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Cannot import private key

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DarkCoin_hodler

New member
Way back in the day I generated my wallet using a generator I found in these forums : https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/how-to-make-a-darkcoin-paper-wallet.116/page-2

This might be the generator I used years ago:
https://github.com/internetape/paperwallet

Back in the darkcoin days I successfully imported the private key and spent a few coins. My coins are visible in the blockchain.
My paper wallet is in the following format (that is not my wallet but the secret key format is the same as mine)
XDRoAyr.png



I import the key using the command importprivkey <secret key> but I get an invalid format error 'invalid private key encoding'

Thanks....I'm freaking out a little but I have faith
 
Last edited:
Hi there!

You may have encrypted or compressed your private key - please see here: https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/...673/How+to+restore+an+old+or+backed+up+wallet

The key question here is whether your address starts with 7 (WIF, should be directly importable), X (compressed WIF, needs decompressing) or 6P (encrypted, needs decrypting). You should paste your private key on the Wallet Details section of https://paper.dash.org/ and see what it comes up with for you. Post back here with your results!
 
lol PEBKAC. If the private key is directly importable in its current format in the latest version of Dash Core, you should be fine for the foreseeable future - it is very unlikely that the relationship between existing private/public key pairs would be broken. You could consider moving them to a hardware wallet though - they all support Dash.
 
Newb here. Once I import a private key from a paper wallet, I assume it is teh exact same priv/pub keypair that is now usable that is in the Dash Core wallet. If I were to lose my wallet.dat file, I assume that my paper wallets are still valid to re-import again. Am I thinking about this correctly?
Thanks
 
Yes, when you import the private key, the same keypair on your paper wallet is then stored in the Dash Core wallet.dat file. If you lose the wallet.dat file, the balances will still be accessible by re-importing the paper wallet as long as you haven't spent any of the balances. If you do create a transaction using those balances as inputs, the remaining balance may be moved to a change address inside wallet.dat, meaning the paper wallet address would then have reduced or zero funds.

In general, you can gradually add Dash to a paper wallet over time, but once you import the private key and use it to create a spending transaction, you shouldn't use the address again because things get... complicated....
 
strophy said:
Yes, when you import the private key, the same keypair on your paper wallet is then stored in the Dash Core wallet.dat file. If you lose the wallet.dat file, the balances will still be accessible by re-importing the paper wallet as long as you haven't spent any of the balances. If you do create a transaction using those balances as inputs, the remaining balance may be moved to a change address inside wallet.dat, meaning the paper wallet address would then have reduced or zero funds.

In general, you can gradually add Dash to a paper wallet over time, but once you import the private key and use it to create a spending transaction, you shouldn't use the address again because things get... complicated....
Click to expand...

Thanks much for the detailed answer. Understood, and makes perfect sense now.
 
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