Bitcoin Forum

I have a Question Does every bitcoin wallet address is unique that is generated through the give wallet? :)

Yes,every address that you generate from your wallet is unique

Of course, they must be very unique otherwise there could be chaos and things will not be working especially on your side and that someone sharing the same address with you.

Now, the next question is this: Will they not run out of unique wallet address later on? In my opinion, it can take so many years before that could happen but I am not a mathematician so don't take my words for it.

Absolutely yes, every bitcoin wallet can generate unique address everytime without any hassle. You can change your bitcoin address evrytime as you want.

This is an obvious question, of course every bitcoin wallet is address is unique, how can you identify which one is yours in the first place if your wallet has a twin brother?




As for the number of wallet available, I am lazy right now to calculate  ;D but in terms of its length and the combination of lowercase and uppercase letters as well as numbers, i thing this is enough for the every person in this world. Even to some with multiple accounts.

No.


Bitcoin addresses are a 160 bit hash.

Therefore there are 2¹⁶⁰ = 1461501637330902918203684832716283019655932542976 possible addresses.

That's 1.46 X 10⁴⁸ possible addresses

The universe has existed so far for about:

13.8 billion years * 365.25 days per year * 86400 seconds per day = 436126032000000000 seconds.

That's 4.36 X 10¹⁷ seconds.

If you started 1 BILLION computers at the Big Bang and each computer created 1 BILLION addresses every second until today....

You would only have created about

436126032000000000 seconds * 1000000000 computers * 1000000000 addresses = 436126032000000000000000000000000000 addresses.

That's 4.36 X 10³⁵ addresses created.

That means with a BILLION computers each creating a BILLION addresses EVERY SECOND since the BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE, you still would NOT have computed even 0.00000000001% OF THE POSSIBLE ADDRESSES yet.

How many years do you think it is going to take a normal amount of computers, creating a normal amount of addresses to "run out of unique wallet addresses"?

Wow, I like this conclusion.

So far I tried to explain it using the number of sand grains on earth theory which I have read about somewhere ( imagine all grains on earth, then imagine each grains is new earth ...)
But this one is much more explanatory.

I'm gonna keep a link to this because this is one of the most FAQ.

That is so cool post, :) very good to imagine this in your head. It is amazing, truly visualisation in mind.
Thank you for this posts, i didn't realize how infinite addresses are.

But, to be pedantic, it is still possible to create an address that is not unique. It is just EXTREMELY unlikely.

To be pedantic...

The quotes I was responding to weren't whether or not it is possible to create a non-unique address. They were whether we would "run out of unique wallet address" and the fact that it would "take so many years before that could happen".

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Furthermore, as long as the private keys are generated randomly, it is effectively "impossible".

When the average person hears or says "EXTREMELY unlikey", they take it to mean that it does occasionally happen (such as it is extremely unlikely to win the lottery or to get struck by lightning, or for the earth to get hit by an asteroid big enough to eliminate all life).

That isn't the kind of "extremely unlikely" that we are talking about here.  We are talking about the type of "extremely unlikely" that the average person means when they say that something is "impossible".

For example...

If you press your hand up against a wall, there is an EXTREMELY unlikely (but non-zero mathematically) chance that all of the particles of your had will simultaneously quantum tunnel to the other side of the wall.  The average person understands that this is "impossible" for all intents and purposes, but mathematically the chance isn't literally 0.

All the air molecules in a room are bouncing around RANDOMLY.  Any and every random arrangement of those molecules is possible.  There are far more arrangements that result in enough oxygen being near the mouth and nose of every person in the room so they can all continue to live, and so those are the "likely" arrangements.  However, it is EXTREMELY unlikely (non-zero chance mathematically) that the oxygen molecules could all bounce around into one small corner in the room suffocating everyone in the room to death until the molecules happen to bounce around back into a more even distribution.  The average person understands that this is "impossible" for all intents and purposes, but mathematically the chance isn't literally 0.

These are the type of "EXTREMELY unlikely" you are talking about when you are talking about address collisions with randomly generated addresses.  The average person needs to understand that this is "impossible" for all intents and purposes, but mathematically the chance isn't literally 0.

Every address generated is unique

Classic! :D I love to read your posts @DannyHamilton ! It is really pleasure to have on this forum someone who can so clearly write about Bitcoin!

I'm also interested what gonna happen with wallet addresses when they make BU fork/Segwit?

Sorry for little off top - did you already write somewhere about Segwit/BU + BTC and what do you think about all this situation with pools and which chain they will choose?

Edit: I found something here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1827814.msg18197544#msg18197544

Well that's a hell lot of calculation....but still the most appropriate answer...that yes bitcoin address have to be unique and you will won't run out of these address  so easily ....hahahha

Yeah simply same like QR addresses. Each will be unique among all the wallet addresses. Some the trading site and wallets use to change addresses but the transaction has been received to primary wallet of it. Then we can get the customized wallet address by paying for it. It can be available in digital goods section not sure where with the child board or thread name. Please check.

I'll complete with this:

https://i.imgur.com/ag3KQ0L.png

   Yes of course,every wallet address is different from any other ones and can never be the same.