Combine multiple OLD wallets?

[Deniisecu]

Hi!

my first post here, but lets see if this is the place to ask. I have multiple old wallet backups (wallet.dat) from ... long time ago, i'm not sure exactly when, but i think it was 2012-2015 sometime.. When mtgox existed?

Some wallets have some 0.01 "free" coins that was given away, and some have *alot* of pregenereated keys (10000+) - but all empty) Others are just duplicates of the some other wallet, possibly with the key that holds 0.01 free bitcoin, and also 1000-10000 addresses, and so on...

How is the best way to combine/use/check the possible balance of these wallets? None are encrypted (i think, maybe some is...), but they all was POSSIBLE used last 6-8 years go...

We're talking about both wallets with free 0.01 transactions *only* and with multiple that has seen some usage. Checking each wallet MANUALLY with bitcoind seems like a really hard way to go, even if i try...
Help me out!

[nc50lc]

-snip- Checking each wallet MANUALLY with bitcoind seems like a really hard way to go, even if i try...
Help me out!

This will only work if those wallets were used before, I mean, displayed the final balance the last time they were used:

• Create a copy of each wallet so you wont mess around the originals.
• Then open each of the copy wallet.dat using a text editor.
• Using the search function (CTRL+F), find all lines with name, and a Bitcoin address should be next to it.
• Check its balance using a blockexplorer.

Note: If the wallet wasn't fully synced before, it may or may not display the funded addresses in the text editor.
So loading them to a fully synced Bitcoin core is still the best solution.

[BlackHatCoiner]

but i think it was 2012-2015 sometime.. When mtgox existed?

Yep, around that time.

We're talking about both wallets with free 0.01 transactions *only* and with multiple that has seen some usage. Checking each wallet MANUALLY with bitcoind seems like a really hard way to go, even if i try...

You've confused me a little bit. If they're only two wallets with “free 0.01 transactions”, why is it really hard to see their balance from bitcoind? Even if both of them are consisted of thousands of addresses, it wouldn't matter, you should just let it finish syncing.

Were you using Bitcoin Core back in 2012-2015?

• Using the search function (CTRL+F), find all lines with name, and a Bitcoin address should be next to it.

Isn't this possible only to text-based back ups like electrum's? AFAIR, .dat aren't human readable.

[nc50lc]

• Using the search function (CTRL+F), find all lines with name, and a Bitcoin address should be next to it.

Isn't this possible only to text-based back ups like electrum's? AFAIR, .dat aren't human readable.

Some parts are readable, you can try it on your wallet.dat with transaction history, a copy of course.
But since some contains too many lines, you may have to use a text editor that can handle thousands of lines of text.

[ranochigo]

The best way is to synchronize your Bitcoin Core fully and cycle through your various wallet.dat. This is extremely time consuming but is practically the only way for you to ascertain the balance in each of your wallet.dat.

You can of course, export your data using dumpwallet command but you'll receive thousands of addresses and it would be even more time consuming to filter through them. The addresses are organized in rows so you can have a script to call some blockexplorers for their balance but that can only be fast if your block explorer doesn't rate limit you.

[HCP]

Newer versions of Bitcoin Core enable you to open multiple wallets at once...

Just put copies of all your wallet.dat files into the Bitcoin Core datadir... you'll obviously need to give them all unique names. Then start Bitcoin Core and use the "File -> Open Wallet" command on each wallet.dat.

It'll need to rescan each and every wallet as you do this, so that could take a while if the wallets haven't been used in a while. You could also potentially use the -wallet commandline option to specify them all at once on startup.

Once you've scanned them all, you'll easily be able to see which ones have funds and which ones dont... and then you can worry about consolidating the funds etc.

[LoyceV]

they all was POSSIBLE used last 6-8 years go...

Any chance some of them are altcoin wallets? People have made that mistake before, and you won't recover the funds if you load them into Bitcoin Core.

Checking each wallet MANUALLY with bitcoind seems like a really hard way to go, even if i try...

How many wallets are you talking about? Hundreds?

[khaled0111]

It'll need to rescan each and every wallet as you do this, so that could take a while if the wallets haven't been used in a while. You could also potentially use the -wallet commandline option to specify them all at once on startup.

If you import multiple wallet files will bitcoin core rescan the chain one time and update all wallets balances simultaneously or will it do a one-at-the time rescan for each wallet? If it's the former than it will save him a lot of time rather than importing his wallets one by one.
Also, will it be ok if you import hundreds of wallets and each of them has thousands of transactions, will bitcoin core be able to handle it? Am asking this because many other wallet apps wouldn't. Electrum, for example crashes when you import into it a wallet which has a long history of transactions!

What about dumping all his wallets addresses and then importing them in batches into a watch-only wallet. Wouldn't this be a better solution?

[LoyceV]

What about dumping all his wallets addresses and then importing them in batches into a watch-only wallet.

