Hi guys. I bought some SafeX a while ago. I am aware that the migration period is over and I can not longer migrate my safex tokens over to the new blockchain. The reason I’m still asking is that I can see I also sent some bitcoin to the same wallet a few years ago in my exchange’s withdrawal history. SafeX was on the BTC blockchain if I recall correctly? So this makes sense. I have the [id]safexwallet.dat files saved on my computer. Is anyone aware of a way to get access to the wallet using this file? As I would like to access the bitcoin in there.
If you have the keys to the old (original) Safex address saved, simply restore them in a BTC wallet and you can move the BTC, etc.
hm, I only have some .dat files saved. I don’t have the private keys in raw format. This was quite a few years ago so I don’t remember exactly. I assumed these were exported from some old software and if I get the same old software I’ll be able to restore the wallet from the .dat file. Do you happen to know if there was any software being used particularly for safex or btc wallets at the time?
None of the old wallets for the original coin are on the Safex GitHub anymore. I expect they were removed to avoid confusion sometime after the Safex blockchain was launched.
It’s a pity you didn’t follow recommended backup practices for crypto and save your keys.
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FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO COMES ACROSS THIS IN THE FUTURE
I was able to get access to my bitcoin by downloading the old version of the safex wallet.
I dug through the owner’s repos on the safex github.
User ddabek (Daniel Dabek) · GitHub who is one of the SafeX creators, has the old safex wallet repo on his profile. GitHub - safex/safex_wallet: Safex Official Wallet, Migrate from Bitcoin to Safex blockchain, send/receive Safex Cash, Trade
I downloaded this old wallet client and imported my old .dat file. Luckily, I was able to remember my password to the wallet also.
In this wallet, you CAN NOT do anything with your BTC, the nodes are not maintained anymore or something, I think. However, you can get your private key from this client!! So, you can take that private key and plug it into a modern BTC wallet client. I used electrum. I was then able to see and access my bitcoin. It’s much less than I thought it was after fees, but you take what you get. Which is an extra $100, haha.
It is a pity that the safex wallet didn’t highly encourage saving and encrypting your private keys yourself, and instead gave the option of exporting them in what I assume is a proprietary format – meaning the software needs to be around forever, and the current iteration of windows needs to continue to be able to execute the old software (otherwise you’d need to go download and install and older Windows to run the software). At a time when crypto was only just entering the mainstream, we probably couldn’t have expected everyone to understand the importance of saving private keys in formats that are not encrypted using proprietary methods that require old software to decrypt.
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@modddxa There is a clear text private key export, I thought that was easily accessible.
I’m glad that you were able to get access to your old wallet. I can restore and replay that application. I personally still use it, but I export the private key and use an additional wallet to import it like electrum of mycelium on the phone and am able to use the Bitcoin private key in that manner.
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