BTC Recovery

[John487]

Hi Guys.
I'm new to BTC and very confused at the moment.I have a bitcoin address and the private key.I have a friend has sent me a very small amount to test the procedure but how to i get my BTC?
I tried using Electrum but ti wont let me add an address and if it does its monitor only and i am unable to see or send the BTC anywhere.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[OmegaStarScream]

Is it a paper wallet?

Create a standard wallet in Electrum and then go to wallet - private keys - sweep and paste (or scan) the private key you have. The funds in the address will be sent to your Electrum wallet.

[bitmover]

If you add the address it will be a watch only.
If you add the private keys, like omegascream said, you will be able to spend those coins.

Public addresses are used to receive, and private keys are used to spend.
Never share your privatekeys to anyone.

[DireWolfM14]

If you already have an Electrum wallet, you will only be able to sweep the private key.

If you open Electrum, Click on File> New/Restore> Next, you'll be able to import your private key.  Select "Import Bitcoin address or private keys" and click next.  You'll be able to paste or type out your private key into the field available on that page.  You must use your private key or the wallet will not allow to you spend the funds held in your address.

[joniboini]

If you're still confused after all of those explanations then reading the guide might help: https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html

[Abdussamad]

Private keys are supposed to stay private. If anyone is sharing their private keys with you then they are not your friend and are likely trying to scam you.

The correct way to use electrum is to download it from electrum.org and verify the signature of the maintainer. Then you install it and create a new wallet. To receive bitcoin use the receive tab and to send bitcoin use the send tab.

Note there are many fake electrum sites that try to fool you into installing malware. If you use those your coins will get stolen. Only download from electrum.org

[Pmalek]

I have a bitcoin address and the private key.

How did you get this address and private key? Did you not create it yourself in a software like Electrum?
Usually if someone gives you a private key there is something fishy going on.

If you search for that address on an explorer like https://blockchair.com/ does it contain the bitcoins that were sent to you?
If you have a valid private key you should be able to import that into Electrum using the guides the previous users shared.

[Lucius]

How did you get this address and private key? Did you not create it yourself in a software like Electrum?

I may be wrong, but to me, this situation seems like a classic attempt to scam someone by sending him a coin address and master public key, and only watch-only wallet can be created with this. Since the OP only manages to do that, there is a good chance that he does not actually have a private key associated with the address.

It is necessary to differentiate address, a private key for that address, master public key, and master private key.

[BitMaxz]

I may be wrong, but to me, this situation seems like a classic attempt to scam someone by sending him a coin address and master public key, and only watch-only wallet can be created with this. Since the OP only manages to do that, there is a good chance that he does not actually have a private key associated with the address.

It is necessary to differentiate address, a private key for that address, master public key, and master private key.

It's possible if the private keys and bitcoin address he talking about is from a friend who sent a bitcoin to that address.
But the weird thing is this as bolded below.

a
I tried using Electrum but ti wont let me add an address and if it does its monitor only and i am unable to see or send the BTC anywhere.

If you import public key or bitcoin address to Electrum if someone sent a bitcoin to that address you should receiving transaction under the transaction history.

What I see here is he doesn't know how to import the private key to Electrum wallet instead he imported the public/bitcoin address as watch-only wallet and the transaction that is being made by his friend looks like scam but we don't know which Electrum exactly he is using and maybe he is using old version of Electrum which is not syncing.

What he needs I think he needs a bitcoin explorer here to check the transaction and to check if he is actually receiving a bitcoin address from his address and we should ask/know if where the address and private key is being made.

[Pmalek]

the transaction that is being made by his friend looks like scam...

It doesn't necessarily have to be a scam. It is actually possible that his friend created the wallet and sent him the address and private key to it but OP just doesn't know what to do with it and how to import this private key into Electrum. That could be the reason why his friend did it for him in the first place. If in fact the person he is talking about is his friend and not some person he dealt with online that he is now calling 'a friend'. I did a similar thing for a young cousin of mine. I created his wallet and deposited bitcoins to it. His private data was in mine possession for a while until he got his new laptop and after that I set everything up at his place and now it is his business what he does with it.

Either way we need more information by the OP to figure out what is going on.