Hexadecimal Numbers Found in Uncle's Estate Possible Bitcoin Keys?

While sorting through my late uncle's estate, I stumbled upon some hex numbers. They all have 64 characters, so I thought it might be related to Bitcoin since he was big on computers back in the day. Gonna check it out.

Version 25.2 still works for scanning both old and new addresses. No need to downgrade your Bitcoin Core, just use it right and it should recognize any type of key.

If you need older versions, I made Dockerfiles for almost every major release since 2009. Bitcoin Core v25.1 is in my GitHub. Just check the Dockerfile, build your own image, and run it offline.

What type of addresses did you get from Bitcoin Core? Legacy, SegWit, or Native SegWit? The importprivkey command has limitations, so maybe create a wallet with a descriptor type to specify the address when importing.

Kinda curious why anyone would store private keys in hex. Seems risky. But I get that 64 chars match the private key size... could be something else, though. Did you start with v25.2 for any reason?

Good point. Do you know if your uncle was into Bitcoin? Any chats or hints about it? Like you said, without documentation, it’s tough to figure out what those numbers are.

Hex has been used for binary data forever. Not just Bitcoin.

Yeah, grouping to 64 hex chars could mean anything. If you can, dig more on his computer. Look for anything Bitcoin-related, like an Electrum file. If nothing shows up, it’s probably a dead end.

Can you share how you converted those suspected private keys to WIF? We need to check if you did it right or if that’s why the scan didn’t work.

Seems like those hex numbers might be from another wallet software. If you’re not finding anything, there might be a different HD wallet path involved. Check if it’s a valid Armory or Multibit backup.