Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: Please, I need help for converting a very old btc private key to WIF.
by
bluecat4
on 24/06/2025, 16:46:47 UTC
Firstly, I’ll check the balance with the uncompressed master public key and the compressed master public key using 2 watch-only wallets. If the balance is different, I’d need to import both WIF private keys. If the balance is the same, my idea is to import the uncompressed WIF.
Third option: if both balances are zero, check the addresses on a block explorer because of this:
It is possible your old Bitcoins were sent to pubkey instead of the Bitcoin address. If that's the case, Electrum can't handle "send to pubkey" inputs so you can't use it to sign offline.

Good to know. It's important to keep this possibility in mind.
Thanks.