How To Recover Litecoin (LTC) From Hive Wallet

Jul 12, 2016

Do you have Litecoin in the Hive online wallet that you can no longer access? There is a way to recover those coins and move them to another wallet.

Please Note: This article details the process for recovering Litecoin (LTC) from the now-defunct hivewallet.com. If you need to recover Bitcoin (BTC) instead see these step-by-step instructions for moving BTC from your hivewallet.com account.

The Hive online cryptocurrency wallet was a great option for both Bitcoin (see this article to recover Bitcoin from Hive) and Litecoin but it went offline without notifying many users. It is no longer possible to log in to the Hive Wallet and transfer those coins that way but they can still be recovered.

Need Help Recovering Your Bitcoin From Hive? We Can Help!
The instructions contained here can be little daunting but don't worry – we may be able recover your litecoin for you. Just email [email protected] or visit hivewallet.org

Step One: Generate Public/Private Keys From Hive Mnemonic

To use the Hive wallet you needed to create a twelve-word mnemonic keyphrase. Hopefully you store that somewhere secure – without it this will not work.

From this keyphrase you need to derive public and private Litecoin keys. To do that visit this Mnemonic Code Converter.

In the top "Mnemonic" section set the following values:

BIP39 Mnemonic: Enter your 12-word Hive keyphrase

Number of words: 12

BIP39 Passphrase (optional): Leave Empty

BIP39 Seed: Ignore; will auto-populate

Coin: Select "Litecoin"

BIP32 Root Key: Ignore; will auto-populate

Ignore the "Derviation Path" section and go straight down to "Derived Addresses".

Step Two: Check Balances

In the "Derviation Path" section you should see a list of derived addresses. The next step is to check the balances.

Start by opening this block reader that lets you explore (without downloading) the blockchains for various cryptocurrencies in a new tab (you will be back and forth between this block reader and the Mnemonic Code Converter so keep them both open using multiple tabs or windows). Then paste the first "Address" value (also known as the public key) from the Mnemonic Code Converter into the upper right search window.

Hopefully you will see something like this:

Here you can see that you have a balance of 0.85794474 Litecoins.

You should also check the other addresses/public keys. Because access to the block reader mentioned is limited it's best to start by narrowing things down. Rather than going through each address one-by-one jump to the 20th in the list (path m/0'/0/19) and run that public key through the block reader.

If it has a balance then, back in the Mnemonic Code Converter tab, at the bottom of the Derived Addresses list, click "Show next 20", then try again with the 40th entry (path m/0'/0/39). Keep going until you get a result like this, indicating that the selected public key has had no activity.

Now you need to figure out where your activity stops. If you had activity at m/0'/0/0 and not at m/0'/0/19 try m/0'/0/09. Keep splitting the list until you know the last Litecoin key with activity.

Step Three: Create A New Online Wallet

You don't absolutely have to do this but, if you're reading this you were likely a Hive user, and it's likely you used Hive because you did not want to download the Litecoin wallet and block chain. That means you probably want another online wallet. Again there will be a lot of back and forth so open a new window or tab.

LiteVault is a Litecoin-specific online wallet with a nice interface. Cryptonator seems like another good option; it supports multiple currencies and all your coins in one place may appeal (or, after potentially losing both Bitcoin and Litecoin when Hive shut down.... maybe not).

Whichever you choose you then create an account and make note of the public Litecoin key for it.

Step Four: Transfer Litecoin To The New Online Wallet

These directions are for the LiteVault wallet mentioned above. Once you have created and logged in to your LiteVault account go to Wallet > Import/Export.

Then copy the first of the Derived Addresses from the Mnemonic Code Converter and paste it into the IMPORT > Import Key (WIF) field, then hit the Import button.

You should see the number at the upper right, which should be 0.00000 when you first open the account and start this process, increase by the value of Litecoins with the selected key.

Simply continue through the list of derived addresses, importing each and watching the value increase with each.

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