I've used Vanitygen to generate a vanity Bitcoin address. I used the "-e" option to encrypt the private key. What I can't figure out is how to decrypt the protected key that was provided after generating the vanity address, nor can I find the encryption method used.
Is there a utility, library or program that I can use to decrypt the protected key in order to access the private key?
Buried in the bitcointalk.org forums I found this answer.
Use the keyconv binary file that is included, with the protected/encrypted key as the only argument:
keyconv [Protected Key Here]
This will spit out the unencrypted private key. It isn't documented anywhere other than this forum post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25804.msg2107686;topicseen#msg2107686
keyconv: util.c:330: vg_set_privkey: Assertion `EC_KEY_check_key(pkey)' failed. for me and others, I had to use elichai's fork which requires a -d flag for decryption
Commented
Dec 30, 2015 at 14:07
I have found a couple of implementations that should help you to decipher the protKey:
Also seems that http://insight.gotdns.org/~samr7/pkprotect.html had some more info, but it is down now, maybe Google Cache o Archive.org can help here.
I have not tested anything so don't blame me it they does not work :D
But it seems that it is a format that is not widely used and there is no easy way to decrypt the private key.
https://gist.github.com/ianpurton/1139867 [JS] Any idea how to run it.
But try https://github.com/exploitagency/vanitygen-plus
Windows keyconv.exe -C BTC -d protected-key Linux ./keyconv -C BTC -d protected-key
