bitcoin-fork-claim-guide

Introduction

What is this about?

This guide is meant help you claim airdropped coins forked from bitcoin (BTC). Well known bitcoin forks are Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Gold (BTG). There are many more forks. Although most of these forked coins have very little value relative to bitcoin, you can still make some free money out of thin air!

In order to claim your forked coins, you must have held bitcoins in a wallet you control. For this guide, I will assume you held your bitcoins in Trezor, Ledger or Keepkey hardware wallets. However, it does apply to other wallets as well.

Do I really have free money lying around in the different blockchains?

Use findmycoins.ninja to find out if you really have forked coins lying around in blockchains. Paste the Bitcoin addresses you used for transacting and the website will show you how much of each fork you possess. Note the forked coins you are able to claim.

First steps

Before you begin the process of claim your airdropped forked coins, make sure you:

• create a brand new wallet with a fresh set of 12/18/24 word seed (optional but highly recommended; you will be putting your precious BTC at extreme risk if you skip this step)
  • transfer your bitcoins and other coins (LTC, ETH, etc) to this new wallet
• have a good grasp of Linux/Unix/MacOS command line

Claiming your forked coins

00. Install the packages required for your OS

I am assuming you are using a Debian based Linux distro. If you are using something else, like MacOS or another Linux distro, I leave it to your capable hands and intellect to install equivalent packages.

sudo apt install git jq

01. Generate the list of Path/Address/Public Key/Private Key

We will use iancoleman/bip39 git repo to generate the list of Path/Address/Public Key/Private Key

git clone https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39.git
cd bip39

Open the bip39-standalone.html file in the bip39 directory using Google Chrome or Firefox (or any other browser)

Under the Mnemonic section of the html page, enter your 12/18/24 word seed of the old wallet in BIP39 Mnemonic textbox (See First Steps section on the dangers of not transferring your BTC to a new wallet first). If you also use a passphrase, enter the passphrase in BIP39 Passphrase (optional)

Under the Derivation Path section of the html page, make sure BIP44 tab is selcted. (Leave the other settings as default unless you have multiple accounts.)

Under the Derived Addresses section of the html page, select the CSV tab. Depening on how many addresses you have used for your transactions, add a higher number in the Show textbox and click more rows.

Copy all the contents of the CSV and and save it in a plain text file. Let's call this file my-non-segwit-addresses.csv.

Go to the Derivation Path section again and select the BIP49 tab. Go to the Derived Addresses section and copy all the contents of the CSV in a file called my-segwit-addresses.csv

(Keep these CSV files secure since they contain your private keys.)

02. Get the list of tranaction ids from CSV files created above

Save the script below in a file called generate-txn-list.sh and make it executable chmod +x generate-txn-list.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 filename" >&2
  exit 1
fi

PRVKEYS_AND_ADDR_FILE="$1"
TXNID_PRVKEYS_AND_ADDR_KEYS="${1}.transactions"

echo "txn_id,private_key,address" > $TXNID_PRVKEYS_AND_ADDR_KEYS

while read LINE; do

  address=$(cut -d, -f2 <<< $LINE)
  private_key=$(cut -d, -f4 <<< $LINE)
  # get the source transaction id querying the BTC blockchain through blockchain.info
  txn_id=$(curl -s -XGET https://blockchain.info/rawaddr/${address} | jq '.txs[-1].hash')

  if [[ $txn_id == "null" ]]; then
    continue  # skip if the address has no transactions
  else
    txn_id=$(tr -d \" <<< $txn_id)  # remove the surrounding quotes "
  fi

  echo "${txn_id},${private_key},${address}" | tee --append $TXNID_PRVKEYS_AND_ADDR_KEYS

  # don't flood blockchain.info
  sleep 5

done < <(tail -n +2 $PRVKEYS_AND_ADDR_FILE) # skip the header of input file

Use the script above to generate 2 more files containing the transactions.

./generate-txn=list.sh my-non-segwit-addresses.csv
./generate-txn=list.sh my-segwit-addresses.csv

Now you will end up with 2 more files called my-non-segwit-addresses.csv.transactions and my-segwit-addresses.csv.transactions. These are the files we will use in the next step.

