got old passphrase and possible pass

[lifer99]

HI  I BOUGHT A BITCOIN ABOUT 4/5 YEARS AGO AND ALL I HAVE IS THE PASSPHRASE AND A POSSIBLE PASSWORD WRITTEN UNDER THAT .I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS COULD BE WALLET ETC SO DO I HAVE ANY OPTIONS TO RECOVER IT ? THANKS

[1714826578]

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[1714826578]

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[socks435]

Give more information about your wallet if your wallet still alive on your PC you can try use the password to open your wallet but if you use the password as your seed phrase or private key it is impossible to recover your wallet.

You must have the seed phrase or private key in order to recover your wallet in any bitcoin wallet.

[actuallytwolamas]

I think what he has is seed and password of the wallet. In that case, the password is not necessary, because when you'll use a seed on the wallet, you could set up a new password. I guess I would start with Electrum wallet.

[buwaytress]

If you remember how you bought the Bitcoin (credit card? bank transfer?) that is another clue to help you find out where you bought it from. International standards for financial institutions used to be to keep all financial transaction records for at least 7 years before destroying them. If you could see the company you paid to or even the bank account you wired money to, that would really narrow down the list, especially if you never moved the Bitcoin away from the place you bought it from (I'm thinking since it's a password you have, then it's an online/web wallet service).

As users above say, unless you provide more info about how these passwords look like (without actually revealing them here), we could help identify what they are. More helpful is detail on the second password you have. String of words? String of random characters?

[lifer99]

Hi thank you for your reply’s, I bought it from an old friend but he sold many that I know are legit as he also sold me a fair amount of xrp which I have , he cannot remember how it was set up .  I only have a series of 12 words one of which is drawn and a possible password consisting  of a word and 6 numbers that I would have made as I recognise it

[Welsh]

What sort of wallet did you use? If you used a online wallet it's probably going to be Blockchain.info, and hopefully not TradeFortress' edition which I forget the name of.

If you used a Desktop wallet then there's several possibilities which you could've used. Here's the most popular ones:

- Bitcoin Core
- Electrum
- Multibit
- Armory (may not support mnemonic phrases)

You could try your 12 word mnemonic phrase in each one of those until you find the right one. If you don't find it in any of these wallets let us know, and we'll work out which wallet you used. AFAIK most of these wallets use a mnemonic phrase of some sort, however they may vary in length. Blockchain.info also uses mnemonic phrases to my knowledge.

Generally speaking as long as you find the wallet which you used previously, and have your mnemonic phrase dotted down accurately there should be no problem in recovering your funds as long as the private key hasn't been compromised. There's only a limited amount of wallets that you could of used so it shouldn't take long to determine which one it was, and hopefully these names might of hogged your memory a little bit.

The password at this point isn't needed. You have the mnemonic phrase. Do you also have the wallet.dat file?

[lifer99]

I should add I tried mycelium with no luck ,if I have seed does that not mean it’s in cold storage and not on an exchange ?

[lifer99]

Thank you for your long reply ,I’m afraid I did not set it up and not the most tech savvy guy 😬 I will research the links etc you suggested and thank you for your kind help . If I should manage to recover it would I have an option to send it to my nano ledger ?

[actuallytwolamas]

Thank you for your long reply ,I’m afraid I did not set it up and not the most tech savvy guy 😬 I will research the links etc you suggested and thank you for your kind help . If I should manage to recover it would I have an option to send it to my nano ledger ?

Yeah, if you will recover your wallet, you could send your coins to any wallet, including ledger.

[Welsh]

I should add I tried mycelium with no luck ,if I have seed does that not mean it’s in cold storage and not on an exchange ?

I'm not sure if any exchanges use mnemonic phrases, however it may be the case. There was a number of exchanges around a few years ago which aren't around anymore. First take a look at the desktop options, and then if that doesn't yield any fruit we can take a look at some of the exchanges that were around back then, and still are.

[Thirdspace]

Hi thank you for your reply’s, I bought it from an old friend but he sold many that I know are legit as he also sold me a fair amount of xrp which I have , he cannot remember how it was set up .  I only have a series of 12 words one of which is drawn and a possible password consisting  of a word and 6 numbers that I would have made as I recognise it

can you (or your friend) remember your bitcoin receiving address?
you could try iancoleman bip39 tool with that 12-word and passphrase
are those 6 numbers part of the possible password? or are they written down separately for security pin?

[HCP]

I only have a series of 12 words one of which is drawn and a possible password consisting  of a word and 6 numbers that I would have made as I recognise it

Is the word "drawn" or "draw"?

"drawn" is NOT on the BIP39 word list... which could spell trouble for you.

Look and see how many, if any, of the 12 words are on that word list. If you have other words that are not on that list, it likely means you do NOT have a BIP39 compatible recovery seed. If "drawn" is the only word not on the list, it is possible you just copied it down wrong.

[Abdussamad]

drawn is there in the old electrum mnemonic dictionary: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/old_mnemonic.py#L1446 so this might be an electrum wallet. just install the latest version of electrum from electrum.org and restore your wallet from seed as per this guide: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/restoring-your-standard-wallet-from-seed/

[lifer99]

I put in seed in electrum and new password it opened a wallet with zero balance .does this mean the end of the road or could it be another wallet ? I’m sure that the funds were originally sent so should I of put in old password ? I was told elsewhere that I should put new password for it .would it of opened this wallet if it was not used before, the history Is blank as well thanks

[Near28]

I put in seed in electrum and new password it opened a wallet with zero balance .does this mean the end of the road or could it be another wallet ? I’m sure that the funds were originally sent so should I of put in old password ? I was told elsewhere that I should put new password for it .would it of opened this wallet if it was not used before, the history Is blank as well thanks

The password does not matter - it is only for encryption.
if the seed you used restores an empty wallet you have either a false seed or never received a transaction.

[LoyceV]

I put in seed in electrum

Have you tried using your original password as an extended seed for Electrum?

[lifer99]

Ok so would electrum have created the wallet from the seed even if the funds are elsewhere like Multibit which I am yet to try ? And if I used new password could it be that as suggested I need to use extended password to reveal original balance ? Many thanks and apologies tried google but going in circles 🙂

[Near28]

If it's a multibit seed then you need to set the correct "Derivation Path" in electrum.

If yes proceed as follows:

1. Electrum Creat/Restore
2. I allready have a seed
3. Enter your Seed, Click Option, BIP39 Seed, Click Next
4. Change Derivation Path from  ( m/44'/0'/0')  to ( m/0' ) Click Next
5. Set Password and Restore Wallet

Edit/ Ok, I've just seen that it's probably an old Electrum seed so my guide will not work.

[Abdussamad]

It could be that you have an old blockchain.info wallet. Drawn is in their old wallet dictionary: https://github.com/blockchain/My-Wallet/blob/master/mnemonic.js . The 12 words are a password reminder mnemonic and not a wallet seed. Since you wrote down the password as well you don't need the 12 words. What you do need is the wallet UUID which looks like a random string of numbers and letters separated by hyphens.

Check your email archive for emails from blockchain.info. If you can find the UUID of your old wallet then you can login with that + your password. Alternatively you can ask them to email you the UUID: https://blockchain.info/wallet/#/reminder if you can guess what email you signed up with.