I've found my old wallet.dat now what?

[alex_alien]

Hi i've mining with mtred teams late november 2011. Now i've found my wallet and a txt file with 2 btc adress how do i get to use the btc i've mined?

[1714883068]

1714883068

[1714883068]

1714883068

[LoyceV]

First: make another backup!
Then: install Bitcoin Core, and use it to open wallet.dat. You'll need to either download the full blockchain (300 GB) or export your private keys and import them in for instance Electrum.
Don't forget there are also Forkcoins you can claim. When in doubt: don't rush it, and make sure you know what you're doing before doing it.

[NeuroticFish]

If you get errors you may need to use older version Bitcoin Core.
You could spend some time and read these threads (completely)

Recovering old wallet.dat
I need help restore my wallet.dat
Old wallet.dat file, synched up, can't send BTC out.


And if the sync is too slow you may want to read this:  Very slow synchronizing with Bitcoin Core
Make sure you have 300 GB space.

[elmanchez]

Make sure you have exact the wallet file (*.dat).
The passphrase
Those two need to dump the private key.

It works with Bitcoin Core 0.8, cause it does not work in new version, 0.14

[alex_alien]

Thanks looks like I will need to download the block chain first so lets talk in 2-3 days

[guigui371]

a txt file with 2 btc adress how do i get to use the btc i've mined?

If you have your BTC addresses you can look them up here : https://blockchair.com/

You will be able to find some BCH some BSV some BTG. Their total value is about 5% of the BTC value.
I would claim those only once you have successfully moved your coins to a secure location (a hardwallet).

You are potentially looking a large amount of BTC, so I would advise you to NOT display/share your BTC addresses (even though I die to know how much you are unearthing !!).

If you have more than 1 BTC (likely if you mined in 2011), I would buy a Trezor or a Ledger Nano S/X to store your coins.

[hosseinimr93]

Thanks looks like I will need to download the block chain first so lets talk in 2-3 days

As stated by LoyceV, you don't have to download the blockchain. You can export the private key from Bitcoin Core and import it into anther wallet like Electrum. In Electrum, you don't need to download the blockchain.

[Stedsm]

Thanks looks like I will need to download the block chain first so lets talk in 2-3 days

As stated by LoyceV, you don't have to download the blockchain. You can export the private key from Bitcoin Core and import it into anther wallet like Electrum. In Electrum, you don't need to download the blockchain.

If not Electrum, Mycelium works great as well. The same as Electrum but better when it comes to security. Just import your privkey(s) there, let it sync and you'll see your coins in it. It won't take 2-3 days but 15-20 mins max depending on the date the transaction took place (I mean when your coins entered your wallet.

[Csmiami]

---

For that to work, he would either need to know the exact addresses that had coins in them, or dump all the wallet keys and check every address individually I'm not sure about the second one being faster than downloading the whole blockchain, because there are a hell lot of addresses in the dump file.

Just going to make the standard question here, which won't really matter much since you can lie and everything, but:

1)Are the wallets genuinely yours, or did you buy them at a website trying to bruteforce them?

[hosseinimr93]

---

For that to work, he would either need to know the exact addresses that had coins in them, or dump all the wallet keys and check every address individually I'm not sure about the second one being faster than downloading the whole blockchain, because there are a hell lot of addresses in the dump file.

Even if the OP doesn't remember addresses that had bitcoin in them, there is no need to dump all the private keys. Can use listreceivedbyaddress command first. Using this command, Bitcoin Core will list all addresses containing bitcoin. And then only dump the private key of the address(es) with bitcoin.

[nc50lc]

Even if the OP doesn't remember addresses that had bitcoin in them, there is no need to dump all the private keys. Can use listreceivedbyaddress command first. Using this command, Bitcoin Core will list all addresses containing bitcoin. And then only dump the private key of the address(es) with bitcoin.

That command wont work without the blockchain;
and your discussion is about dumping the key(s) of his address(es) so he can access his funds without downloading the blockchain.

