Check if there's any BCH left in my address

[dazz.]

Hi guys. I'm wondering if there's a way to check if I have any BCH from the BTC hard fork in my old BTC addresses.
Can I simply download the BCH wallet and replace the wallet.dat with the one in my BTC wallet?

Thanks

[Upgrade00]

If you still have the wallet address, you can check the balance on https://blockchair.com/ and select results for BCH
It shows the results for different blockchains, which would also include forks of Bitcoin such as BCH and Bitcoin SV.

[khaled0111]

You can use this tool to see the forked coins you can claim:
http://www.findmycoins.ninja
Also, here is a great guide on how to safely claim those coins, written by LoyceV:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836875.0

Make sure to move all your btc to a new safe wallet before downloading any forkcoin wallet.

[HCP]

Can I simply download the BCH wallet and replace the wallet.dat with the one in my BTC wallet?

Yes... If you have been using Bitcoin Core, then the wallet.dat from that will be compatible with the BCH "Core" wallet.

You'll need to download BitcoinABC or whatever the "core" BCH wallet is these days (given the whole BCHA and BCHN bunfight, it's difficult to know which is the "real" Bitcoin Cash shitcoin )... then put a copy of your Bitcoin Core wallet.dat into the datadir for the BCH wallet app. Then open the BCH app and let it fully sync.

[dazz.]

Thanks guys. I had already checked in the BCH block explorer and there is some dough in there.
I'm an idiot. Back when the hard fork happened, I sold all the BCH I had in Poloniex almost immediately, but it didn't even occur to me that there would also be something left int my offline wallet. Lost quite a bit of money, but hey, live to learn I guess 

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Thanks guys. I had already checked in the BCH block explorer and there is some dough in there.
I'm an idiot. Back when the hard fork happened, I sold all the BCH I had in Poloniex almost immediately, but it didn't even occur to me that there would also be something left int my offline wallet. Lost quite a bit of money, but hey, live to learn I guess  

I used Electron Cash to claim my BCH, can’t remember what I used to claim BSV, could have been Coinimi mobile app. Like said above though, make sure you move you bitcoin out of those addresses before you start claiming shitcoins.

[dazz.]

Thanks guys. I had already checked in the BCH block explorer and there is some dough in there.
I'm an idiot. Back when the hard fork happened, I sold all the BCH I had in Poloniex almost immediately, but it didn't even occur to me that there would also be something left int my offline wallet. Lost quite a bit of money, but hey, live to learn I guess  

I used Electron Cash to claim my BCH, can’t remember what I used to claim BSV, could have been Coinimi mobile app. Like said above though, make sure you move you bitcoin out of those addresses before you start claiming shitcoins.

I will, thanks again.
I really need to keep up with all this stuff. What a fuck up.

[LoyceV]

I used Electron Cash to claim my BCH, can’t remember what I used to claim BSV, could have been Coinimi mobile app. Like said above though, make sure you move you bitcoin out of those addresses before you start claiming shitcoins.

My "favourites":

• Electron Cash for BCH
• Coinomi (Android) for BSV
• Coinomi for BTG
• Electrum-BCD for BCD
• Electrum ABC for BCH-A (note: some websites call BCH BCH-ABC, some call BCH-A BCH-ABC. It doesn't make much sense)

If you have any substantial amount: I wouldn't trust any of those Electrum-clone-wallets, import read-only (import addresses instead of private keys) in a VM and sign the transactions offline.

Quoting myself:

I wrote a very short summary of getting Forkcoins out of multisig, part of this can be used without multisig too.
For splitting Forkcoins and forcing replay protection, I can get you some Forkcoin dust. However, before doing this, I'd love to get $1 worth of pre-fork coins that exist on all 3 chains (BCH/BSV/BCH-A). This can only be created from unsplit coins, which you have. I'm not sure if Electrum adds a locktime, and if it does it might influence replaying transactions. This is one of the things I'd like to test when I have a small amount of unsplit coins.

Note: before doing anything related to Forkcoins: move your Bitcoins to a new wallet so you don't risk them.

[Csmiami]

---

Does it make more sense (timewise) to claim all the forks directly on coinomi? Except for BCD (IIRC), you can claim the rest directly with them; you move the private keys less times, make a single sweep, and can even dump everything for BTC at the same place.

PS: think you forgot to mention the wallet for BCH-A

[LoyceV]

Does it make more sense (timewise) to claim all the forks directly on coinomi? Except for BCD (IIRC), you can claim the rest directly with them; you move the private keys less times, make a single sweep, and can even dump everything for BTC at the same place.

