The FinderOuter, a bitcoin recovery tool (v0.19.1 2024-01-24)

[Coding Enthusiast]

I ran some tests with different compressed keys with 3 missing characters at different locations while editing the code to limit the search space (to shorten the time for tests), I couldn't figure out the issue since they all succeed.

https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/commit/e949a711dc5dfcbaa01d393ebaa32e3ea8911507
With this commit, when an invalid but full key (no missing characters) is typed in that text box, the message is more clear about where the problem was.

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[CoolBeans333]

Hi, is there a way for this tool to work for TRX private key? My private key is messing 4 characters at the end of it.

Thank you

[Coding Enthusiast]

Hi, is there a way for this tool to work for TRX private key? My private key is messing 4 characters at the end of it.

This project is designed to only work for bitcoin but it may be used for any altcoin that is similar to bitcoin.
I took a quick look at Tron's source code and it seems like it is using the same curve (secp256k1) as bitcoin and has base58 encoding although I couldn't figure out if they use the same encoding for WIFs. If your key encoding is hexadecimal then it doesn't work but if it is a base-58 encoded string with a checksum and same additional bytes then you can use this tool.

[AmirKsh]

Hello Coding Enthusiast  / first i want to thank you for working on such a software with a GUI user friendly because as you said ,  there are people who do not know to use/apply  a code or even use the cmd ( and belive me there are a lot of them)   ;  your software just makes the things more easy

On the other hand i also have a problem with my private key but your software will not work for my scenario because my key is saved in 64 hexadecimal format: If you would modify the software to accept also  the hexa format and not only base58 , i would send you a small tip as soon as i will recover my private key (i have 7 missing characters out of 64;i know the location of them )  here is the original post of my matter if you want to take a look please : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5227915.0   

Also i belive this update will help others too and not only me because there are many people who prefer the hexadecimal format and not base58 because even if the first one it's longer (64 hexa characters instead of 51/52 base58 characters)  , you don't have to deal with capital or small letters   especially for cold paper wallets it is prefered this method

waiting for a replay from you i will keep my prommise and send a tip/donation to you as soon as i recover my private key

[Coding Enthusiast]

On the other hand i also have a problem with my private key but your software will not work for my scenario because my key is saved in 64 hexadecimal format: If you would modify the software to accept also  the hexa format and not only base58

OK, let me see what I can do but unlike base-58 it will be very slow since it requires EC point multiplication which is slow by nature and my ECC code is particularly slow since I still haven't had time to optimize it.
I'll post an update here when it is finished.

[Coding Enthusiast]

Version 0.1.2 is released.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases/tag/v0.1.2.0
See changelog for more details.
Most notable changes are:
- New feature: missing chars in base-16 encoded keys (unfortunately unlike other options this is very slow for now)
- Simplified Base-58 option to no longer need a checkbox for special case.
- Base-58 will return a friendly error message if a full private key was entered and was invalid.
- Some optimization and code cleanup.

[AmirKsh]

hey Coding Enthuziast thank you for the update , i was not expected to be done that soon . 

i've downloaded your software aaand  ...now it seem i have another obstacle (( oooh man , it never eeeends (( 

the software you made is for Ubuntu Linux , well i have a macbook ,anyway i also have  a virtual machine windows 10 app installed ( the name of application is Parallels Desktop-it is a virtual Windows 10 with full licence wich is running inside my IOS ) 

 I opened the virtual windows 10 and tryed to install inside , a virtualbox with ubuntu !   something like : Ubuntu running inside Windows 10 , running inside an IOS , a mess, i know )))))     but they don't let do do that (((    i think i can not run a virtual machine inside another virtual machine

I've seen on github on your page some instructions for converting the software and make it run in windows but i can not handlle them   how can i make it run on Windows 10 or IOS??? with instructions step by step for noobs ....  :/ 

Hey , and by the way , you said the soft will run verry slow for base16 privatekeys, well , just curios.... how slow ?    like 1/2 private keys per seconds ??