[fillippone]

Without breaking too much your opSec, I am interested in the story behing that.

What does it mean:

Now i've found my wallet and a txt file with 2 btc adress

Did you forget about bitcoin since 2011 and suddenly realised you were sitting on 20K?
Have you desperately been trying to ger your wallet back and finally managed to recover it?
Did you search the whole dump where you trashed your HD?

[guigui371]

@op can we have an update?
The blockchain should have been fully downloaded by then?
Are you rich?

You said you had two btc addresses on a .doc file.
Did you check those on a btc explorer?

[alex_alien]

Hi everyone back at this project, i have .98466796 BTC mined with mt.red mining pool all received with 3 payment of about .33 each. on one adress and nothing on the other.
If i recall correctly mt.red stopped doing it and i stil had .35 something to be transfered and i said a f** it it's 5$ at that time.
I knew I had mined a little but stopped to play skyrim becasue gpu wouldn't run both ... what a bad choice it was.
I've ofund the wallet when btc was 20k but i did not needed the money that much at that time so it was so hard to retreive that i gave up and
I told myself if it gets to 100k i will try again. Now I do need this cash unfortunatly but im debating on spending half of it on a mining rig to get back that coin in 2 years.

[nc50lc]

Hmm, I'm confused with your last reply, is the issue now solved or not?

If it's still in the mining pool's internal wallet, they are the only one that can help you with this.
If it is in that wallet.dat and you have no idea of the possible passphrase, then a mining rig won't be able to bruteforce it unless it's short or common.
If you decided to build a mining rig, make sure that the GPUs are all 8GB so you can mine Ethereum with it at least.

I knew I had mined a little but stopped to play skyrim becasue gpu wouldn't run both ... what a bad choice it was.

Yeah, dropping Skyrim was a really bad choice  

[alex_alien]

Sorry for my poor english. nope it's not yet resolved. Mt red seems to have stopped there operation so i don't have any link to contact them. I'm pretty sure there is no passphrase on the wallet.dat. Am at this now. When I replace the wallet.dat in btcore it take forever to load and once it open in the receiving adress i get tag and adresse. Tag are named after the same adresse as the wallet that have the bitcoin but they have another adress. Also the wallet wich was 62kb become 712kb and i tried dumppriv key on the adress but get an erroe unable to find privkey.

[Abdussamad]

how about you let bitcoin core sync and it'll tell you whether you have any money in that wallet or not

[alex_alien]

how about you let bitcoin core sync and it'll tell you whether you have any money in that wallet or not

it sync but according to my adress it has some but not showing in btc core

[hosseinimr93]

it sync but according to my adress it has some but not showing in btc core

Are you sure you have bitcoin in that address? Have you checked the balance through a bitcoin explorer?

For checking your balance, you can go to a bitcoin explorer (e.g. Blockchain, Blockchair, blockstream and search your bitcoin address.
If there's any bitcoin in that address and your bitcoin core wallet is synced, the balance should be shown.
If you have bitcoin in that address, but your balance is not shown for any reason, as stated in previous posts, you can export your private key and import it into another wallet like Electrum.

[nc50lc]

Sorry for my poor english. nope it's not yet resolved. -snip-

Your English is fine, it's not as bad as mine  
The problem is you hadn't stated it clearly and didn't actually replied to the previous posts (but did after answering a question),
What I get is: you've mentioned about a BTC balance in a mining pool then proceeded to mention the wallet.
Then you didn't tell if you have the passphrase for the wallet (in the OP) but given a clue that you didn't in the previous reply.

BTW, it's what I've said in my previous reply.
You need to at least know a couple of possible passphrases or parts to bruteforce it.

it sync but according to my adress it has some but not showing in btc core

Where did you found the address? In a txt file? You shouldn't rely on that.

Have you properly loaded your wallet.dat?
You need to paste it in the data directory\wallets while Bitcoin Core isn't running then it will issue a rescan at start.