Percentage of addresses used

[yoona]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

[pawel7777]

What do you mean by "yet to be used"? All the possible addresses with zero balances?

[icecube45]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

its not possible to determine this (to my knowlege) without actually generating every combination possible, at least thats how i understand it.

if im wrong, im curious as to how this would be done

[Amph]

aren't the possible address 2^160? there should be a way to know how many have been generated, then you only need to subtract that amount

[Herbert2020]

to my knowledge there is no way of knowing this unless you can parse the whole >7GB of blockchain and look for addresses that have been used.

there are some charts on blockchain.info that might interest you but nothing about what you want:
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses : unique addresses per day
https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users : number of BC.I wallets (not addresses) created it is 6.5 mil

[alani123]

The possible number of bitcoin addresses is 2^160 but IIRC no one is counting the total number of unique addresses used. You could try to do this by analyzing the blockchain but that's surely going to be ersource intensive given the number of transactions in there.

[jacktheking]

As other have said, the possible amount of Bitcoin addresses is a lot - around more than the number of sand we have on Earth. I believe, It is possible to know the percentage of used Bitcoin addresses but it will take sometime. A lot of new addresses are created everyday by mixers and payment processors etc. However I do not think we have or will reach 50% anytime soon.

[--Encrypted--]

As other have said, the possible amount of Bitcoin addresses is a lot - around the number of sand we have on Earth. I believe, It is possible to know the percentage of used Bitcoin addresses but it will take sometime. A lot of new addresses are created everyday by mixers and payment processors etc. However I do not think we have or will reach 50% anytime soon.

there's only around 2^63 grains of sands on earth. to get to close to the number of possible addresses you'll need to multiply that by approx a hundred and fifty octilion (150 with 27 zeroes). that's not close at all.

trying to find even 1 percent of those addresses will take a huge computing power.

[7788bitcoin]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

I don't know how to get started counting... but let say if we have 7 billions users (the population of the whole world) and each generated 10k addresses, which will give 70 trillion addresses used/ever generated.

(70,000,000,000,000 / 2^160)
= 10^ [log (70,000,000,000,000)- log (2^160)]
= 10^ [log (70) + log (10^12) - 160 log (2)]
= 10^ [1.845 + 12 log (10) - 160 x 0.301]
= 10 ^ (1.845 + 12 - 32.164)
= 10 ^ -18.32
~ 10^ -18 x 100%
~ 0.0000000000000001% of all addresses
~ 0%

I think I am over-estimating but we are dealing with huge numbers...

[tertius993]

As above, roughly 0% have been used.

[alani123]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

I don't know how to get started counting... but let say if we have 7 billions users (the population of the whole world) and each generated 10k addresses, which will give 70 trillion addresses used/ever generated.

(70,000,000,000,000 / 2^160)
= 10^ [log (70,000,000,000,000)- log (2^160)]
= 10^ [log (70) + log (10^12) - 160 log (2)]
= 10^ [1.845 + 12 log (10) - 160 x 0.301]
= 10 ^ (1.845 + 12 - 32.164)
= 10 ^ -18.32
~ 10^ -18 x 100%
~ 0.0000000000000001% of all addresses
~ 0%

I think I am over-estimating but we are dealing with huge numbers...

Yup, goes to show that OP here is asking the wrong question. Estimating the total number of addresses used as a percentage of the total possible addresses is always going to give a very small percentage since hte possible addresses are so many.

[yoona]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

I don't know how to get started counting... but let say if we have 7 billions users (the population of the whole world) and each generated 10k addresses, which will give 70 trillion addresses used/ever generated.

(70,000,000,000,000 / 2^160)
= 10^ [log (70,000,000,000,000)- log (2^160)]
= 10^ [log (70) + log (10^12) - 160 log (2)]
= 10^ [1.845 + 12 log (10) - 160 x 0.301]
= 10 ^ (1.845 + 12 - 32.164)
= 10 ^ -18.32
~ 10^ -18 x 100%
~ 0.0000000000000001% of all addresses
~ 0%

I think I am over-estimating but we are dealing with huge numbers...

Yup, goes to show that OP here is asking the wrong question. Estimating the total number of addresses used as a percentage of the total possible addresses is always going to give a very small percentage since hte possible addresses are so many.