with all of that beeing said , i want to thank you again for your efort      

[Coding Enthusiast]

the software you made is for Ubuntu Linux , well i have a macbook

I'd recommend doing the following (more info here: https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter#running-the-finderouter):
1. Download FinderOuter release or source and build it yourself (deterministic builds and PGP signature will be added in near future)
2. Download Ubuntu
3. Verify Ubuntu's iso
4. Disconnect network cable (to remain offline)
5. Boot from a DVD or USB
6. Run FinderOuter

I've seen on github on your page some instructions for converting the software and make it run in windows but i can not handlle them   how can i make it run on Windows 10 or IOS??? with instructions step by step for noobs ....  :/ 

You may find it easier if you used Visual Studio (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/mac/), if you install that then all you have to do is to open the solution file (FinderOuter.sln) and change solution configuration to "Release" and build using Build > Build solution from menu or press Ctrl+Shift+B and you'll find the binary at

Code:

...\Src\FinderOuter\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.1\FinderOuter.dll

If you didn't want to download VS. then MSDN has some good posts to get you started on how to use dotnet commands.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/get-started
An example: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tutorials/cli-create-console-app
the dotnet build command: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/dotnet-build
Basically you'll have to run:

Code:

dotnet build FinderOuter.sln --configuration Release --runtime osx-x64

Hey , and by the way , you said the soft will run verry slow for base16 privatekeys, well , just curios.... how slow ?    like 1/2 private keys per seconds ??

To have a comparison the Base-58 part searches for 1.4 million keys per second but the Base-16 part is searching for 1200 keys/sec on my PC.
I am trying to optimize ECC (which is what slows things down here) but unfortunately that will take a very long time to be ready.

[Dydy94]

Bonjour l'équipe,
Je voudrais savoir ?
Les sauvegarde bit coin core :
Peuvent elles être récupérer avec le logiciel? (FinderOuter)
Je n'arrive pas à le télécharger.
De plus j'ai pas ubuntu . Juste Windows 8.
Merci pour votre réponse
(Sauvegarde  bitcoin core dans un fichier)
( je n'ai pas réussis avec btcrecover ou pywallet)

[Coding Enthusiast]

Sorry, The FinderOuter doesn't support wallet files (bitcoin core backups) yet.
And please ask your questions in English so that I don't have to use Google Translate.

[bonhomme]

Thank you for all Coding Enthusiast. But that's very difficult to follow for people who are not involved in IT, I tried all night long to launch FinderOuter but that doesn't work... maybe I am too idiot.

[Coding Enthusiast]

Thank you for all Coding Enthusiast. But that's very difficult to follow for people who are not involved in IT, I tried all night long to launch FinderOuter but that doesn't work... maybe I am too idiot.

Did you try to build the project from source code and faced difficulties or did you try to run the compiled version (the 27 MB file called v0.1.2.0.zip) and had problems?
And please mention the difficulties you encountered explicitly so that I could improve the project and make things easier.

[Coding Enthusiast]

Version 0.2.0 is released.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases/tag/v0.2.0.0
See changelog for more details.
Most notable changes are:
- Replacing backend with the well tested Bitcoin.Net library which improves performance and fixes some bugs
- Added 2 new features: recovering Base-58 addresses and BIP-38 encrypted keys
- Fix some bugs including a bug that prevented the FinderOuter from running on Ubuntu 20

[xgustavoo]

Hello!

I have an address with 12 characters left. Is it feasible to try to recover?

"Total number of keys to test: 1.449.225.352.009.601.191.936"

Could this take years?

[LoyceV]

I have an address with 12 characters left. Is it feasible to try to recover?

Do you mean a private key with 12 characters left? Forget it!
If it's an address, 12 characters is enough to check if it holds funds.

[xgustavoo]

It is a privatekey with 51 characters, I lost 12 characters. I lost everything?

[Coding Enthusiast]

It is a privatekey with 51 characters, I lost 12 characters. I lost everything?

Short answer is it's impossible to recover this private key since the number of possible keys to check is enormous.

You'll need to construct and compute 1,449*10¹⁸ hashes, in comparison current total bitcoin hashrate (the entire bitcoin mining power) is about 100*10¹⁸ and that is hash of a rather fixed input that doesn't have the same additional computation step on each round. That means even if you had all the ASICs operating today and had a way of modifying them to compute the hash you want, you still wouldn't even be able to go through 5% of the cases.

