Bitcoin : Some Advice/Help With Retrieving My Late Husband’s Bitcoins
Hello everyone,
I apologize if any of what I say is very basic for here. I hope that my questions are appropriate. I have searched online and have seen that other people have asked similar questions of Reddit users and that y’all seem to be very knowledgeable and helpful. My husband bought some Bitcoins (with my money) back in 2009. It wasn’t much at that time, but I was still very upset with him when he told me because I had no idea what these things were. But once he explained them to me, I allowed him to keep them and to do whatever he felt he should with them as he did our finances.
He was just that type of guy where he found them amusing and fascinating. He needed something to “dork around with.” Unfortunately, even though he would try to explain some of it to me at times, it just wasn’t my thing. So, I never learned much beyond the basics. Well, he ended up passing away in 2014. For awhile I did not think it was possible to retrieve the Bitcoins and it was the least of my concerns in the beginning because I was not at a place emotionally to be dealing with such things. I had our very young son to take care of at that time and all sorts of changes and other things to deal with. Fast forward to today, I have the following things:
* a paper wallet he thankfully printed not that long prior to his death from Bitgo and it has a Section D on it which I understand older wallets do not have
* some possible passwords for the account itself
* some reminder dashes on the back of the printed wallet as to what the password for the wallet would be (I am fairly certain that I know all but a few characters)
* an educated guess as to what email he used (an email that I believe is now shut down)
* and some other possible passwords and log ins to various Bitcoin trading sites
* the original computer that I think he might have used to store them – I mean, it’s his main computer, although we (a trusted friend of his and a trusted family member of mine) have not been able to locate the actual Bitcoins themselves on his computer yet. The other problem with the computer is that he was bizarrely adamant about not updating the operating system because he hated the newer systems and so it still has Windows xp on it and my old laptop that he maintained in the same way for me has since become infected by viruses due to it having Windows xp as well. So, I am a bit afraid about that problem. I am also suspicious that he might have had the Bitcoins on an external drive of some sort as he was very careful. I have kept all of his computer stuff, but it’s literally tubs and tubs of stuff and I don’t really know what to look for – I’m going to have his friend help me with some of that soon.
So…his friend and my family member and I are going to be getting together soon to test out the password and educated guesses that I do have. My concerns are…what happens if we start trying out some of these passwords and emails as user emails if they are wrong? For example, is it possible to accidentally lock the account? At this point, my hope is that we could get into his account first and then from there use the printed wallet information to decrypt or unencrypt (I don’t know which word exactly) the password for the wallet. His friend pointed out I would also be able to change the email address of the account to mine, etc. Although, chances are, I do not have access to the original email he used so I don’t know if you can just go ahead and switch the email so easily. But, my first concern is…**is it possible to accidentally lock the account??** We have already accidentally locked 2 of his email accounts in the process of trying to recover them and I am finding out that these online type things are not the best when you are trying to retrieve things as a widow even if you are legit. Companies are very concerned about privacy and all that and I have lost family pictures and not had very good luck. My family member did contact Bitgo for me to ask about what a widow can do in these situations and they didn’t sound very helpful. They said if you don’t have the password then too bad, basically, I believe. Now that I am feeling emotionally stronger, I do plan on contacting them myself, although perhaps it will not make a difference. I do understand they probably get all sorts of these requests all the time that are not legit.
If anyone has any other advice that would be greatly appreciated. Obviously, I would be able to provide a death certificate, if necessary, but I don’t know that that even seems to matter. Also, I recently read something about a seed phrase? What the heck is that? Is it something you come up on your own? Or should I be looking for a random string of words that my husband might have written down somewhere? How does that work? Did they have that back in 2014? Do I just need the email and password to log into the general Bitgo account? I have gone to the log in page for Bitgo, but have not done anything myself yet in terms of typing anything in. Thanks much!
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