<p>It depends on how much information you are missing.</p>

<p>A Wallet Import Format key is base58 encoded. Thus, each character in the key can be one of 58 characters.</p>

<p>You mention in the comments that you are missing 21 characters. Assuming you know exactly which 21 characters are missing (i.e., you know that the first 21 are missing), you have 21^58, or <code>4.88336... × 10^76</code> possibilities. This is outside the range of bruteforcing.</p>

<p>Moreover, if you don't know which 21 characters are missing, you have many, many more possibilities, as you not only need to iterate all 58 possibilities for each characters, but also try all their possible locations within the key.</p>

<p>Unless you are able to find more information, the key cannot be recovered.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T07:06:54.830Z
can you give me your email or whatsapp number so I can tell you everything briefly .
Dion Winbush
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-16T14:06:48.227Z
it's 58^21 not 21^58
Mike D
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T07:04:25.337Z
2018-11-12T07:04:25.337Z
Raghav Sood
<p>Have you seen the movie "The Imitation Game" ? this reminds me of it because:</p>

<p>if you do have part of it, it 'easier' to get the full message (key) in this case... but exactly by how much?... is it even worth it?</p>

<p>in your case not worth it tho, sorry... </p>

<p>possible? yes,
easier? yes,
but still not worth it by today's computational standards </p>

<p>Anyways, good luck! and don't throw away anything, you never know....</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-16T13:38:24.233Z
2018-11-16T13:38:24.233Z
JosEvora
<p>I have a bitcoin wallets private key , but it's incomplete like you can say it's 70% of the private key , there is some alphanumeric missing for the middle of the key , is there anyway to recover it using that 70% of it ? </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-11T22:22:31.027Z
What format is the private key in? Please don't share any part of the actual key, just describe the format of the backup/file you do have some part of.
chytrik
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-11T22:25:09.703Z
I wrote that on a paper  I have privatekey in WIF format starting with 5.
Dion Winbush
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-11T23:48:24.597Z
It's a power of 58 possibilities for each character missing (assuming you know the address you are looking for) . So for 4 (58^4) it should be feasible to brute force but for 10 probably not.
Mike D
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T00:00:25.590Z
Depends a lot on exactly what is missing". WIF encoded private keys are a version byte, 32 bytes of data for the private key, and 4 bytes of checksum data. Losing the last few characters is trivially recoverable, losing a couple of characters in the middle is potentially recoverable, losing a substantial portion of the middle of key becomes increasingly more difficult. Work out how many characters exactly you've lost.
Claris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T00:50:55.817Z
I think I've lost something about 21 characters from the middle . is it recoverable ?
Dion Winbush
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T03:27:19.010Z
Don’t discard it, but unlikely.
Claris
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-12T04:57:48.943Z
@chytrik can you recover it ?
Dion Winbush
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-11-13T21:18:16.390Z
@DionWinbush if you are missing 20+ characters from the middle of the key, as others said it may well be outside the range of brute-forcing. Nonetheless I would keep the information you have: if it is a significant sum, perhaps it is worth trying anyways.
chytrik
<private-key><wallet-recovery>
Is there any way to recover a bitcoin private key using some parts of the key ?
Dion Winbush
# Is there any way to recover a bitcoin private key using some parts of the key ?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-11-11)

I have a bitcoin wallets private key , but it's incomplete like you can say it's 70% of the private key , there is some alphanumeric missing for the middle of the key , is there anyway to recover it using that 70% of it ?

**Tags:** private-key, wallet-recovery

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: What format is the private key in? Please don't share any part of the actual key, just describe the format of the backup/file you do have some part of.  
> **username_0**: I wrote that on a paper  I have privatekey in WIF format starting with 5.  
> **username_2**: It's a power of 58 possibilities for each character missing (assuming you know the address you are looking for) . So for 4 (58^4) it should be feasible to brute force but for 10 probably not.  
> **username_3**: Depends a lot on exactly what is missing". WIF encoded private keys are a version byte, 32 bytes of data for the private key, and 4 bytes of checksum data. Losing the last few characters is trivially recoverable, losing a couple of characters in the middle is potentially recoverable, losing a substantial portion of the middle of key becomes increasingly more difficult. Work out how many characters exactly you've lost.  
> **username_0**: I think I've lost something about 21 characters from the middle . is it recoverable ?  
> **username_3**: Don’t discard it, but unlikely.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 can you recover it ?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 if you are missing 20+ characters from the middle of the key, as others said it may well be outside the range of brute-forcing. Nonetheless I would keep the information you have: if it is a significant sum, perhaps it is worth trying anyways.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2018-11-12. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

It depends on how much information you are missing.

A Wallet Import Format key is base58 encoded. Thus, each character in the key can be one of 58 characters.

You mention in the comments that you are missing 21 characters. Assuming you know exactly which 21 characters are missing (i.e., you know that the first 21 are missing), you have 21^58, or `4.88336... × 10^76` possibilities. This is outside the range of bruteforcing.

Moreover, if you don't know which 21 characters are missing, you have many, many more possibilities, as you not only need to iterate all 58 possibilities for each characters, but also try all their possible locations within the key.

Unless you are able to find more information, the key cannot be recovered.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: can you give me your email or whatsapp number so I can tell you everything briefly .  
> **username_2**: it's 58^21 not 21^58  

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### Answer by username_5 on 2018-11-16. Score: 0

Have you seen the movie "The Imitation Game" ? this reminds me of it because:

if you do have part of it, it 'easier' to get the full message (key) in this case... but exactly by how much?... is it even worth it?

in your case not worth it tho, sorry...

possible? yes,
easier? yes,
but still not worth it by today's computational standards

Anyways, good luck! and don't throw away anything, you never know....


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