Bitcoin Forum

You're not saying that 26B times each grain of sand are the number of wallets opened or used, you're saying that this is the total possible combinations of wallets based on the number of digits used by the number of digits and letters (upper and lower case) as to be used to create those addresses.

Not sure what your'e point is but it IS great to know that there's enough combinations for EVERYONE in the world to have a wallet or ten or much more.

yet a very insignificant number in comparison to 1B^1B(i like this number :D), even if you manage to count the planck lenght that can fill the entire universe, you will not be able to reach that number

a very cool reminder http://htwins.net/scale2/

if you like big numbers... Ron Graham explains how big is Graham's number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuigptwlVHo&feature=iv&src_vid=HX8bihEe3nA&annotation_id=annotation_2349383243

I don't really understand but he is really cute and fluffy!

The arteries in my brain are too hard to comprehend numbers beyond 51 these days. I'll have to remind myself that that's really big and be content with that.

in theory the biggest number should be 1Y(yotta)^1Y which is 10^24^(10^24)

If you write Graham's number digits using the shortest known length (Planck length which is equal to 10^-41 or so~), the entire universe wouldn't contain it.

or

∞+1 – Infinity + 1  ;)

1Y(yotta)^1Y+1 which is 10^24^(10^24)+1

well i was talking about defined big numbers, i know that numbers are infinite....

like the smallest is planck length or string

When he said that 3-arrow-arrow-arrow-3 was simply the number of arrows in his number, I bursted out laughing. This kind of math is for crazy people. ;D

Regards,
Me

..and that number isn't the final answer, it's just the first of a a sixty four level deep recursive stack of nested arrow notation numbers.

If you bruteforced private keys, how long would it be until you found an address with at least 1 BTC in it?

2²⁵⁶ = 2^(10)(256/10)

10³= 1000 = 2¹⁰ (yeah I know 2¹⁰ is equal to 1024 but let's assume it's like that.

Then; 2²⁵⁶ = 10^256*3/10 = 10⁷⁷

78 digit number. It's more than that of course.

"then the total number of hydrogen atoms would be roughly 10⁸²" http://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/

There's 1 private key for each hydrogen atom in the universe.

you would start seeing collisions on the order of 2^160 which is the number of Bitcoin addresses.
if you had 10,000 supercomputers all working on it, it might only take millions of years.

Great graphic, but can't someone (against all odds) get "lucky" and bruteforce a private key "easily" with a fast match?
Sorry about the basic question, which has probably been answered several times before...

Yes, that is in fact true. Data's just data, so it's possible to get a match by bruteforcing. One can also get lucky and find such an address by clicking "new address" in their wallet¹. In both cases, you're more likely to die while sitting in your computer chair during the time you're bruteforcing.

¹ This is actually possible, due to a buggy wallet that gave a bunch of people the same fixed private key due to an issue with generating random numbers.

yes someone against all odds could get lucky.  but it would be , well...against all odds.  :P
you may need a metaphor or comparison to understand just how against the odds it would be.

if a grain of sand is about one square millimeter, what are the odds of guessing
the exact location of a grain of sand somewhere on the earth's surface?

the surface of the earth is about 510 million square kilometers, or about half
of 10^21 square millimeters.  That's much much much smaller a number than
the number of private key combinations which is about 10^77.

I'm gonna have a go right now. I might be some time...

Best of luck, and share some with me! In all seriousness (and a lot of estimation), you're more likely to lose power AND have a heart attack AND be robbed AND be hit by a falling tree during your "lottery" session.

How many fucking grains on sand are on earth? And how you define " sand" ?

A terrorist attack during a plane crash while lightning shoots up my chuff will tell me that chance is smiling down upon me. When I crack them keys I'll sort you out, don't worry.

Cool concept...I was about to post that imgur reference before I saw that there is already a thread.

Whether this picture explain that the number is nearly unlimited?
Or can still be calculated?

The number can easily be calculated. Computers can represent numbers far more vast. They simply use positional notation, like we do, but in base 2. Representing this number should only take 161 bits, which is less than the length of this post.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-alot (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-alot)
The Alot is a fictional mammalian creature with brown fur invented by Allie Brosh, the creator of the webcomic Hyperbole and a Half (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/). The creature was inspired by the common grammatical error writing the phrase “a lot” as “alot.” The Alot is often referenced when someone has made the error in a discussion thread to point out the mistake in a lighthearted manner.

