How to restore my ADA Byron wallet by Private key

You could really try the option in the Yoroi Chrome extension. It does offer to claim/transfer from a 12 word Daedalus seed phrase. Don’t know if the mobile version has that option hidden somewhere, but I do know it’s available in the browser extension.

As said, no guarantee that Infinito used the same method as Daedalus, but worth a try.

First, never give your seed phrase or the private key that you have to anyone!

But because of that, we would have to guide you through it on your machine, which is … well … maybe not so easy.

The cardano-cli binary can be downloaded from https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node/releases/tag/1.35.5 for Linux, Mac, and Windows (“Downloads” is the last point under “Technical Specification”).

What I first would try:

Put the private key in a text file (raw text file, just one line) payment.infinito.

Run

cardano-cli key convert-byron-key --byron-payment-key-type --byron-signing-key-file payment.infinito --out-file payment.skey

or maybe:

cardano-cli key convert-byron-key --legacy-byron-payment-key-type --byron-signing-key-file payment.infinito --out-file payment.skey

If that works without error, we are already a huge step further and cardano-cli could read the format of payment key that Infinito has given you and convert it to its own format in payment.skey.

With

cardano-cli byron key signing-key-address --mainnet --secret payment.skey

you should get the address for that private key. If that works, check the address on cardanoscan.io if it contains your funds.

If that has worked until here, it is a huge step further. But we would still need that you make yourself a new wallet, we build a transaction to transfer from that Byron address to the new wallet, and submit that transaction. And for that cardano-cli would need a running and synchronised cardano-node which takes a lot of disk space and a lot of time to synchronise.

So, better first check if we even get the correct keys and addresses to see if it is worth the effort.

Did you manage to do it? I did some experiments a couple of months ago and I managed to do some transactions with Byron addresses restored from 12 words recovery seeds. I can help you restore your address and keys, if you still need help.

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Thank you so much for your kindness.
I will try tomorrow.

Thank you for your information.
How did you restore your wallet by 12 key words??

In my case, because I managed my ADA by multi-wallet, Shelly’s ADA is generated with 12 keywords, but Byron’s ADA is not generated.

I created a gist with the script I used to recover a Byron wallet from the 12 words recovery phrase, you will find it here:
https://gist.githubusercontent.com/cardano-apexpool/f37f333eea7f8aac9a76687a94a9cf51/raw/5a5e613e1e352074993682fba3031cc6a4c3806e/byron_wallet_from_mnemonic.sh

You need cardano-cli and cardano-address for this script.
You will need to replace my 12 words recovery phrase with your actual 12 words.
The address will be written in the byron-addr.addr file, and the signing key for the address will be written in the byron-addr.skey file. Keep all the files safe.

Run the script with your words and then search for the generated address on https://cardanoscan.io/. Hopefully you will find your ADA at that address (or at least some transactions). If you did some transactions with this wallet, most likely the wallet generated new addresses for the change, so every new transaction would send the remaining ADA to a new address. But you should be able to change the derivation path in the script and run it again, until you find the address with your ADA.
D_PATH=“0H/0H”
D_PATH=“0H/1H”
D_PATH=“0H/2H”

D_PATH=“1H/0H”
D_PATH=“1H/1H”
D_PATH=“1H/2H”
D_PATH=“1H/3H”

If you find the address and you need help with the cli transaction, let me know.

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Do you remember the address of your wallet? First three characters will already give an idea of what kind of Byron address it is that was used by Infinito.

Thank you so much.
I will try

My address start with Ae2…

Okay, then you probably only need part of what @georgem1976 posted, since that was for deriving Ddz addresses (which encode the derivation path in the address). Ae2 is the simpler variant.

You can try derivation from the seed phrase with cardano-address or direct conversion from the private key that you have as given in my post above.

Anyway, first task would be to get cardano-cli (and perhaps cardano-address) running on your machine. Then, we can see further.

Thank you for your support.
I could have restore my ADA.

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I have near enough the same issue occurring. Created a wallet back in 2019 with 3 transactions to it. The wallet has been left idle until now and I discovered recently I cannot withdraw as the wallet provider (Infinito) is no longer operating. I have all the credentials to use another provider(s) and recover account but discovered that I cannot recover using the old 12 passphrase / key. Any attempt to do so either fails completely or retrieves zero balance. Exceedingly frustrating. Support is all but non-existent which ever way you turn.

