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Title: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: norulezapply on August 20, 2011, 12:22:46 PM After writing this I'm guessing we'll never run out of addresses any time soon (as in within the next 1000 years)
base 36 ^ 34 characters per address = 8.2089011515213367907186323883068e+52 possible address combinations right? But is it possible to generate a new address and receive an addres that is already occupied by someone? Say, if I generate an address, and someone else does the same and gets the same address as me by chance, then isn't there a major issue with the system there? Since if I deposit some bitcoins they'll show in both mine and his wallet? Any thoughts on this? Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: JoelKatz on August 20, 2011, 12:28:46 PM It is billions of times more likely that some astronomical event will obliterate the Earth and destroy your bitcoins.
Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: norulezapply on August 20, 2011, 12:30:27 PM It is billions of times more likely that some astronomical event will obliterate the Earth and destroy your bitcoins. Hah that is actually true..So it could actually happen then? Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: JoelKatz on August 20, 2011, 12:31:12 PM Yeah, so buy asteroid insurance.
In most cryptosystems, there are a finite number of keys and it is always possible that someone might guess your key by pure luck. The solution is always to ensure that the number of possible keys is high enough that this need not be worried about. AES-128 is considered good enough for government work, and it "only" has 10^40 possible keys. 10^48 is more than enough. Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: jackjack on August 20, 2011, 12:34:27 PM After writing this I'm guessing we'll never run out of addresses any time soon (as in within the next 1000 years) Base36?base 36 ^ 34 characters per address = 8.2089011515213367907186323883068e+52 possible address combinations right? But is it possible to generate a new address and receive an addres that is already occupied by someone? Say, if I generate an address, and someone else does the same and gets the same address as me by chance, then isn't there a major issue with the system there? Since if I deposit some bitcoins they'll show in both mine and his wallet? Any thoughts on this? Addresses are base 58 encoded Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: norulezapply on August 20, 2011, 12:37:26 PM After writing this I'm guessing we'll never run out of addresses any time soon (as in within the next 1000 years) Base36?base 36 ^ 34 characters per address = 8.2089011515213367907186323883068e+52 possible address combinations right? But is it possible to generate a new address and receive an addres that is already occupied by someone? Say, if I generate an address, and someone else does the same and gets the same address as me by chance, then isn't there a major issue with the system there? Since if I deposit some bitcoins they'll show in both mine and his wallet? Any thoughts on this? Addresses are base 58 encoded: 9e59 addresses Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: jackjack on August 20, 2011, 12:40:33 PM After writing this I'm guessing we'll never run out of addresses any time soon (as in within the next 1000 years) Base36?base 36 ^ 34 characters per address = 8.2089011515213367907186323883068e+52 possible address combinations right? But is it possible to generate a new address and receive an addres that is already occupied by someone? Say, if I generate an address, and someone else does the same and gets the same address as me by chance, then isn't there a major issue with the system there? Since if I deposit some bitcoins they'll show in both mine and his wallet? Any thoughts on this? Addresses are base 58 encoded: 9e59 addresses Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: Artefact2 on August 20, 2011, 02:17:54 PM "There are 1,786,752 different addresses in the block chain. That's less than 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % of all the addresses that can be generated."
But I used 2^160 ~= 1.46e48 as the total number of addresses (Because addresses are stored as hash160s internally, and I assume every hash160 is a valid address ; if I'm wrong then correct me!). Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: jackjack on August 20, 2011, 02:54:51 PM "There are 1,786,752 different addresses in the block chain. That's less than 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001 % of all the addresses that can be generated." Yep, you are of course rightBut I used 2^160 ~= 1.46e48 as the total number of addresses (Because addresses are stored as hash160s internally, and I assume every hash160 is a valid address ; if I'm wrong then correct me!). Title: Re: Will we ever run out of bitcoin addresses? Post by: kokjo on August 20, 2011, 02:58:36 PM yes. BUT first in about 10-30 times the age of the universe.
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