03. Create the script to generate batch jobs for transferring the forked coins

In this section we will create the script to generate batch jobs for claiming the forked coins for every address/private key/transaction id combo to send them to a destination address (an exchange address)

Save the script below in a file called generate-batch-jobs.sh and make it executable chmod +x generate-batch-jobs.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $# -ne 3 ]]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 tran_filename currency exchange_address" >&2
  exit 1
fi

while read LINE; do

  exchange_address="$3"
  tran_id=$(echo $LINE | cut -d, -f1)
  private_key=$(echo $LINE | cut -d, -f2)
  address=$(echo $LINE | cut -d, -f3)
  echo "python ./claimer.py --force --noblock $2 $tran_id $private_key $address $exchange_address"
  echo "sleep 5"

done < <(tail -n +2 ${1}) | tee --append $2

04. Generate batch jobs for the forked coins you want to claim and send

For this task we will use ymgve/bitcoin_fork_claimer git repo. First, check bitcoin_fork_claimer README to get the ticker for the fork you want to claim. For this example, let's say you want to claim Bitcoin Private (BTCP). Get an account at an exchange and get a deposit address for BTCP.

Generate the batch jobs for claiming BTCP (use generate-batch-jobs.sh script from previous step):

# Replace  with the BTCP desposit address of your exchange (DOUBLE CHECK THE ADDRESS)
./generate-batch-jobs.sh my-non-segwit-addresses.csv.transactions BTCP <exchange_address>
./generate-batch-jobs.sh my-segwit-addresses.csv.transactions BTCP <exchange_address>

After running the commands above you will end up with a file called BTCP in the same directory. (Note that for this example the file is BTCP because we are claiming BTCP. If you claiming some other coin like BIFI, the file will be BIFI.)

We will need to use the ymgve/bitcoin_fork_claimer git repo to claim the forked coin BTCP.

git clone https://github.com/ymgve/bitcoin_fork_claimer.git
cd bitcoin_fork_claimer
# move the BTCP file to this directory
mv ../path/to/BTCP .

Check findmycoins.ninja and find out which of your addresses contains BTCP you are able to claim. Open BTCP file with an editor and remove lines containing addresses which does not have BTCP you are able to claim. (You may skip this step but it will take a long time for the batch jobs in BTCP file to complete.)

Now you are able to claim and send to the exchange address.

bash ./BTCP

As the batch jobs in BTCP file runs, look for outputs like "YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEND" and "OUR TRANSACTION IS IN THEIR MEMPOOL, TRANSACTION ACCEPTED! YAY!". At this point check your exchange and see if they show up in the deposit page.

(Note than I have used BTCP as an example. You are able to claim other forked coins as well as long as it is supported in ymgve/bitcoin_fork_claimer)

Exchanges to dump your forked coins

Before depositing your forked coins in an exchange, make sure if the exchange allows you to trade anonymously or they require you to verify your identity.

Forked coin	Exchanges
B2X - Segwit 2X	https://exrates.me
BBC - Big Bitcoin	https://tradesatoshi.com
BCA - Bitcoin Atom	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Atom -> Markets
BCD - Bitcoin Diamond	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Diamond -> Markets
BCH - Bitcoin Cash	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Cash -> Markets
BCI - Bitcoin Interest	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Interest -> Markets
BCX - Bitcoin X	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> BitcoinX -> Markets
BICC - BitClassic Coin	https://www.topbtc.com
BIFI - Bitcoin File	https://gate.io/
BTCP - Bitcoin Private	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Private -> Markets
BTF - Bitcoin Faith	https://www.btctrade.im
BTG - Bitcoin Gold	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin Diamond -> Markets
BTW - Bitcoin World	https://www.btctrade.im
BTP - Bitcoin Pay	https://www.btctrade.im
BTX - Bitcore	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcore -> Markets
GOD - Bitcoin God	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Bitcoin God -> Markets
LBTC - Lightning Bitcoin	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Lightning Bitcoin -> Markets
SBTC - Super Bitcoin	Check https://coinmarketcap.com/ -> Super Bitcoin -> Markets

Disclaimer

This guide is to be used at your own risk. Do not hold me responsible for any mishaps not just limited to the following:

• confusing ticker of one coin with another
• sending coins to the wrong address
• having your private keys or 12/18/24 word seeds compromised because of not creating a new wallet and not sending your BTC to the new wallet
• not being able to withdraw funds from exchange due to verification

Donations

Really appreciate your donations which can sent to

BTC: 38uvDLV4GzcAB7qMUEM5chqivESqNPWPZW

LTC: MRAwH2WHUprCn5RcpKWKMkfaUJicTpsbWr