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I have old bitcoin wallet with some (not very huge) amount (last transaction was on 2014). It was created in Multibit (Classic, I guess, then I had old computer with old OS). Now I have new device, system and wallet, and want to restore old [wallet] to send bitcoin to the new one. I know, I need a private key, so I imported old wallet (it's watch-only wallet right now) in Bitcoin Core with rescan and next try to do like this guy -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ev33XGCH8M, however, after putting "dumpprivkey"-command in console, it says "the private key for this address is not known".

That's what I don't understand (interesting, though), b'cause I remember I've backuped it and hold those files for all those years on my USB stick, but now they're completely unusefull. :(

How can I resolve this problem? Anyone knows?

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  • watchonly means that the wallet does not have any private keys. Did you import your private keys to Bitcoin Core?
    – Ava Chow
    Sep 30, 2020 at 21:40
  • I tried, but it didn't work.
    – MW1983
    Oct 1, 2020 at 7:04
  • It would probably help if you expanded on "didn't work" - what exactly did you do and what is the exact wording of any error-messages? Oct 1, 2020 at 10:00
  • Rejected b'cause of invalid key.
    – MW1983
    Oct 1, 2020 at 10:31
  • You need to make sure the thing you have is actually the private key. And you may need to convert it into the format that newer software requires. (Don't forget, you have bitcoin cash too.) Oct 1, 2020 at 20:02

1 Answer 1

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If you "imported" something from your old Multibit Wallet and ended up with a "watch-only wallet" it means that what you "imported" was a Bitcoin-address and not a private-key. You must find and import the private-key, not the Bitcoin-address if you want your new wallet to be able spend the money.

If your old Multibit Classic software is still working, you should be able to use it to create a transaction that sends money to a receive-address you create in a new wallet (using some different wallet-software such as Bitcoin-core).

I think a lesson for the rest of us is not to trust our money solely to proprietary backup formats. Always have a backup of either the master private key in Wallet Import Format (WIF) or the seed-phrase/recovery-phrase/backup-phrase in BIP-39 format or in some equally well-defined and well-known public format


Related questions with answers that may be useful:

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  • Where can I find Multibit Classic for Linux?
    – MW1983
    Oct 1, 2020 at 10:43

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