This is much faster:

The most likely use is to check a long list of Bitcoin addresses for a remaining balance.
On Linux, use this to find matching addresses:

Code:

comm -12 Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt <(cat mylist.txt | sort | uniq)

• Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt: the extracted latest version downloaded from addresses.loyce.club.
• mylist.txt: your own list of addresses, one address per line.

This takes only seconds to check millions of addresses. If your text file has Microsoft formatting, you may need to use this instead:

Code:

comm -12 Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt <(cat mylist.txt | fromdos | sort | uniq)

[NotATether]

Why are you trying to combine all wallet addresses anyway? Each wallet contains hundreds of addresses, mostly empty, stored in its file. Wouldn't it make more sense to sweep the coins from each wallet to another one (after claiming any forks first see LoyceV reply below)?

[LoyceV]

Wouldn't it make more sense to sweep the coins from each wallet to another one (after claiming any forks first)?

Quote edited, because this could turn into a very expensive mistake: Forkcoin wallets have stolen funds before, so you should never trust them. Claiming Forkcoins should be the last thing you do, first move your Bitcoins to a new secure address.

[Deniisecu]

Why are you trying to combine all wallet addresses anyway? Each wallet contains hundreds of addresses, mostly empty, stored in its file. Wouldn't it make more sense to sweep the coins from each wallet to another one (after claiming any forks first see LoyceV reply below)?

Why? I'm trying the check the balances of each one, and extract the remaining coins - if any.

Newer versions of Bitcoin Core enable you to open multiple wallets at once...

Just put copies of all your wallet.dat files into the Bitcoin Core datadir... you'll obviously need to give them all unique names. Then start Bitcoin Core and use the "File -> Open Wallet" command on each wallet.dat.

It'll need to rescan each and every wallet as you do this, so that could take a while if the wallets haven't been used in a while. You could also potentially use the -wallet commandline option to specify them all at once on startup.

Once you've scanned them all, you'll easily be able to see which ones have funds and which ones dont... and then you can worry about consolidating the funds etc.

I did not know that, thanks for the answer!

What about dumping all his wallets addresses and then importing them in batches into a watch-only wallet.

This is much faster:

The most likely use is to check a long list of Bitcoin addresses for a remaining balance.
On Linux, use this to find matching addresses:

Code:

comm -12 Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt <(cat mylist.txt | sort | uniq)

• Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt: the extracted latest version downloaded from addresses.loyce.club.
• mylist.txt: your own list of addresses, one address per line.

This takes only seconds to check millions of addresses. If your text file has Microsoft formatting, you may need to use this instead:

Code:

comm -12 Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt <(cat mylist.txt | fromdos | sort | uniq)

THANKS!! That was the answer i was looking for, i think! Now it's just the matter of exporting all addresses, but that should be pretty easy - i think!

they all was POSSIBLE used last 6-8 years go...

Any chance some of them are altcoin wallets?

Checking each wallet MANUALLY with bitcoind seems like a really hard way to go, even if i try...

How many wallets are you talking about? Hundreds?

There wasn't any altcoins back when i was playing with bitcoind, or yeah - well, maybe namecoin i guess. But nothing besides that afaik.



Thanks all for your answers, i'll go ahead and try to extract the addresses in full and run them again that list, i think that will be the fastest way.

Cheerio!

[Deniisecu]

I thought I'd share the end result here as a thanks from me.

Code:

$ for f in wallets/*.dat; do pywallet/pywallet.py -d -w $f  | grep "\"addr\"" | cut -d \" -f 4 | tee -a addr-list; done

$ comm -12  Bitcoin_addresses_LATEST.txt <(cat addr-list | sort | uniq)

Code:

By the way:

$ ls -l wallets | wc -l
63

$ cat addr-list | sort | uniq | wc -l
267273

I know for a fact some are encrypted and also pywallet crashes on some wallets, investigating now why

[LoyceV]

How many addresses hold a balance? And if they do, don't forget about Forkcoins.

[Deniisecu]

ive found 7 so far, ranging between 0.01 (label: freebitcoins, lol!) and 0.000001 basicly. (mostly 0.00005 or 1

How many addresses hold a balance? And if they do, don't forget about Forkcoins.

[HCP]

ive found 7 so far, ranging between 0.01 (label: freebitcoins, lol!) and 0.000001 basicly. (mostly 0.00005 or 1

How many addresses hold a balance? And if they do, don't forget about Forkcoins.

There were a couple of Bitcoin "forks" (like Bitcoin Cash, BSV, Bitcoin Gold etc)... if you have Bitcoin wallets from before 1 August 2017, then you essentially have access to all of these forks (Some of which are of value, some of which are not).

For instance:
BCH is currently ~US$488
BSV is currently ~US$138
BTG is currently ~US$45


So, obviously, deal with all the BTC first and make sure you have moved them all to "new" addresses/private keys... then you can use all the "old" addresses/privates keys to access all the forked coins... if you deem the time and effort worth the hassle, as in total, at today's prices, the ones which can be traded out easily are probably worth around 2% of your total recovered BTC.