I have attempted Yoroi, Daedalus and Adalite…

Has anyone managed to successfully find a resolution?

I apologies in advance if this is posted in the wrong section.

Unfortunately, the only success message in this thread did not say which of the ways we offered has led to that success (and they also haven’t posted since then, not sure if still active).

Do you know the address(es) of your wallet?

Do you know enough command line to try what @georgem1976 has proposed in:

… and then compare the address to what you know or check them on cardanoscan.io?

Yes, I know the address, passphrase and key.

I was reading through what @georgem1976 had outlined although I am not 100% confident on what I am doing. But at this stage I am willing to invest some time. If I was ever succesful I was concerned that a spending password is required which was some thing my wallet host never stated. ( Infinito wallet is still accessible but with no functionality)

Im surprised old addresses are not catered for elsewhere.

If Infinito did it like it’s supposed to be, the seed phrase is the only thing you need. There can’t be any spending password encoded into them. And there are no accounts on a blockchain, where a spending password could be set and updated. Spending passwords are usually only local to one specific installation of a wallet app, where they are used to encrypt the secrets (otherwise the secrets derived from the seed phrase that you are very carefully guarding would lie around unencrypted on the disk, which would be not so good).

It’s not really possible to cater for them. Only Infinito knows exactly what they did back then. And that has to be known or found out to recreate it.

In order for not having to manage lots of private keys in files, seed phrases and key derivation were invented so that all key pairs can be derived from one seed phrase. But there are still lots of ways to do that. There are standards how it should be done, but especially multi-chain wallet apps tend to not exactly follow those standards and then there is little that can be done except for trying around.

To be sure in the future, import a seed phrase in multiple trustworthy enough wallet apps, so that you see and know that you are not dependent on a single vendor. (Also goes to a lesser extent for hardware wallets, which are preferable anyway: Of course, never give the seed phrase of the hardware wallet to a software, but connect it to multiple wallet apps to be sure that you can access it even if one of the wallet apps has problems, goes out of business, …)

Thanks for taking the time and energy to explain, much appreciated. I don’t consider myself an expert by any stretch, nor an absolute newbie either, you have certainly given me an education on how I will conduct my due diligence with multiple apps. I was expecting, as I had previously done with other accounts just to import with a new provider and sail away into the sunset.

On first discovering the issue I verified that my account hadn’t been compromised and visited Cardanoscan, I can see the address is how I had left it and has not been hijacked and fully intact. Although I neglected the account as far as keeping an eye on it I have been quite security conscience and have all the requisite account details.

With all that taken in to consideration what is the likelihood of retrieving this account in your opinion?

It’s not only about the funds either, it’s also about participate in these projects and it’s deflating on both of those points.

Since @MJ1031 seemingly could restore their account with one of the methods here and we just don’t know which, it does not seem totally hopeless.

I would start with the steps in the script https://gist.githubusercontent.com/cardano-apexpool/f37f333eea7f8aac9a76687a94a9cf51/raw/5a5e613e1e352074993682fba3031cc6a4c3806e/byron_wallet_from_mnemonic.sh by @georgem1976.

You can get cardano-address from: https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-addresses/releases

Get a root key from the seed phrase:

echo "word01 word02 … word 12" | cardano-address key from-recovery-phrase Byron > byron-rootkey.prv

Derive a payment key from the root key:

cat byron-rootkey.prv | cardano-address key child "0H/0H" > byron-addr.prv

Get the public key:

cat byron-addr.prv | cardano-address key public --with-chain-code > byron-addr.pub

Get the address for the key:

cat byron-addr.pub | cardano-address address bootstrap --network-tag mainnet > byron-addr.addr
cat byron-addr.addr

If this Ae2 address is one of yours, we are lucky and can continue from there.

If not, you can try other derivation paths in the derive step.

It’s unfortunately still possible that Infinito used something totally different than what cardano-address implements, though.

Just spent a few hours digesting all the info you passed on and the GitHub content. Downloaded and attempted to run it on a Mac but it didn’t want to cooperate. Which then leads me down another rabbit hole of sifting through content to get started. I think in all honesty it’s beyond my brains capabilities and understanding.

It could be a case of just soaking up the loss I guess!

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How were you able to restore your ADA?

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any update on this? I am in the same boat.

Also, has any reached out to the support team at Infinito? The website claims to have support until October. I just reached out today