Announcing wallet.dat and Sprout Support in Argos

We originally built Argos to recover funds stranded in the discontinued ZecWallet Lite client. Since launching, we've heard from Zcash people who used Argos to recover ZEC that had been inaccessible for years. Those recoveries showed us that the problem extended beyond ZecWallet Lite. We're grateful for those reports — and they showed us that Argos could help more people.

Zcash has continued to evolve. The network has moved away from zcashd, the software behind many older Zcash wallets, and the Ironwood network upgrade has now shipped. As a result, some older wallet software no longer works with the current Zcash network, leaving users with valid keys and funds but no straightforward tools for moving their ZEC into a modern wallet. The Zcash community is also considering the final deprecation of Sprout, Zcash's original shielded pool, which still holds approximately 22,000 ZEC.

To help people recover and move these funds while they still can, we've expanded what Argos supports.

Recover ZEC from older wallets and backups

Argos now supports two additional ways of recovering ZEC:

• wallet.dat files created by zcashd or ZecWallet Lite
• Secret extended keys beginning with secret-extended-key-main1…, including keys exported with z_exportkey or zcashd-wallet-tool, or saved in a paper backup

This also allows Argos to recover funds held in Sprout.

Sprout dates back to Zcash's launch in 2016 and has since been replaced by newer shielded protocols. With its final deprecation now being considered, people who still have ZEC in Sprout should locate their old wallets or backups and move their funds into a supported modern wallet.

For people who still have ZEC in these older wallets, the challenge isn't ownership. If you still control the relevant keys, the ZEC is still yours. The challenge is having working software capable of using those keys and moving the funds into a wallet supported today.

Argos provides that path.

Don't leave ZEC stranded in an old wallet

For some older wallets and backups, Argos may be the only currently available recovery option.

If you used Zcash in its earlier years, now is a good time to look for old wallet backups, wallet.dat files, exported keys, or paper backups you may still have — and to move any recoverable funds into a supported modern wallet.

As always, treat wallet backups and private keys as highly sensitive. Never send them to another person or share them with anyone claiming they can recover your funds for you.

Argos is free and open source. Recover your ZEC at argos.sovright.com.