Guess what: I figured it out! It turns out my mind had added a character to my passphrase, that shouldn't be there. Without it, I can recover the address.
To me, this proves (and/or confirms) 2 things:
1. My "it's all in my head" storage system works.
2. My "it's all in my head" storage system is far too risky.
The funny part is: I took notes of the method I used, because I wasn't sure I'd remember all the defails (even though, as a relative Bitcoin Newbie back then, I didn't realize the first 2 steps could have been done in one step). What surprised me, is that I doubted the method I wrote down, and not the passphrase:
Lessons learned
Don't do brain wallets
Even though I'll keep this one for now, it's still not recommended. And if you do insist (which you should only do if you know for sure it's difficult enough to withstand brute-force attacks): keep a backup. Or just don't do it. But if you do, and if you can't restore it in the future: please open a topic about it
To me, this proves (and/or confirms) 2 things:
1. My "it's all in my head" storage system works.
2. My "it's all in my head" storage system is far too risky.
The funny part is: I took notes of the method I used, because I wasn't sure I'd remember all the defails (even though, as a relative Bitcoin Newbie back then, I didn't realize the first 2 steps could have been done in one step). What surprised me, is that I doubted the method I wrote down, and not the passphrase:
I do remember the passphrases used. I won't say I'm 100% certain, so let's say I'm 99% certain those are correct. That makes it likely there's something in my method that I can't reproduce.
It was the other way around. It's funny how my mind tricks me into trusting .... my mind Lessons learned
Don't do brain wallets
Even though I'll keep this one for now, it's still not recommended. And if you do insist (which you should only do if you know for sure it's difficult enough to withstand brute-force attacks): keep a backup. Or just don't do it. But if you do, and if you can't restore it in the future: please open a topic about it which address I put in my email then, in 2015, when I received my 10k sats?
That's not much to go on. It gives 71,371 possible transactions.