<p>It sounds like you are confusing two distinct objects: a password, and a seed phrase. </p>

<p>A password is used to encrypt a file, so that if you have the encrypted file but not the password, you cannot read the file's contents. </p>

<p>A seed phrase is used to derive a master private key that the rest of a wallet's keys will be based upon. So if you have the seed phrase, you can recreate the wallet. </p>

<p>From the sounds of it, you likely have a password that can be used to decrypt a <em>specific</em> wallet.dat file, not a seed phrase. A seed phrase will most commonly be a set of 12-24 words, while a password will be a (hopefully highly entropic) string of characters. If you created the wallet file many years ago, chances are the BIP 39 standard for creating HD wallets from a seed phrase was not widely used yet, furthering my suspicion that you indeed have a password, and not a seed phrase. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-09T02:35:18.750Z
2018-01-09T02:35:18.750Z
chytrik
<p>what if I find my password, that I wrote down many years ago, but the PC, and so the wallet is gone. can I use this password on a new wallet.dat and get accseess to my coins ?</p>

<wallet>
What if I find my password, and not the wallet
user72139
# What if I find my password, and not the wallet

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-01-09)

what if I find my password, that I wrote down many years ago, but the PC, and so the wallet is gone. can I use this password on a new wallet.dat and get accseess to my coins ?

**Tags:** wallet


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-01-09. Score: 1

It sounds like you are confusing two distinct objects: a password, and a seed phrase.

A password is used to encrypt a file, so that if you have the encrypted file but not the password, you cannot read the file's contents.

A seed phrase is used to derive a master private key that the rest of a wallet's keys will be based upon. So if you have the seed phrase, you can recreate the wallet.

From the sounds of it, you likely have a password that can be used to decrypt a *specific* wallet.dat file, not a seed phrase. A seed phrase will most commonly be a set of 12-24 words, while a password will be a (hopefully highly entropic) string of characters. If you created the wallet file many years ago, chances are the BIP 39 standard for creating HD wallets from a seed phrase was not widely used yet, furthering my suspicion that you indeed have a password, and not a seed phrase.


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