finding bitcoins on a PC

[puta_crusaders]

I know nothing about bitcoins, and I have a computer that belonged to a deceased family friend, and the parents have asked me to go through it to clean it up (he was into silk road) and he was mining bitcoins. The parents have asked me to see if I could "find some bitcoins" on the computer.

I don't know exactly how a person has a bitcoin ie is it a file on a computer or would they be with some online account.

When he died he left them with a quite a financial mess to clean up and I would like to if possible get them some money from the bitcoins if there is any. What am I looking for.

 

[Markverhyden]

They are stored in an encrypted "wallet". Meaning a file. Unless you know the password you will not be able to retrieve them.

 

[PCSupportGlasgow]

i know very little about bitcoin but from memory i believe they stored in a file called wallet.dat. Now how to recover them from the encrypted wallet file is a different matter but i would search the PC and see if the file there first.

 

[Xander]

If you're VERY lucky, they'll be one of those people who keep a .doc containing all their passwords. If they don't, you're SOL.

 

[Moltuae]

I would start by taking a good look at what software is installed. How they're stored will depend largely on the software used.

For example, a popular off-line method of storage is to use Armory which, for greater security, is often installed inside a Linux Virtual Machine. Most Bitcoin savvy users will keep paper backups too, keeping the private key off the machine. If that's the case, any wallets held on the machine may be 'watch-only' wallets, meaning you won't be able to transfer funds out of them without the private key.

It's possible that the Bitcoins may not be stored on the machine at all though. They may be held in an online wallet on a site such as Blockchain.