How to safely and securely claim your Litecoin Cash from the Litecoin Hard Fork
If you hold #Litecoin ( #LTC) in a Litecoin Core wallet at the time of the #hard-fork on Sunday 18th February 2018, you will also find you now possess ten times the quantity in Litecoin Cash ( #LCH) too.
However you will need to claim it manually!
Hi I'm Tony (@rasor) and in this post I will show exactly you how to claim your Litecoin Cash safely and without putting your current Litecoin balances at risk.
The process simplified:
- Ensure you hold Litecoin in either the core wallet application or have access to the private keys.
- Wait for hard-fork to snapshot the current Litecoin balances.
- Create a brand-new wallet (important: not a new address in your current wallet).
- Send your old Litecoin wallet balance to the new wallet
- Claim Litecoin Cash from the old (now empty wallet) that held LTC before the snapshot.
Step 1. Staying safe
Important!
Before we begin, set a bloody password on your Litecoin core wallet and save the password somewhere safe (and not to the same computer).
If you don’t know how to do this:
- Launch Litecoin Core
- Click Settings > Encrypt Wallet
- Litecoin Core will restart and your wallet is now protected.
Step 2. Back it up!
You will need to make sure Litecoin core is closed for this step.
The easiest way to backup (your now encrypted wallet) is to rename the file, on Windows machines the file is located in the following folder:
"C:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming\litecoin"
(I would also make a copy of this backup somewhere else to be safe)
Step 3. Get a new wallet
Now when you open the Litecoin Core application a new wallet.dat file will be generated automatically. Don’t panic if you see a zero balance, this is what we want, the balance is still in the old wallet.
Set a bloody password on this one too!
We need to now get the LTC address of your new wallet (as we are sending all your coins to this address):
The easiest way to do this is click file > receiving addresses then copy
Copy the address down on your computer as we’ll need it shortly.
Now close the Litecoin core application.
Step 4. Switch back to old wallet
To switch back we need to rename the new file to something other than "wallet.dat" then rename the backed up wallet (which currently has both LTC and LCC) to "wallet.dat"
Back to the "C:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming\litecoin" folder
Once you've renamed the files, open up the Litecoin Core app and you will see your original balance.
Step 5. Send from old to new
Ok to clear things up, this is still Litecoin we are playing with.
Using the address you copied down earlier from your new wallet, send the whole of your Litecoin balance to me to the new address:
You could also at this stage send them to an Exchange if so desired
(Remember: Block confirmations may take 5 mins or so)
Close the Litecoin Core application and rename the file again and load up the new wallet (again renaming the "old" to backup and the "new" to "wallet.dat)
To be 100% safe, move the now empty (old) wallet to somewhere you can easily access as it's this wallet we will claim the Litecoin Cash with.
Before we continue you should have two files:
| File | LTC | LCC |
|---|---|---|
| Wallet.dat (old) | 0 | 10x |
| Wallet.dat (new) | 1x | 0 |
Step 6.
Download and install the official Litecoin Cash core wallet from the official site https://litecoinca.sh
Important!
When selecting the install path make certain you install to a new directory (as you don't want to overwrite your Litecoin wallets!
Once the client is loaded you will see a zero balance; it's safe to import the old wallet file (file > import wallet assuming it has this function on release)
Alternatively close the Litecoin Cash application and copy the "old" wallet.dat (triple check this isn't the new one!) to the LCC working directory
"C:\users\%username%\appdata\roaming\litecoin cash" (or whatever you installed it to)
Rename the default LCC wallet.dat file (generated by Litecoin Cash) and simply replace it with your "old" LTC (remember it's only got LCC in it now) wallet file (i.e. renaming it to wallet.dat).
Launch Litecoin Cash again and ta-da! you have a balance (10x your original litecoin balance).
Guess what you should do now? Password protect this wallet too.
Conclusion
- You have learned to password protect your wallet files
- You have learned to sweep a wallet (move all balance to new wallet - not address)
- You have learned to claimed from a hard fork without risking anything.
Some guides will tell you to import the wallet.dat file (without sweeping) into LCC, this will risk your LTC (and is plain stupid)
Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this please upvote and follow me (@rasor).
I also like Litecoins :)
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Wow all these views and hardly any upvotes...
I'm personally staying away from this fork as there are many red flags already, but it would be funny if the current Litecoin rally turns out to be a driven solely by "fork-greed."
I think there's a fear from the LTC team that this will hurt the coinbase and litepay news and so are poo-pooing the fork.
There wasn't an official Bitcoin fork, it just happened.
Brilliant post and thanks for the information. Quick question even if I do not own a full litecoin will I still be able to claim the proportionate amount x10 in LCH ?
They've stated there's no minimum amount to claim. Provided it's not in an Exchange and you have access to the private keys at the time of fork yes.
The process is essentially the same:
Under no circumstances import a live LTC wallet into LCC as you may risk the balance.
Thank You so much the help is appreciated.
Just remember if you have any doubts, don't compromise your crypto.
Thank you for all the info, this was my question as well. Found this via a google search. Really enjoying Steemit because it promotes clear and concise information sharing!
So is it to late to do this? Hard fork is 4 days away?
at this stage you need to make sure your balance is held off the exchanges safely, on Sunday when the hard fork happens this is the time to complete the steps and sweep the wallet.
as long as you have your PVK you can do it even today, just don't keep coins about to fork on exchanges as you'll miss out on the forked tokens
Great post, now I just have to try to actually do it. I have mine in Electrum , which I own the keys, so hopefully it will work. I'm going to read a little more about it, but this is an excellent overview, I think I get it. I have not participated in a fork like this yet where I have to move my coin because of using the old address. I find it somewhat strange, but I think its how the BTCX or BTCD forks went down. I didn't claim them yet. Anyway, excellent post!
Great post! Litecoin cash lets see how it plays out!
hi! a interesant content, I´m writing a post about the LCC, and I would like to link your article so that people can know step by step the process
of course I mention you as author and reference
Yes of course, I'd be honored. Feel free to link it here when you've typed it up.
Thank you for posting this! Do you have any information on how to do this on a mac?
The process is nearly the same, you'd need both the litecoin core and litecoin cash app from the official sites; I don't know where the data directory is located on a Mac though, Sorry!
File will still be called wallet.dat though if that helps.
Thanks! It does help.
can you explain to me / us how to insert the private key at tradesatoshi or yobit to claim its lcc directly after the fork. the LCC wallet has not been released yet
You can't as you don't own the wallet (and private key); but luckily it looks like those two exchanges will claim on your behalf and credit you:
The LCC wallet (as this acts as the mining agent) will not be released until the fork (and the agreed 1% premine) has happened. As long as you have LTC at the moment of the fork (the snapshot) you can safely move it on after the fork happens. Then claim the LCC (from the now empty) wallet any time you like; there's no rush to claim.
I could imagine that the LCC after the fork are listed very high in value and then fall off rapidly. that's my concern. thanks so far
Hi,
Very helpful article but could you please tell me if it is possible to claim my Litecoin Cash if my Litecoins were held on Poloniex at the time of the fork?
Nope, not on the list; it's up to polenix to recognize the fork and issue them (if they want to)
Thanks for clarifying.
Thanks for a very informative post. UpVoted
Thanks, appreciate it