Question about accessing an encrypted bitcoin wallet found on a usb drive

[Elowenthalia]

I’m new here and looking for people who actually know their stuff I found a usb in my older brother’s office after he passed away when I checked it it had tons of files and pictures and one folder had a Bitcoin Core wallet along with some images and an old song file The wallet apparently has a little over 19 Bitcoin but when we tried to make a transfer it asked for a passphrase which we don’t know or how to recover My question is is there any way or anyone experienced who can help or guide me and is there any chance to sell this wallet or use it in any way.

[Cryptohygenic]

The wallet apparently has a little over 19 Bitcoin but when we tried to make a transfer it asked for a passphrase which we don’t know or how to recover My question is is there any way or anyone experienced who can help or guide me and is there any chance to sell this wallet or use it in any way.

With the way you talk, I am sure you did not use blockchain explorer to access this wallet, so how did you got the wallet address to begin with because I am sure you have to login before gaining that access before you knew the value of bitcoin in that wallet.
However, the truth of the matter is that if you don't have provision for the passphrase, you can lot proceed with transacting with the wallet because it is the personal keys of him to regulating it wallets.
Selling such Wallet is a burden and a lost to the buyer if after much they still can not send the fund out from the wallet.

[Jewan420]

I request you to first gain some basic knowledge about passphrase, what is passphrase and why is it used? It is important for you to know about passphrase.

You cannot transfer money or do any transaction without passphrase, even if you sell it, no one will buy it. Because a wallet without passphrase is completely useless in a wallet using passphrase. You have no good way except to find the passphrase.

Usually investors store this information in a safe place. Find out if your brother has written a diary or created a file! Guess a word that he regularly uses or a favorite sentence or song that he regularly listens to. Look at the pictures again and again to see if there were any words or songs in the files? Actually, it is very complicated, if you cannot guess even a part of the passphrase, then it is not possible to recover this money.

I would especially advise you to stay away from scammers. Even after seeing your post, some scammers may message you and offer a 100% guarantee of money recovery. Do not exchange wallet.dat with anyone, do not pay an advance fee and do not try to give remote control. There are professional and legitimate wallet recovery experts with whom you can recover it, but the risk is much higher in this case. The number of scammers is very high!

[acroman08]

Since it is asking for a phass phrase, I suggest trying to look around your brother's stuff and look for a set of characters/numbers, you might find it hidden somewhere. It's common for crypto guys to save and hide their pass phrase. Apart from that, there is really no other way to access those funds without the pass phrase(or at least as far as I know).

edit:
There might be people sending PMs to you offering you "recovery" service, just know that they are most likely scammers.

[rat03gopoh]

With the way you talk, I am sure you did not use blockchain explorer to access this wallet, so how did you got the wallet address to begin with because I am sure you have to login before gaining that access before you knew the value of bitcoin in that wallet.
However, the truth of the matter is that if you don't have provision for the passphrase, you can lot proceed with transacting with the wallet because it is the personal keys of him to regulating it wallets.
Selling such Wallet is a burden and a lost to the buyer if after much they still can not send the fund out from the wallet.

Accessing the wallet.dat file without a password is like watch-only mode in electrum, meaning you can still see the address and balance but cannot spend it or even extract the private key.
This is normal and by design.

[laijsica]

Instead of discussing your brother's wallet with others, try to learn about seed phrases from experts. Learn about wallet-related issues from various reliable sources and apply them. The easiest way is to try to find them in your brother's documents and notebooks. Avoid trusting anyone with financial matters.

Your curiosity about selling the wallet rather than being more interested in recovering it may be raising doubts about its credibility for some.

[Cookdata]

Instead of discussing your brother's wallet with others, try to learn about seed phrases from experts. Learn about wallet-related issues from various reliable sources and apply them.

This is wrong;

Bitcoin core doesn't use seed phrase. It's a hierarchical deterministic(HD) wallet, it's different from mnemonic words from Bip39.

I'm curious how OP concluded the wallet has 19 Bitcoin, unless there is a wallet address on that same folder but you can't be sure if the address belongs to that wallet.dat, you need to open the wallet to comfirm.

You can't open that wallet without the password, try guessing around some of the common words your brother used most often, maybe you will be lucky. Without that password, you can't open that wallet.

[ABCbits]

My question is is there any way or anyone experienced who can help or guide me and is there any chance to sell this wallet or use it in any way.

