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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?
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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
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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.
Thanks for the response. These look like potential resolutions within existing applications so they could be helpful. I did find an answer in the bitcointalk.org forums that gave a confirmed resolution (see my self-response). – jkriddle – 2013-12-10T22:07:03.343
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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
Lol I reviewed keyconv code but was serching for an flag to decrypt and didn't find it :D. Anyway accept your own answer to help other users. – frisco – 2013-12-11T11:21:26.307
that fails with a
– Tobias Kienzler – 2015-12-30T14:07:42.387keyconv: 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-dflag for decryption