously you'll pay a fee.

If you want to do it for free then you should import it instead.
Follow the instructions here to import a private key into Electrum: http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-import-private-keys-from-other-bitcoin-clients

[co1nb0y]

Sweeping a private key into another wallet requires you to create a new bitcoin transaction that send the bitcoins from that wallet to a new one with the private key held on the new wallet. So obviously you'll pay a fee.

If you want to do it for free then you should import it instead.
Follow the instructions here to import a private key into Electrum: http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-import-private-keys-from-other-bitcoin-clients

Thanks for the pointer. Much appreciated.

[co1nb0y]

Is there a way to estimate a fee for a transaction?

[Xynerise]

Is there a way to estimate a fee for a transaction?

bitcoinfees.21.co gives you an estimate fee in satoshis per byte.
To know the  exact fee you'd need to know the size of your transaction, then multiply it with the fee in Satoshi per byte.

Right now the recommended fee for quick confirmation is 490 Satoshi's per byte. the most common transaction type of one input and 2 outputs is 226 bytes.
Multiplying both of them gives you 106,220 Satoshi's, which is ~ 0.0010622BTC

The total fee will differ depending on the size of your transaction.