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I am still a Rookie regarding bitcoins and therefore apologize beforehand if I might use some words wrong.

I started a bitcoin wallet through a provider some years ago and bought some bitcoin. The wallets they provided were in the cloud and the didn't want to continue with that solution after some time so they discontinued their wallets. At that time I transferred my bitcoin to a new wallet. This week I transferred the bitcoins back from the new wallet to the old wallet as I still had the old address written down and I thought that I could sell the bitcoin through my old provider (had forgotten about that they discontinued their wallets). I can see the public key or address which contains the bitcoin. I have the 12 word recovery phrases for both wallets. I tried to recover my wallet with the 12 word phrase but the balance is 0. When I log on to the blockchain app i can see the old address under "imported addresses" but it says "not payable".

Is there any way to access these bitcoin on the old address or are they burnt?

I tried the steps in I have my 12 word seed from @Abdussamad, even with different import methods but unfortunately it can't see the balance.

Really appreciate your help. br

Bitcoin Noob
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  • Is the "old provider" still in business (e.g. some non-wallet business)? If so have you contacted them about this? Do you know if their 12-word seed is a normal BIP39 seed and do you know the derivation path used by the old wallet (assuming it was an HD wallet)? – RedGrittyBrick Jan 16 '21 at 11:22
  • They are still in business. I have contacted them and they say that they can not do anything. When trying to recover in Electrum I need to check the BIP39 checkbox to be able to continue. Does that mean that it is a normal BIP39 seed? Unfortunately I don’t know the derivation path. – Bitcoin Noob Jan 17 '21 at 14:00
  • See answer regarding derivation paths – RedGrittyBrick Jan 17 '21 at 14:53

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If you have a 12 word recovery phrase for the old wallet, if the phrase is a BIP-39 recovery phrase and if you can find the derivation path, you should be able to recover control over your money using a standalone wallet that supports BIP-39 and which allows you to specify the derivation path.

You could use a list of popular derivation paths as a starting point for your own larger list and systematically work through them.

It would be easier if the original business could tell you the derivation path used in their discontinued wallet.

RedGrittyBrick
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  • Thanks a lot! I have contacted the business and wait for their answer. Can you recommend any standalone wallet that supports BIP-39 and which allows you to specify the derivation path? Again thanks a lot!!! – Bitcoin Noob Jan 17 '21 at 21:30
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    @BitcoinNoob. In electrum, when you first run it, you can create a new wallet, -> standard wallet - I already have a seed you can then select address type and enter a derivation path. See https://bitcoinelectrum.com/restoring-your-standard-wallet-from-seed/ – RedGrittyBrick Jan 17 '21 at 22:07
  • I got an answer now: The wallet was provided by blockchain's API and the opportunity to retrieve private keys and also log in to the wallet on blockchain was offered. Does that mean that I should use blockchains derivation path m/44'/0'/0'? – Bitcoin Noob Jan 18 '21 at 16:56
  • Just a comment that might help: via the blockchain app I have a wallet where I can see the imported address where my bitcoins are. It says I would need to scan my private key in order to be able to spend the coins there. When I try to pair my app with the web wallet, I can't find the imported address anywhere. – Bitcoin Noob Jan 18 '21 at 21:07
  • I started to create new wallets in electrum. I assume that I have to go m/44'/0'/0', m/44'/0'/1', m/44'/0'/2' and so on. Is there a upper limit? – Bitcoin Noob Jan 18 '21 at 21:08
  • @BitcoinNoob: You shouldn't have to enumerate all the values, the wallet should do that. There is an initial upper limit to the number of values iterated by the wallet. This limit is called the gap limit. You should just set the initial pattern and let the wallet generate a set of addresses and let it find out if those addresses have any unspent amounts in the blockchain. You can extend the gap limit but that shouldn't be necessary unless you originally generated a lot of receive addresses that you didnt use – RedGrittyBrick Jan 18 '21 at 21:14
  • So, I tried to recover the wallet and increased the gap limit. Quite a lot but still no luck with recovering access to the right address where the coins are. Luckily the original business contacted me and tried to help me. Turns out that they had a different wallet which was probably the one used for buying the coins and probably also the one which is connected to the address where the coins are. They combined their own password with my password to access the wallet (on blockchain) with my mail address. We tried that but that didn't work now to access this other wallet. Any ideas? – Bitcoin Noob Feb 07 '21 at 20:35