On top of that since the number of missing characters is huge, the number of correct results is going to be large and in order to go through all of them there is another bottleneck which is computation of public key and if needed the address to compare with an input (FinderOuter doesn't do that in current version).

PS. I don't want to get your hopes up but there may be a small chance if you have your public key. I still haven't looked into the algorithm (Pollard's kangaroo) but it may be possible if we could get a manageable range of keys from what you already have.

Merging 2 consecutive comments

I tried Electrum and Mycelium, both didn't tell me the reason. I didn't use bitaddress because I couldn't run it offline at that moment. I guess the checksum must have failed.
The resulting key was the original, with 2 characters added at one place, and further one 1 character added. I was very hopeful at that moment that it would have found the the correct key.

I still haven't been able to find any problem that involves checksum, it appears to be working correctly.
However I found another problem while testing. It was due to checksum collision and the fact that second character was missing, it ended up producing a wrong starting byte hence an invalid key.
I'm currently refactoring the way reports work and will add more checks before printing result. For now my latest commit is a simple fix that makes the loop continue running (like all the rest of the loops!). The result is that even if it finds an invalid key it still continues running until it searches the entire space so there may be another possible key down the line that is valid.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/commit/5ed05806c64a7790a8c9c300fe5722809bc7e4ec

For reference the test vector was this:

Code:

K**M*jGmerYanjeui5SHS7JkmpZ*VipYvB2*JGU1ZxJwYvP98617
result 1 (valid)
KwdMAjGmerYanjeui5SHS7JkmpZvVipYvB2LJGU1ZxJwYvP98617
result 2 (invalid)
KGZM5jGmerYanjeui5SHS7JkmpZnVipYvB2UJGU1ZxJwYvP98617

[Coding Enthusiast]

Version 0.3.0 is released.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases/tag/v0.3.0.0
See changelog for more details.
Most notable changes are:
- New feature: mini-privatekey (of length 22, 26 or 30) missing characters
- Some bug fixes in missing base-58 option
- Improved reports

Version 0.4.0 is released.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases/tag/v0.4.0.0
See changelog for more details.
Most notable changes are:
- New feature: BIP-39 mnemonic recovery
- Code improvement, optimization of hash algorithms, more tests

Version 0.4.1 is released.
https://github.com/Coding-Enthusiast/FinderOuter/releases/tag/v0.4.1.0
See changelog for details.
This is a minor version released with a little bit of delay that introduces the Example button. It is an easy and quick way of seeing how to fill different text boxes. Hopefully it can clear some confusions that some beginners may have with things such as BIP-32 paths.

[Coding Enthusiast]

Version 0.5.0 released (The Parallelization Update)

This is the parallelism update with tons of optimization from a small 10% speed gain to more than 1800% in some cases.  
- Most of these optimizations are in Base58 recovery option.  
  - Compressed and uncompressed private key recovery uses all available CPU cores for maximum speed and at 100% capacity.
  - Two special cases were added to recover private keys that are missing characters from their end (up to 9 missing for uncompressed and 11 for compressed is the default for now and can be recovered in less than a minute).  
  - Recovery of Base58 addresses and BIP-38 encrypted keys are also optimized the same way.
- Mini private key recovery
  - It uses all available CPU cores
  - It suffers from the known issue #9
  - The extra input has more options like other recovery options to enter different types of addresses or a public key.
- Mnemonic recovery
  - New wordlist added (Czech)
  - There is a simple checkbox now to set the key index itself to be hardened
  - It suffers from the known issue #9 whenever there is EC multiplication involved (private key to public key), otherwise if there weren't any the code will run at maximum efficiency using all cores at 100% (see 5th example in mnemonic recovery)

Other most notable changes:
- Now there is a progress bar at the bottom that will be used when recovering in parallel to show the progress so far. Other times when using single core the recovery process never takes up longer than a minute (usually less than 10 seconds) so progress bar is disabled.  
- Addition of more examples for each recovery option.  
- Various code improvements and bug fixes.

[dextronomous]

Hi Coding Enthusiast, i cant compile it   broken os.
could you get a compiled one up and ready to use, for windows 10 probably,
thanks a lot, just did fix the not compiling issue, used ps net .