Revisiting Bitcoin Armory Promotional Paper Wallet From 2014

[sleestak]

I received a promotional paper wallet from Bitcoin Armory in 2014 at an in-person event. At the time, I installed the wallet software on a laptop of which I still possess. The paper wallet stated that the bitcoin would be removed after a period of time if not claimed. I don’t have a clear memory of what was actually done at the time apart from wallet installation, and don’t recall if steps to claim the coins were followed properly or not.

When the software is opened, it shows up as; Armory 0.91.2. An available wallet shows up with an ‘ID’ and a ‘Wallet Name’. Clicking into the wallet returns a screen with more data including ‘Version 1.35’ and four lines of alpha-numeric (34) character strings in the ‘Address’ fields. All tabs and locations within the software appear fully functional and accessible.

The machine has a large amount/size of data files in the  ‘AppData/Roaming’ folder locations for both the wallet (folder named: Armory) and one named ‘Bitcoin’ which might contain a portion of the blockchain. So I must have attempted to follow some protocol/instructions at the time. I also still have the original paper document which includes the ‘Root Key’ as well as other data and instructions.

What I am hoping to get assistance with is to find out if there is any recoverable btc in that wallet and if so how to retrieve it. If there is no btc, I would like to be made to feel certain of this. Then I would be very interested to learn the history of the wallet, such as how much was in it initially and when it was moved. Basically, access whatever transaction history can be determined through any blockchain analytics available or other.

I am prepared to follow up on suggested steps and provide any additional/relevant information necessary to help facilitate the process.

[nc50lc]

Check the paper wallet first for the printed bitcoin address (starts with "1") and use a Bitcoin blockexplorer to check for relevant transactions.
Example Blockexplorers: mempool.space or blockstream.info
If there is, its last (upper-most) transaction's output is either your Armory wallet's address (if you successfully claimed it) or the creator's address (if you failed to claim it).
You can check your Armory's used/unused address list if its in there. (but continuing is recommended regardless of the result)

Next, create a backup of the whole Armory folder in your roaming folder.
Then, open Armory and decide if you want to try to sync it (requires Bitcoin Core to fully sync) or export the private keys to import those elsewhere.

For the former: [sync], I suggest to use a newer hardware and sync using specific versions of Bitcoin Core (v27.0) and the latest version of Armory (v0.96.5).
Then, create a backup of your wallet(s) from "Wallet Properties" from the old laptop and restore it to a new Armory installation, the buttons should be self-explanatory,
If you use the default settings including the default datadirs, it should start to sync without any issue as long as you have at least 800GB- of free disk space (do not enable pruning to save space);
If you have to use another drive/partition, you'll need to set the correct pathing, here a Windows-specific guide: /index.php?topic=5562211.msg65948369#msg65948369

For the latter: [export], keep your laptop offline so that exporting the private keys would be safer.
Then follow these steps to export it (skip the sweep/import part): /index.php?topic=4746784.msg43255691#msg43255691
Then follow this to check for balance and to spend it "cold-storage" style: /index.php?topic=5524213.msg64885706#msg64885706
In the import steps above, you can paste all of your private keys (offline) and addresses (online) but each should be entered on each line like:

Code:

5aaaa_prvKey_1
5aaaa_prvKey_2
5aaaa_prvKey_3
...

Your current laptop might not be compatible with Electrum if its OS is too old though.