Imported Private Key to mobile wallet and can't send now

[Steve D]

Hey there,

i important a paper wallet to the Electrum android app using the private key but the wallet is somehow set to "watch_only" and can't move the BTC.

How can i go about sending the BTC from my Wallet?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[1714701044]

1714701044

[1714701044]

1714701044

[Charles-Tim]

Which character did your private key starts from?

You imported an address or addresses and not private key. You can not spend the coins just by importing an address. Private key starts from K, L or 5.

[Zaguru12]

No this is not possible, you must have imported an address or master public key into the electrum wallet to create watch only wallet and that’s why you can’t spend from the wallet. If you import a private key it should have been able to Spend from that wallet.

Also you need to specify which type of address you want to import, so when you have the private key you will prephend by using p2pkh:private key for legacy address ( address starting with 1), p2wpkh-p2sh: for nests SegWit addresses (address starting with 3) and p2wpkh: for Native SegWit addresses (addresses starting with bc1)

[Steve D]

Which character did your private key starts from?

You imported an address or addresses and not private key. You can not spend the coins just by importing an address. Private key starts from K, L or 5.

The Private key was on paper wallet i was gifted and i starts with 6. I scanned the QR code to import it.

[Charles-Tim]

The Private key was on paper wallet i was gifted and i starts with 6. I scanned the QR code to import it.

That private key is encrypted. You have to decrypt it.

You can use https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org offline. For offline usage: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org/archive/v3.3.0.zip

Click on wallet details and check ✔️ BIP38 encrypt? and include the password/passphrase you used to encrypt it. After that, click on encrypt BIP38. You will get the private key that starts from 5, K or L. Choose the one that is the same as your bitcoin address and import it on Electum.

[Steve D]

The Private key was on paper wallet i was gifted and i starts with 6. I scanned the QR code to import it.

That private key is encrypted. You have to decrypt it.

You can use https://www.bitaddress.org/bitaddress.org offline. For offline usage: https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org/archive/v3.3.0.zip

Click on wallet details and check ✔️ BIP38 encrypt? and include the password/passphrase you used to encrypt it. After that, click on encrypt BIP38. You will get the private key that starts from 5, K or L. Choose the one that is the same as your bitcoin address and import it on Electum.

Sorry i am new to this. The paper wallet was a gift in 2017. I wasn't aware i need a password to access as i was never given one.

[Charles-Tim]

Sorry i am new to this. The paper wallet was a gift in 2017. I wasn't aware i need a password to access as i was never given one.

The person that gave you the paper wallet encrypted the private key with password/passphrase. Tell the person to give you the password for you to access the coins. Without the password, you may not be able to have access to the WIF private key, especially if the characters are long.

[Steve D]

Sorry i am new to this. The paper wallet was a gift in 2017. I wasn't aware i need a password to access as i was never given one.

The person that gave you the paper wallet encrypted the private key with password/passphrase. Tell the person to give you the password for you to access the coins. Without the password, you may not be able to have access to the WIF private key, especially if the characters are long.

He said he doesn't remember setting a passphrase. I checked and the BTC have not been spent yet. Is it possible to bypass the password somehow?

[Charles-Tim]

He said he doesn't remember setting a passphrase. I checked and the BTC have not been spent yet. Is it possible to bypass the password somehow?

It depends on how long the characters are. The longer it is, the harder to brute force the passphrase. You can use BTCRecover for it.

https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

If it is a long passphrase, the effort to recover the BIP38 passphrase can be a waste of time.