IMO the only reasonable approach is attempt brute-force if you know how he usually create password and the possible combination is relative low. Even if the possible combination is too much, you can try again in the future when hardware is much faster for brute-force.

Personally i don't recommend to sell the wallet file, since i believe world of selling/buying/trading wallet file as something shady/suspicious.

I'm curious how OP concluded the wallet has 19 Bitcoin, unless there is a wallet address on that same folder but you can't be sure if the address belongs to that wallet.dat, you need to open the wallet to comfirm.

Not all parts of wallet.dat is encrypted. I would speculate OP either sync Bitcoin Core or check the address on Bitcoin explorer to know the balance.

[Yamane_Keto]

you should save several copies of the files.

If the wallet file is very old, it might not be encrypted. Open the wallet file with Notepad; if it contains gibberish, it's encrypted.
If the wallet hasn't completed synchronization, it might show you an incorrect balance. Complete the synchronization or retrieve your private key using dumpprivkey.

If the wallet file is encrypted, 19 Bitcoin is a fortune, and your brother probably kept the password somewhere. Search for it; that's the quickest way.

[Zwei]

as mentioned above, your best bet is to brute force the passphrase to recover the coins.
maybe the song and the pictures could be a hint for it, so you could try the song title/lyrics or the picture file names or something like that. it's a long shot, but who knows.

and is there any chance to sell this wallet or use it in any way.

don't try to sell it. you will just get scammed, and you definitely do not want to share the files on the USB with randoms claiming they can help you recover the coins.

[BlackHatCoiner]

This guy is clearly a scammer, because what kind of person wants to sell the file that contains 19 bitcoin instead of actually finding a way around recovering the password? I can't believe that people give genuine replies, or pretend to I hope. I mean, guys, come on, spot the scammer.

There might be people sending PMs to you offering you "recovery" service, just know that they are most likely scammers.

No need to warn him. He's ready to sell you an empty wallet for just 0.07 bitcoin.

[philipma1957]

This guy is clearly a scammer, because what kind of person wants to sell the file that contains 19 bitcoin instead of actually finding a way around recovering the password? I can't believe that people give genuine replies, or pretend to I hope. I mean, guys, come on, spot the scammer.

There might be people sending PMs to you offering you "recovery" service, just know that they are most likely scammers.

No need to warn him. He's ready to sell you an empty wallet for just 0.07 bitcoin.

I will buy the wallet. For 1 dollar.  if i can open it he can give me a BTC address to send him 18 or the 19 coins.

[m2017]

I’m new here and looking for people who actually know their stuff I found a usb in my older brother’s office after he passed away

A good start to the story...

Let's keep listening.

when I checked it it had tons of files and pictures and one folder had a Bitcoin Core wallet along with some images and an old song file

Please post a photo of the USB drive you found and screenshots of the folders containing Bitcoin Core. Of course, please don't disclose any personal or other sensitive information. Otherwise, I see no reason to take your word for it.

The wallet apparently has a little over 19 Bitcoin but when we tried to make a transfer it asked for a passphrase which we don’t know or how to recover

You do have access to the wallet, right? Show me a screenshot - it won't ruin your life.

So, according to you, there was no password to access the wallet, but when you try to send money, wallet asks for a password?

Could this be because the wallet is watch-only?

My question is is there any way or anyone experienced who can help or guide me and is there any chance to sell this wallet or use it in any way.

Fulfill my requests above, and I assure you, we'll have a completely different conversation. Those willing to help will immediately be found, but for now, this all looks like a "fairy tale for fools".

In general, newbies in such cases should make it a rule to provide full information (screenshots) and evidence of the veracity of the story, otherwise it looks like a lie.

[nc50lc]

So, according to you, there was no password to access the wallet, but when you try to send money, wallet asks for a password?
Could this be because the wallet is watch-only?

I'm not trying to defend OP (as I had the same suspicion as BHC)
But in Bitcoin Core, you can load a wallet.dat file and see its balance (as it sync) without needing to type its password.
The client will only ask if any of the encrypted private key is required like when signing a transaction during send.

As for old bitcoin core watch-only wallet case, the wallet can have both private keys and bare addresses with importprivkeys or importaddress/importpubkey.
But there should be a visible icon in the 'Transactions' tab that shows that the particular transaction is watch-only.
OP should include that tab in his screenshot.
However, most fake wallet.dat files will show normal transactions and will only exhibit non-matching key symptoms once the correct password is provided, so it will look legit regardless.