Yes, that's faster. But I prefer to sign transactions offline, and BCH is the most valuable Forkcoin. Coinomi still doesn't let you split BCH-A though, and indeed BCD isn't supported.

PS: think you forgot to mention the wallet for BCH-A

Added.

[dazz.]

Probably a dumb question, but anyway. Would it be safe enough to just change my wallet passphrase, then claim the forkcoins, and then change it back?

[HCP]

Probably a dumb question, but anyway. Would it be safe enough to just change my wallet passphrase, then claim the forkcoins, and then change it back?

No. The wallet passphrase is only required if you are needing to unlock a given wallet file.

If the attacker has your private keys... they don't need your passphrase at all. By importing your seed/private keys into other (somewhat) untrusted forkcoin wallets to claim these coins... you are potentially exposing your seed/private keys.

This is why you are advised to move your bitcoins to a completely new wallet (with a new seed/private keys)... that way, when you import the old seed/private keys into a forkcoin wallet, there is no chance your BTC (obviously the most valuable) can be stolen... because even if the wallet application turns out to be a scam and sends your seed/private keys to scammers, the scammers will only be able to get the low value forkcoins, as your BTC is no longer being controlled by the stolen seed/keys.

[dazz.]

Gotcha, thanks. Right now I don't have a HDD with enough free space to store another copy of the blockchain. I guess I could create an online address and then later import the private keys into a fresh wallet, but I can't screw this up.

Is at least the BCH wallet safe?

EDIT: Silly me, I can simply create a new wallet locally,  transfer my coins there, and then use the old wallet to claim those forkcoins, right? Sorry to be such a pest, but I need to be 100% positive that I'm not missing something.

[Csmiami]

----

Even if you created a new Bitcoin Core wallet, you don't need to download the blockchain again. Alternatively, you could use a lightweight client (electrum) that stores no blockchain data. Whatever you decide to do, the forked coins should be safe if you only move the BTC from address 1 to address 2; doing nothing with the private keys/seed in between

[HCP]

EDIT: Silly me, I can simply create a new wallet locally,  transfer my coins there, and then use the old wallet to claim those forkcoins, right? Sorry to be such a pest, but I need to be 100% positive that I'm not missing something.

You could... but the issue is that you still need to download the forkcoin blockchain if you want to use the old wallet.dat with the forkcoin wallet... (and in the case of BCH or BCHA or BCHN or whatever the hell it's called these days), that is quite a significant amount of data (not quite as big as Bitcoin Core, but it's still a couple of hundred gigs ).

If you create a "new_wallet.dat" in Bitcoin Core, then move all your BTC from your old wallet.dat to an address in "new_wallet.dat"... then you could simply use the dumpwallet or dumpprivkey on the old wallet.dat file to get the private keys you need.

You can then use any of the wallets that LoyceV listed above to import those keys and get the fork coins.

The important part is to move all your BTC to a completely new wallet.dat first... and then start messing about with claiming forkcoins.

[dazz.]

EDIT: Silly me, I can simply create a new wallet locally,  transfer my coins there, and then use the old wallet to claim those forkcoins, right? Sorry to be such a pest, but I need to be 100% positive that I'm not missing something.

You could... but the issue is that you still need to download the forkcoin blockchain if you want to use the old wallet.dat with the forkcoin wallet... (and in the case of BCH or BCHA or BCHN or whatever the hell it's called these days), that is quite a significant amount of data (not quite as big as Bitcoin Core, but it's still a couple of hundred gigs ).

If you create a "new_wallet.dat" in Bitcoin Core, then move all your BTC from your old wallet.dat to an address in "new_wallet.dat"... then you could simply use the dumpwallet or dumpprivkey on the old wallet.dat file to get the private keys you need.

You can then use any of the wallets that LoyceV listed above to import those keys and get the fork coins.

The important part is to move all your BTC to a completely new wallet.dat first... and then start messing about with claiming forkcoins.

OK, so I need to transfer the coins to a new address in a new wallet.dat and pay whatever fees apply, there's no way around that, right?
Sorry, I don't understand why I would need to get the private keys from my old wallet. Could you please elaborate?

EDIT: Is it to import them into those electrum wallets so I don't need to download the other coin's blockchain?

[HCP]

OK, so I need to transfer the coins to a new address in a new wallet.dat and pay whatever fees apply, there's no way around that, right?

Unfortunately, that is correct.

Fortunately, the network is quite quiet at the moment... transactions with just 5+ sats/byte fees are getting next block confirmation etc. So, you're not having to pay "outrageous" fees right at this point in time

[Myleschetty]

Does it make more sense (timewise) to claim all the forks directly on coinomi? Except for BCD (IIRC), you can claim the rest directly with them; you move the private keys less times, make a single sweep, and can even dump everything for BTC at the same place.

