BACKSTORY
Back in May 2015 Dave invited me for a coffee in Prague-s first bitcoin cafe, and we of course bought bitcoins to pay for the coffee. We both used Copay as a wallet, we both created a backup, and both of us forgot about our BTCs !
A month ago I found my backup (it-s a rather cryptic json file) and managed to restore it (I struggled with the encryption password), and found out that with the change for that coffee, I can now pay for a couple dinners :)
Then I read that "whoever holds BTC as of August 1st 2017, will automatically be able to claim BCH (bitcoin cash)" , so here-s my HOW-TO guide to claim your BCH if you (like me) had an old Copay backup!
HOW-TO
- Move your BTC to a different wallet. The private key that you-ll need to claim your BCH is the same that controls your BTC, therefore if you use a malicious application to claim your BCH, that application could gain control of your BTC as well. You can create another Copay wallet, use Jaxx, or go hardcore (or hardware) and get yourself a Ledger Nano S .
- Get a BCH address. In step #5 you-ll move your BCH to a new address under your control, you therefore must have a valid BCH address. In Jaxx you can add BCH to your wallet by just going to your settings > Wallets > select Bitcoin Cash . Once you have this set up, go to your BCH wallet and find your address (you-ll have it written, and you-ll also have a QR code)
- Backup your old Copay BTC wallet. You-ll need to feed your Export json file to a recovery tool in order to find your BCH. Remember that you-ll need your OLD wallet, not the one you created in step #1. This is because you own BCH as a result of you owning BTC as of August 1st 2017. I tried to use my old backup (the one I created back in 2015) , but the recovery tool would not work because that wallet wasn-t BIP44 compatible! To export your wallet:
- In Copay, go to Settings (cog icon at the lower right corner) ,
- scroll down to "Bitcoin wallets" and tap your old wallet,
- scroll down to More Options,
- tap *Export Wallet . *Here you can either copy to clipboard (to paste it later in the recovery tool) , or send it to yourself as an email. In either case: use a password!
- Feed your backup to Bitpay recovery tool.
- Navigate to https://bitpay.github.io/copay-recovery/ ,
- Change the value of Chain to BCH,
- Paste the value of your Copay backup in the Recovery phrase (mnemonic) or File/Text backup field.
- If you set an encryption password for your backup (you should have done it!) , enter that password in the Backup password:(in case you have one) field,
- Check the "terms and conditions" box,
- Click the Scan BCH Wallet,
- Pray! If the recovery tool only shows the spinning wheel, without any text update on screen, it means that something went wrong (I found out by using the browser-s console! hit F12 when using the browser) . This happened when using the old export. With the new export, everything went according to plan.
- Transfer your BCH. If everything went according to plan, the recovery tool should now ask you to enter your BCH address (the one you created in step #2) . This will perform the transaction that will move your Bitcoin Cash from the place where they got created on August 1st, and moved to the newly created address (of which you own the private key). Be extra careful with this step, if you send to the wrong address, your BCH is lost! The recovery tool will run some validity check on the address you enter! Curiously enough, the BCH address that my Ledger Nano S generated wasn-t in the expected format! You can use this address converter to finally get your BCH https://cashaddr.bitcoincash.org/
Hopefully now you have your Bitcoin Cash available in your new wallet. If you spot any inaccuracy in my HOW-TO , please leave a comment and I-ll make sure to correct the mistake.