It's ironic, but the OP actually did not make that mistake.

This is perfect for all those errors... Are there ones for those that are "defiantly confidant"?  :P

It doesn't.  It gives an explanation of how big it is with a picture of a bitcoin symbol
drawn in the sand at a beach.

2^128, 2^160, or 2^256 are not "extremely large numbers" in the world of
large number mathematics.  But they are all big enough that collisions or
brute forcing are both unfeasible.

Our planet has approximately 7 billion people on it. Let's ignore the problems of population growth for the moment and assume we will always have 7 billion people.

Now let's also assume that starting this very second, all those people (our global population of seven billion) each begins to click the button to generate a new bitcoin address every second.

"WHY ARE YOU GENERATING SO MANY FUCKING ADDRESSES! You're going to cause a bitcoin address collision!" yells the supreme bitcoin chancellor of Earth. "STOP IT!" ಠ_ಠ

Let's pretend everyone's in on the joke, and they all ignore him.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

With every human on Earth, all generating a new address every second it would still take about 6.5 billion years in order for there to be a 50/50 chance of a bitcoin address collision. For there to be approximately a 99% chance of a collision, the assholes would need to keep up this buffonery for about 11.7 billion years total.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3fgrk5/how_long_would_we_have_to_use_bitcoin_before_we/

This kind of shit is very impressive but far too much for the likes of me to understand ;D. After reading many of the comments in this thread I'll just be happy that it's clear there are untold amounts of bitcoin addresses & private keys to cope with mainstream adoption & a big future for bitcoin. The complex mathematics, facts & figures are too much for me, I'm gone ;D

the math is quite simple.  mostly just multiplication. 

i remember this song. almost is never enough-ariana grande  ;D

so, a lot is enough  ;D

This tempted me to try my luck, here I go

1285wv94GrxgmpPzDksV8oHn73TPRTxNzr

Did I win?

https://blockchain.info/address/1285wv94GrxgmpPzDksV8oHn73TPRTxNzr

Nothing :'(

p.k. 5J1cG5smKXFN18F8XwJ7npBPLmvt9k5nzHQ52aUhQUuR2WqvYU4

Actually the OP did make that mistake.
You can tell by the reply titles (including this) ;)

Apart from that, does anyone have any clue as to how many grains of sand there are on earth?

Reading this post was like eating a warm bowl of oatmeal on a cold winter morning.
Any post with the word buffonery in it warrants a thumbs up in my book...

I have often wondered about this topic in the past.
Thanks to all you math guys out there putting this into terms someone like me could easily understand.
I rest easy tonight knowing the odds of any of my addresses being reproduced are much more unlikely than me winning a silver medal in womens gymnastics. (FYI im a male)  ;D

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+many+grains+of+sand+are+in+the+earth

Let me see if I understand :P
Ok so basically, there are about the same bitcoin addresses as we have stars in one Galaxy right?

Very thought provoking and nice picture by the way :)

Erm, thanks.....
So, let me take the first result: http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky (http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky)

Are we not forgetting that in the bottom of the sea there's sand as well?
What about those grains?

Anyways, my point was that there is no way we can know for certain how many grains of sand there is (or how many stars for that matter).
We can only guesstimate.

That being said, Bitcoin users have nothing to worry about when it comes to address collision.

@26 billion addresses, what does that mean really? I read that there are no more than 1.5 unique bitcoin users worldwide. So what does 'unique' address' means in bitcoin dictionary?
As far as I know one individual are not limited by number of bitcoin addresses, you can have (and usually you are in possession of multiple bitcoin addresses, over 100 addresses per user is a norm).
Unnamed bitcoin law state that you ccan create new address for every new transaction.

you didn't get it..

It's A LOT more than 26 billion.

It's 26 billion addresses PER GRAIN OF SAND....................

It's like 2.6 x 10 ^77 ............................

He is saying.. it's pretty much unlimited.

The title should be Enough is not enough.   ;D