What Does this Long String of Letters and Numbers Mean?
Updated: Nov. 15, 2022
Our company helps people recover their lost Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
People often contact us with information about a long string of numbers and letters -- sometimes they
wrote themselves a note years ago, and they're hoping that we can help them identify what the
characters mean.
This article should help you identify some of these strings.
| Starts with… |
Number of Characters |
Example |
| Explanation |
Notes |
| 5 |
51 |
5Kb8kLf9zgWQnogidDA76MzPL6TsZZY36hWXMssSzNydYXYB9KF |
| Bitcoin private key in WIF format associated with
uncompressed public keys |
source
|
| 6P |
58 |
6PYKNsNn1Fq1QrAG581zP1t1KdmPDoncTeeXnHvugPdFvxvkJWjH1DRNX1 |
| BIP38 Encrypted Private Key |
source
|
| capital L or K |
52 |
|
| Bitcoin private key in WIF format associated with compressed public keys |
source
|
| capital L or M |
52 |
|
| Bitcoin private key (WIF, compressed pubkey, Electrum-defined and deprecated)
|
source
|
| S |
30 |
S6c56bnXQiBjk9mqSYE7ykVQ7NzrRy |
| Mini private key format |
source
|
| Hex |
64 |
E9873D79 |
| Hex |
64 |
E9873D79C6D87DC0FB6A5778633389F4453213303DA61F20BD67FC233AA33262 |
| Private key in hexadecimal format |
source
|
| 1 |
27 – 34 |
1LQoWist8KkaUXSPKZHNvEyfrEkPHzSsCd |
| Bitcoin address |
|
| L, 3 or M |
26 – 35 |
MGxNPPB7eBoWPUaprtX9v9CXJZoD2465zN |
| Litecoin address |
|
| 3 |
27 – 34 |
34xp4vRoCGJym3xR7yCVPFHoCNxv4Twseo |
| Bitcoin address |
|
| bc1 |
42,62 |
bc1qgdjqv0av3q56jvd82tkdjpy7gdp9ut8tlqmgrpmv24sq90ecnvqqjwvw97 |
| Bech32 Bitcoin address |
source
|
| Hex |
64 |
8da4ef21b864d2cc526dbdb2a120bd2874c36c9d0a1fb7f8c63d7f7a8b41de8f |
| Ethereum private key |
source
|
| 0x |
42 |
0xDC25EF3F5B8A186998338A2ADA83795FBA2D695E |
| Ethereum or ERC20 address |
|
