How can I gain access to my BC Vault created wallet on another device or software wallet?

Modified on Wed, 16 Jun 2021 at 02:36 PM

IF SOMEONE READS THE PRIVATE KEY THEY "GAIN FULL ACCESS"/"CAN SPEND ALL OF THE MONEY" ON THAT PARTICULAR WALLET/ADDRESS WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION! KEEP IT SECRET AND DON'T PROCEED IF YOU ARE NOT SURE!


MEMBERS OF TEAM BC VAULT OR ANY OFFICIAL BC VAULT APPLICATION WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR YOUR PRIVATE KEYS!


IF YOU COME UPPON A SITUATION WHERE ENTITY/PORTAL/APPLICATION... ASKS YOU FOR THE PRIVATE KEY OF A WALLET YOU SHOULD NOT PROCEED AND NOTIFY US!


BC Vault offers raw private key export and you can use that method to gain access to your wallets from any other software/hardware device supporting the same crypto wallet. This article will show you an example of how to import BTC raw private key to the official Bitcoin Core Wallet application.

You can try this example out by yourself, but DO NOT USE PRIVATE KEYS OF YOUR REAL WALLETS FOR EXERCISE ONLY. Create a new wallet i.e. "My Test BTC Wallet" and follow the procedure. Delete it afterwards and never use it for storing any funds.


Example of exporting raw private key of Bitcoin BTC wallet from the BC Vault and importing it into official Bitcoin Core Software Wallet:


  1. You have existing BTC wallet on the BC Vault (16SiVvx8.... is your public wallet address):


  2. Export raw private key of your existing BTC wallet in the BC Vault (see: Can I reveal raw private keys of a wallet on BC Vault?):


  3. You will now see a string of 64 characters and numbers representing raw private key of this particular wallet on the BC Vault device:

    RAW PRIVATE KEY: "AEA7B73C150A57D581F8C1C325D0FA1182DB7E14871249912222B573EAF78F04"

    NEVER EVER EXPOSE THAT TO ANYONE. THIS IS ALL IT TAKES TO HAVE FULL ACCESS TO THIS PARTICULAR WALLET!

  4. We will now convert raw private key to WIF (Wallet Import Format) used by Bitcoin Core wallet software (there is no universal census available for private keys, this is why BC Vault exports the lowest level - raw private key, so you can always convert it to whatever format you need). Most of other wallets will be able to import raw private key directly, there is no need to convert it to WIF, but since it is always good to learn a bit more, let's do it!

    In your web browser open address "https://bitaddress.org" and use "File/Save As" to save the webpage utility to your computer. Let's say you did save it to your Desktop as "bitaddress.org.html". Now use "File/Open File" in your browser to open this utility on your local computer. You can also review the source code of the utility and be sure that it wasn't changed.

    We are doing this so that your private key will not leave your computer, this is now running on your computer locally - no data will be sent to the Internet (notice the file:///...in the address bar):
  5. Click on the "Wallet Details" and type your private key into the "Enter Private Key" field and click on "View Details":
    You can now see your raw private key in the WIF Compressed format as:

    PRIVATE KEY IN WIF COMPRESSED FORMAT:
    "L35DaRmC7er6eUTVbdKTqagTrJ2x2NT4gqLPcvepFXWL5pHAwmbS"

    This is what we need for import into Bitcoin Core Wallet.

  6. Run the official Bitcoin Core Software wallet (official download site: https://bitcoin.org/en/download):
  7. Create a new blank wallet (blank means without private key, which you will import) "File/Create Wallet...":
  8. Open the console "Window/Console":
  9. In the input box below type the following command to import the private key in WIF format:

    importprivkey "L35DaRmC7er6eUTVbdKTqagTrJ2x2NT4gqLPcvepFXWL5pHAwmbS" "My BC Vault BTC Wallet" false


    We use parameter "false" at the end to not wait on full blockchain download of the Bitcoin Core wallet. If you already did download the full blockchain, you can also omit it.

  10. Now you will see that under "Window/Receiving addresses" you will indeed see your existing wallet addresses  (16SiVvx8....) from the BC Vault Desktop Application:

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