Why exactly is my question wrong? I just had no idea there were so many possibilities. What would be the question i should have asked then?

[alani123]

Was just wondering (and too lazy to go facthunting) but has anyone an idea of how many btc addresses are in use/have been used, compared to the ones that are yet to be used? I've got like no idea what the orders are like...

I don't know how to get started counting... but let say if we have 7 billions users (the population of the whole world) and each generated 10k addresses, which will give 70 trillion addresses used/ever generated.

(70,000,000,000,000 / 2^160)
= 10^ [log (70,000,000,000,000)- log (2^160)]
= 10^ [log (70) + log (10^12) - 160 log (2)]
= 10^ [1.845 + 12 log (10) - 160 x 0.301]
= 10 ^ (1.845 + 12 - 32.164)
= 10 ^ -18.32
~ 10^ -18 x 100%
~ 0.0000000000000001% of all addresses
~ 0%

I think I am over-estimating but we are dealing with huge numbers...

Yup, goes to show that OP here is asking the wrong question. Estimating the total number of addresses used as a percentage of the total possible addresses is always going to give a very small percentage since hte possible addresses are so many.

Why exactly is my question wrong? I just had no idea there were so many possibilities. What would be the question i should have asked then?

No worries, it's good that you're learning. IMO a more meaningful question would be "how many different bitcoin addresses have been used so far?"

[jacktheking]

As other have said, the possible amount of Bitcoin addresses is a lot - around the number of sand we have on Earth. I believe, It is possible to know the percentage of used Bitcoin addresses but it will take sometime. A lot of new addresses are created everyday by mixers and payment processors etc. However I do not think we have or will reach 50% anytime soon.

there's only around 2^63 grains of sands on earth. to get to close to the number of possible addresses you'll need to multiply that by approx a hundred and fifty octilion (150 with 27 zeroes). that's not close at all.

trying to find even 1 percent of those addresses will take a huge computing power.

Oh sorry. Not a someone who is strong in science and math field here. That is what I heard from some other people on this forums.

Looks like I remember the wrong information. I apologize.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24268.msg304212#msg304212
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/27zbwj/thats_a_lot_of_bitcoin_addresses_one_way_to/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3faio9/counting_sand_and_bitcoin_addresses/



* will edit my previous post.

[btcltccoins]

As other have said, the possible amount of Bitcoin addresses is a lot - around more than the number of sand we have on Earth. I believe, It is possible to know the percentage of used Bitcoin addresses but it will take sometime. A lot of new addresses are created everyday by mixers and payment processors etc. However I do not think we have or will reach 50% anytime soon.

Yes, thats more than the more than the number of sand we have on Earth. Bitcoins addresses are being generated everyday
and there is no likely hood of any storage of them. So this is something need not to be worried.

[Wapinter]

As other have said, the possible amount of Bitcoin addresses is a lot - around more than the number of sand we have on Earth. I believe, It is possible to know the percentage of used Bitcoin addresses but it will take sometime. A lot of new addresses are created everyday by mixers and payment processors etc. However I do not think we have or will reach 50% anytime soon.

Yes, thats more than the more than the number of sand we have on Earth. Bitcoins addresses are being generated everyday
and there is no likely hood of any storage of them. So this is something need not to be worried.

I assume op wants to know when will we run out of bitcoin addresses or he might considering to generate as many as he can in a hope that he would star selling them once there's a scarcity of bitcoin addresses.After reading the above figures,he must have abondoned his idea

[Lauda]

OP you could have looked this up quickly with a single Google search. It was discussed in the past. Since nobody posted it, it might be worth adding:

[1] 2^160 is 1,461,501,637,330,902,918,203,684,832,716,283,019,655,932,542,976.

Divide this by the population of the world and you end up with:

[2] 215,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 addresses per capita

[1] - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24268.0
[2] - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses#Generating_tons_of_addresses

[mikehersh2]

With all of the combination of letters and numbers, there are so many possibilities of addresses that we will almost never run out.

[gentlemand]

Running out of addresses would be a rather wonderful problem to have. As others have pointed out we have, er, rather a while to go.

[bitbunnny]

But will the addresses run out when Bitcoin runs out?