I performed the decoding procedure on a computer with Windows 10, 64-bit
operating system. So the procedure below is for Windows 10 x64. If you use another
operating system you may have to change some things.
Step 1) Open Blu3F1re's Reddcoin Wallet from your mobile phone.
Press the three dots from the top-right corner of the wallet.
A menu will open.
Press "Back up keys", then "Back up private keys". Write a password. This
password is used to encrypt the private key in a file. Write something simple like
a word. It's important to write a password; do not leave empty space on the
password field. Then press "Back up".
Next, a window will pop-up with the path where you can find the file with the
encrypted private key (something like /storage/emulated/0/Download/reddcoin-wallet-
keys-2019-09-14. This path may be different depending on the Android version).
Step 2) Copy the file with the encrypted private key on your computer. To do this
you can connect the phone to the computer with a data cable, go to the path where
the file (reddcoin-wallet-keys-2019-09-14) is located and copy it to your computer.
Don't change the content of the file in any way.
Step 3) Install OpenSSL on your computer.
While Linux distributions routinely come loaded with OpenSSL, this is not the
case for Windows. The official OpenSSL website (https://www.openssl.org/source/)
offers Linux sources only.
On their wiki page, some people have offered to provide OpenSSL distributions
for different operating systems https://wiki.openssl.org/index.php/Binaries
If you have Windows operating system, you can download it from
https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html I saw in all tutorials that for
installing on Windows is recommended the distributions from this site. I used
installer from slproweb.com site and it worked.
You must install "Win64 OpenSSL v1.1.1d Light" exe file if you Windows is an 64-
bit operating system or "Win32 OpenSSL v1.1.1d Light" exe file if you Windows is an
32-bit operating system.
Step 4) Decrypt the private key.
If you have Windows 10 on 64-bit and you installed "Win64 OpenSSL v1.1.1d Light"
exe file, go to "C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64\bin" path, right click
"openssl.exe" file and Run as administrator.
Wite this command:
enc -d -aes-256-cbc -a -md md5 -in C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\reddcoin-wallet-
keys-2019-09-13
If you have the file on your desktop, you must write the whole path as in my
example (C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\file_name). "reddcoin-wallet-keys-2019-09-
13" is the name of the file. If you have the file on D partition, you must write
D:\file_name. Be careful to CHANGE THE PATH AND THE FILE NAME on the command line
to match with what you have.
Next it will ask you to enter the decryption password. Write the password that
you chose in step 1.
Next, YOU WILL SEE YOUR PRIVATE KEY. If you want to copy it, select the private
key (only the string of characters without the date from the right), press Ctrl+C
(this is shortcut for Copy) and paste it in another file.
I struggled a bit to modify the decoding command to display the private key
because Blu3F1re's wallet encrypts the private key with an old method which is no
longer supported by the last version of OpenSSL and the the classical decoding
command doesn't work. This is why you will see the error "WARNING : deprecated key
derivation used. Using -iter or -pbkdf2 would be better.". Ignore the warning.
You can also use:
enc -d -aes-256-cbc -a -md md5 -in C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\reddcoin-wallet-
keys-2019-09-13 -out C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\my_decrypted_private_key.txt
After you press Enter you will see that WARNING. Ignore it. This command will
create "my_decrypted_private_key.txt" file on your desktop. On this file you will
find the private key decoded.
Or you can use:
enc -d -aes-256-cbc -a -md md5 -in C:\Users\your_username\Desktop\reddcoin-wallet-
keys-2019-09-13 -out my_decrypted_private_key.txt
This command will create "my_decrypted_private_key.txt" file with the decoded
private key on C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64\bin (if you have Windows 10 x64).
Step 5) Backup the private key with the corresponding public key in at least two
devices like external drives. This is how you will protect yourself from computer
failures. I had a lot of HDD that have broken down. You can also encrypt the file
with the password using WinRAR (it has "Set password" options). Just don't forget
the password. You can also print the private key with the corresponding public key
on a piece of paper.
Step 6) Import the private key in a trustworthy wallet like Coinomi or Reddcoin
Core Wallet.
Step 7) After you backed up the the private & public keys, delete the private key
from your computer because a virus can easily steal it.
Note 1. Before you install a wallet software, first you must study if that wallet
is trustworthy. If you search with google "what is the best wallet for x coin" you
must take into consideration that many sites have viruses. You can use Sandboxie
(sandboxie.com) to sandbox the browser. You can also search reviews about the
software wallets on reddit.com, cryptocompare.com, trustpilot.com.
I must warn you that I saw many posts about coins that were stolen even from
Coinomi or Reddcoin Core Wallet. People use cracked software, or free software that
have viruses, or take viruses from different sites or thru external drives that
were connected to infected computers. Even if the wallet is encrypted, a keylogger
can read the password used for encryption. So be very careful. This is why I
recommend a computer or phone dedicated only for crypto which doesn't contain other
potentially dangerous software.
The safest method to avoid the scam wallets is to use the official wallet of that
coin. Every cryptocurrency has a software wallet and informations how to use it on
the official website of that cryptocurrency. In the case of Reddcoin, the official
wallet is Reddcoin Core Wallet. Many avoid this type of wallets like Reddcoin Core
Wallet because must it synchronize with the network and the blockchain will be
downloaded on the computer HDD. This process take many days and the blockchain is
quite big (a few GB). And you allways need to sync to be up-to-date. Also you must
frequently to make backups and has "change address" feature which caused many to
lose the coins (many that didn't know how to use it). I wrote a post on z3news
about how to use it. I think I gave you the link to that post in the previous e-
mail. On the other hand multicurrency wallets like Coinomi, Jaxx or Exodus are
easier to use, doesn't have to download the blockchain, but if something wrong
happens and you have many crypto like RDD, BTC, ETH, LTC, the user lose everything.
There is a balance between safety and convenience and many have to choose what
wallet to use depending on many factors.
Note 2. Best practices. After you install a wallet software, create a backup. Only
after that send coins to that wallet. Read the instructions from their support
webpage for each wallet how to backup because some like Coinomi being a HD wallet,
all you need as a backup is your Recovery Phrase (and optional private key for each
public address). On others like Reddcoin Core Wallet you must backup wallet.dat
file each time you generate a new address or each time you send coins from the
wallet because of the "Change Addresses" feature (the change will go to another
address with another private key created automatically by the software wallet).
Also you can backup the private key for each public address. I read a lot of horror
stories about lost coins because of this.
Note 3. Blu3F1re's Reddcoin Wallet was on Aptoide app store. Aptoide doesn't seem
to trustworthy. Even if on Google Play there are a lot of appliactions with
viruses, software developers always recommend to download Android applications from
the official Google Play app store. I didn't even have the courage to install this
wallet on my phone. I installed it on an Android Emulator on a test machine.