Yes, that's faster. But I prefer to sign transactions offline, and BCH is the most valuable Forkcoin. Coinomi still doesn't let you split BCH-A though, and indeed BCD isn't supported.

What do you think about Bither wallet?

Sorry, I don't understand why I would need to get the private keys from my old wallet. Could you please elaborate?

Before you can claim the forked coin will need to sweep your old wallet using your private keys or seeds. Thats why you asked to move your BTC to new wallet.

EDIT: Is it to import them into those electrum wallets so I don't need to download the other coin's blockchain?

Yes, Electrum wallet is lite than Bitcoin core but you need to download the wallet from the official site electrum.org and verify the wallet.

[dazz.]

Does it make more sense (timewise) to claim all the forks directly on coinomi? Except for BCD (IIRC), you can claim the rest directly with them; you move the private keys less times, make a single sweep, and can even dump everything for BTC at the same place.

Yes, that's faster. But I prefer to sign transactions offline, and BCH is the most valuable Forkcoin. Coinomi still doesn't let you split BCH-A though, and indeed BCD isn't supported.

What do you think about Bither wallet?

Sorry, I don't understand why I would need to get the private keys from my old wallet. Could you please elaborate?

Before you can claim the forked coin will need to sweep your old wallet using your private keys or seeds. Thats why you asked to move your BTC to new wallet.

EDIT: Is it to import them into those electrum wallets so I don't need to download the other coin's blockchain?

Yes, Electrum wallet is lite than Bitcoin core but you need to download the wallet from the official site electrum.org and verify the wallet.

Really sorry, but I'm not sure I understand the bolded part. Do you mean I need my private keys to transfer the coins to a new wallet? I plan on doing that with the BTC Core wallet, which would be using my private keys, obviously.
Then I can safely use my (now empty) old wallet to claim the coins, it I got it right.

[HCP]

Really sorry, but I'm not sure I understand the bolded part. Do you mean I need my private keys to transfer the coins to a new wallet? I plan on doing that with the BTC Core wallet, which would be using my private keys, obviously.
Then I can safely use my (now empty) old wallet to claim the coins, it I got it right.

You need the private keys to be able to "claim" the fork coins... essentially, you need some way to  get those private keys into a forkcoin wallet application.

The options are:

- If there is a compatible [forkcoin wallet], simply use the old wallet file from your Bitcoin wallet and open it with [forkcoin wallet]
or
- Export the private keys from Bitcoin Core, then import them into [forkcoin wallet]
or
- If you have a wallet that supports 12/24 word seeds, you can recreate your wallet in [forkcoin wallet] by restoring a wallet using your 12/24 word seed


You currently have a Bitcoin Core wallet.dat. This does not support 12/24 word seeds, so that option is not available. Instead you can:

NOTE: you should do the following after you have created a new_wallet.dat in Bitcoin Core and moved all your BTC to new_wallet.dat!

Option 1. Install BitcoinABC & BitcoinSV "node" software (like Bitcoin Core, but built for BCH/BSV).

- You will need to download and sync each blockchain for each fork that you want to claim. This will require significant on disk storage space and time.
- Then, using BitcoinABC/BitcoinSV node software, open your (now empty) old wallet.dat and let it rescan
- It will find any/all BCH/BSV that is controlled by the private keys in your old wallet.dat
- Do what you want with the BCH/BSV that you find (send to another wallet, sell on an exchange etc)


Option 2. Install "lightweight" SPV wallets compatible with the forkcoins and import private keys.

- As per LoyceV's message, your options are things like:

• Electron Cash for BCH - https://electroncash.org/
• Coinomi (should do BCH/BSV) - https://www.coinomi.com/en/
• ElectrumSV for BSV - https://electrumsv.io/
• Electrum ABC for BCH-A - https://www.bitcoinabc.org/electrum/

Next, you need to export your private keys from the old wallet.dat. You can do this very easily using the dumpwallet command on the Bitcoin Core console. This will generate a text file that contains ALL your private keys.

Once you have successfully exported your private keys, you then need to import them into the lightweight BCH/BSV wallet that you installed. How you actually achieve this depends on the wallet you're using. Most have a menu option that allow you to "import", or in the case of the Electrum "clones" (ElectronCash + ElectrumABC), when you create the wallet, there is a "Import Addresses or Private keys" option.

[dazz.]

Thank you for the detailed answer. I'll get to it as soon as my BTC wallet finishes syncing. 8% to go, but man, this shit takes forever, even with the dbcache=6144 set to 6GB. It's only doing 0.5% per hour.

