First, affirm that you simply did certainly obtain a personal key. On Bitcoin mainnet, non-public keys are virtually all the time distributed in a format that begins with both a Ok or an L (capitalized in both case) and are often 52 alphanumeric characters lengthy. This is an instance:
L3SD2fM9hzVJyr4zxoHqXHDqHTVfQpbLuWDVm6b6W7PTCSYpkujd
In the event you as an alternative obtained a code beginning with a 1, a 3, or bc1, then what you obtained was an handle. In the event you obtained a hexadecimal code that was 130 characters lengthy and began with 04 or 66 characters lengthy and beginning with 02 or 03, then what you obtained was a public key. None of these are non-public keys, and there is no solution to get the non-public key from an handle or a public key. Listed here are some examples of addresses and public keys:
1GWLEdJRaMTQSe7NkPAfBCZaR1XdTz4dct
3DXNLK83EiMsseHTfGySGvDL64CKpRTf6G
bc1q4gtqryu6dhs4vzwqwp9fjxegc4rmxcx6shn3qs
03d8f40442a837693820c4ca35bff30036af4df79c5563375200313462086b6d31
When you’ve got another kind of data, that is most likely additionally not a personal key and it might don’t have anything particular to do with Bitcoin.
In the event you do certainly have a personal key, you possibly can import it into most Bitcoin wallets. See the documentation to your particular pockets for directions (if you cannot discover the documentation for importing non-public keys, be at liberty to ask a separate query).
You do not want any particular data to “unlock a personal key”. As well as, the traditional solution to obtain mining income is by a standard Bitcoin cost to one among your addresses; I’ve by no means earlier than heard of any mining pool paying income by distributing non-public keys as that has all the identical prices plus a big extra safety danger. It appears prone to me that the particular person you are speaking with is making an attempt to steal cash from you, so watch out in your dealings with them.
