hey guys, I sent some BTC to a cold wallet I created myself, and now I'm struggling to get it back out. Any tips? It's stored on my local device, and I prefer not to share too many details because of security concerns.
No one can help you with the lack of details you've provided. Don't post your seed phrase or any private keys, and your bitcoin will remain safe. But, we're going to need some information to help you figure out what went wrong.
How did you create the cold wallet?
Why not tell us what wallet you use in your cold wallet so that we know what we should need you to do?
If you are using an Electrum wallet, then from a cold wallet, you need the master public key and import it to an online device with Electrum.
Once it is successful and you have confirmed that you received BTC from that wallet, you can make a transaction from the online Electrum wallet, generate an unsigned transaction, transfer it to the cold wallet, sign the transaction, and move the signed transaction back to the online Electrum wallet.
That's the simple way to make transaction from cold storage/offline wallet.
To be clear, losing your private keys or seed phrase means your bitcoin is probably gone for good - no one can get your coins back. If someone offers you the option of recovering lost coins, they are probably trying to scam you.
Anyway, simply saying you have a "custom cold wallet" isnt enough information. You gotta give us a bit more info to help you out. Making your own cold wallet takes time and you gotta be real careful about details and securely. Maybe consider using a hardware wallet from a trusted company instead.
ok, i will go into more detal, i dont know alot of programing, so i am just learning as i go, but, using: https://github.com/immense055/CryptoBit-Bitcoin-wallet and https://github.com/bitkey/bitkey i sent my transaction to http://127.0.0.1:8080/. i have no idea how to read the data i have, all i know is that its there, and i cant get it off with the wallet i used to it moved there, my understanding of command lines is little to nill.
*Keep in mind, this was done 2019/20 as well, so what little i did remeber about moving it there, is just a messy blur now.
Which of these two exactly did you use and created your wallet Bitkey or CryptoBit?
I never heard of CryptoBit wallet if you created your from that and sent to Bitkey wallet through that local URL(127.0.0.1) then your BTC still on the first wallet where you made the transaction because that is not the way how to send BTC. It seems you are experimenting something. That is not a real Bitcoin; perhaps you are sending testnet or its signet?
Hi! Can you give me the transaction ID, so I can assist you? Normally, bitcoin is sent to addresses and not IPs.
Edit: to be absolutely clear, sending bitcoin to IPs is not possible since 2011. You can check here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9334.msg2154396#msg2154396
Do you recall anything when looking at this CryptoBit screenshot? If no, you probably used one of cryptocurrency software/wallet included by BitKey OS.
FYI BitKey is a linux distro which include many cryptocurrency wallet/software. But since OP also mentioned CryptoBit, OP probably boot into BitKey and created wallet using CryptoBit.
i reconise the cryptobyt screenshots yes, my balance of BTC i sent to myself is still showin up in my cryptobyt wallet but its a 6 transaction token, and the 5 addresses that make up the tokens btc are still full of my btc, all 4 added up togetehr is the excast amout of my btc and they are all 4 un used and have been sitting idle for the last x amount of years. ( there were 6 transactions origonally but two went to a 5th walled ansd i was able to recover the balance from that one years ago by manually signing the transaction threw blockchain.comm, which was purely fluke)
i used the cryptobit as wallet and the bitkey as a offline cold storage usb. i have the usb harddrive still but nothing shows up in it(it does show data being used on the harddrive though.
You seem to be struggling explaining yourself and you are making this way so complicated. I dont think anyone here will be able to help you unless you start explaining your problem better. Try breaking it down into simpler steps and providing more context.
Maybe try walking through it step by step, starting with the initial transaction and ending with the current state of your Bitcoin. Screenshots or relevant transaction IDs would be grea.
yes, i am having a hard time remebering, i had stated that in my earlyer posts, but, as you are suggesting, i have been doing allready, i am trying to retrace my steps, that is why i was and am able to add more information into this post.
Don't see my words as some kind of criticism, but if I were to guess English is not your native tongue. I highly encourage you to write in your own language in DeepL[1] and then past here the English translation.
Additionally, as others have stated, make a step by step description of what is that you actually did and how that lead you to your current situation. We won't be able to help you if we have to read the same phrases 5x in order to try to understand what you actually need help with.
[1]https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
So now we know that you use CryptoBit wallet and store it's file/backup locally. While source code for CryptoBit exist, i didn't find any documentation or relevant article/guide from Google Search. So i think the next step is either,
1. Read source code to understand how it store private key on generated wallet/backup file.
2. Compile the extension from source code, then load it manually to Chromium-based browser. Afterwards, check whether the extension have option to restore or load the backup/file.
But i don't have such skill or experience to do either of those.