[LoyceV]

Does it make more sense (timewise) to claim all the forks directly on coinomi? Except for BCD (IIRC), you can claim the rest directly with them; you move the private keys less times, make a single sweep, and can even dump everything for BTC at the same place.

Yes, that's faster. But I prefer to sign transactions offline, and BCH is the most valuable Forkcoin. Coinomi still doesn't let you split BCH-A though, and indeed BCD isn't supported.

What do you think about Bither wallet?

Bither supports more "exotic" Forkcoins than Coinomi, but it keeps crashing when I import a private key. So I gave up (and I trust Coinomi more). Bither was also very annoying to work with, part of the task had to be done in Bitpie instead of Bither.

Really sorry, but I'm not sure I understand the bolded part. Do you mean I need my private keys to transfer the coins to a new wallet? I plan on doing that with the BTC Core wallet, which would be using my private keys, obviously.
Then I can safely use my (now empty) old wallet to claim the coins, it I got it right.

Think of it this way: your wallet is a piggy bank, and any Forkcoin wallet you install gets full access to everything inside your piggy bank. If the wallet is malicious, it can steal everything! To prevent this, you take out as much as you can (AKA the Bitcoins) from your piggy bank before installing any Forkcoin wallet. And even then, you should be very careful what you install on your system as a compromised wallet would still get access to other data on your PC. That's why I only install Forkcoin wallets inside a VM.

[dazz.]

OK, so I'm in the process of sending my coins to a newly created address in the new wallet. Is there a command to check if the address is in the wallet, to be 150% sure that I won't be sending the money to an address I don't own?

listaddressgroupings outputs nothing

[Beparanf]

OK, so I'm in the process of sending my coins to a newly created address in the new wallet. Is there a command to check if the address is in the wallet, to be 150% sure that I won't be sending the money to an address I don't own?

listaddressgroupings outputs nothing

The only thing to check if you properly the right address is to double check or more the address you will gonna send the BTC. You can check on the blockchain website the pending transaction on your new address once you successfully transfer funds.

[HCP]

Is there a command to check if the address is in the wallet, to be 150% sure that I won't be sending the money to an address I don't own?

Try using the getaddressinfo command:

Code:

getaddressinfo 1BitcoinAddress

Right near the top of the output you should see "ismine". If that is "true" then the private keys that the address is derived from is in your wallet.dat.



NOTE: If you have multiple wallet.dat's "open" in Bitcoin Core, make sure you have set the correct wallet selected in the dropdown menu in the console window

[dazz.]

Is there a command to check if the address is in the wallet, to be 150% sure that I won't be sending the money to an address I don't own?

Try using the getaddressinfo command:

Code:

getaddressinfo 1BitcoinAddress

Right near the top of the output you should see "ismine". If that is "true" then the private keys that the address is derived from is in your wallet.dat.



NOTE: If you have multiple wallet.dat's "open" in Bitcoin Core, make sure you have set the correct wallet selected in the dropdown menu in the console window

That did the trick, thank you. You can never be too sure of something like this, hehe.

[HCP]

That did the trick, thank you. You can never be too sure of something like this, hehe.

No, you can't... and I admire your desire to "get it right" without rushing into things

Thank you for the detailed answer. I'll get to it as soon as my BTC wallet finishes syncing. 8% to go, but man, this shit takes forever, even with the dbcache=6144 set to 6GB. It's only doing 0.5% per hour.

I forgot to ask... what CPU do you have? and are you storing the Bitcoin Core data on an HDD or SDD and is it internal or external?

[dazz.]

I forgot to ask... what CPU do you have? and are you storing the Bitcoin Core data on an HDD or SDD and is it internal or external?

It's an aging Sandy Bridge I7, tried a number of things including loading my overclock BIOS profile. That didn't seem to make a difference.
8GB of RAM and the wallet sits in a slow internal 5400 rpm HDD for now. I think I should be fine if I'm diligent and don't let it go out of sync for months like I just did, but I'm guessing the hard drive is my bottleneck in this particular task.

[HCP]

but I'm guessing the hard drive is my bottleneck in this particular task.

Yes... The i7 isn't bad... the 8gigs isn't ideal (like my setup), but it will definitely be the 5400rpm causing the largest bottleneck for you at the moment. A 7200rpm HDD is pretty slow, and a 5400 will be even worse

[dazz.]

I'm making some progress. The new wallet is done and secured, and all the coins transferred there. Already imported the old private keys into Electron Cash to claim my BCH, but I'm getting the following error when I try to send the money to an exchange.

Possible BTC Segwit address in 'Pay to' field. Please use CashAddr format for p2sh addresses.

Any idea what that means, please?

EDIT: Tried a different exchange and it worked. Must be something to do with legacy vs SegWit addresses in those exchanges, I guess. Not sure how any of that works, I'll look it up

[LoyceV]

imported the old private keys into Electron Cash to claim my BCH
~
Tried a different exchange and it worked.

Did you add replay protection, or did you accidentally send your BSV and BCH-A to the same exchange too?

[dazz.]

Did you add replay protection

No idea what that is or if I did I'll google it, but right now I'm just sending a very small amount of BCH to the exchange to make sure everything works.

or did you accidentally send your BSV and BCH-A to the same exchange too?

As far as I can tell there's only BCH in the Electrum Cash wallet.  I downloaded it from here: https://electroncash.org/ Got the portable version.
Would screenshots help? Of what?

The exchange that worked is Poloniex, the transaction that threw the error was the one to OKEX, in case it helps.

The Poloniex address is 13jaEByoEb78iMAVM7QsJosxxwZbt3hr9k
The OKEX address is 3L7fzCLNT77r4piGjDRASGpfRBT2fGyKac

[LoyceV]

Did you add replay protection

No idea what that is or if I did

Replay protection stops other Forkcoins from transferring to the same address on their respective chain. BCH/BSV/BCH-A by default don't use replay protection.

The Poloniex address is 13jaEByoEb78iMAVM7QsJosxxwZbt3hr9k

Blockchair shows only BCH has moved. Your sending address had received the transaction on the same day (I guess you sent that within your own wallet), and those funds were received in 2014. This address still holds BCH-A and BSV. If you have a significant amount, you can claim BSV/BCD/BTG/BCH-A too. If it's only a few bucks worth of BCH, the others lower than BSV may not be worth your time.

[hosseinimr93]

The OKEX address is 3L7fzCLNT77r4piGjDRASGpfRBT2fGyKac

I think you should enter the address in CashAddr format.
You can use blockchair to find the CashAddr format of your address.
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/address/3L7fzCLNT77r4piGjDRASGpfRBT2fGyKac

[dazz.]

Did you add replay protection

No idea what that is or if I did

Replay protection stops other Forkcoins from transferring to the same address on their respective chain. BCH/BSV/BCH-A by default don't use replay protection.

The Poloniex address is 13jaEByoEb78iMAVM7QsJosxxwZbt3hr9k

Blockchair shows only BCH has moved. Your sending address had received the transaction on the same day (I guess you sent that within your own wallet), and those funds were received in 2014. This address still holds BCH-A and BSV. If you have a significant amount, you can claim BSV/BCD/BTG/BCH-A too. If it's only a few bucks worth of BCH, the others lower than BSV may not be worth your time.

That qpf0enqj3mwsm0lu43cgteks0j39agmt9vu3upkd3f is one of the newly created ones in the Electrum wallet. I sweeped two of my lesser addresses there for testing purposes.
I really don't understand how that replay protection thing works. I get the idea, but I'll need to dig into it.

[dazz.]

The OKEX address is 3L7fzCLNT77r4piGjDRASGpfRBT2fGyKac

I think you should enter the address in CashAddr format.
You can use blockchair to find the CashAddr format of your address.
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/address/3L7fzCLNT77r4piGjDRASGpfRBT2fGyKac

Thanks, I'll try that.

EDIT: Unfortunately the OKEX web doesn't give me the option to input a different deposit address. I'll contact their support desk

[LoyceV]

I really don't understand how that replay protection thing works. I get the idea, but I'll need to dig into it.

As long as you have an input that doesn't exist on the other chain, the transaction can't be replayed there. I can send you some "dust" to ensure it can't be replayed, just give me a BCH addy and add my dust to your transaction.
Disclaimer: this might compromise your privacy by exposing your addresses. It's up to you if that's worth it.

[dazz.]

I really don't understand how that replay protection thing works. I get the idea, but I'll need to dig into it.

As long as you have an input that doesn't exist on the other chain, the transaction can't be replayed there. I can send you some "dust" to ensure it can't be replayed, just give me a BCH addy and add my dust to your transaction.
Disclaimer: this might compromise your privacy by exposing your addresses. It's up to you if that's worth it.

OK, I think I get it now. I just swept all my old addresses to new ones in the Electrum Cash wallet, meaning that any transfers I do with these new addresses won't effect the balance of my old addresses in the other forkcoin chains, right? The fact that the old addresses still hold the coins in BCHA seems to confirm that (just double checked at blockchair)