What happens to bitcoins sent to other addresses?

[digaran]

How exactly bitcoin addresses work? what determines whether an address is for bitcoin and not for it's clones or some altcoins?
What happens if you send bitcoin to other addresses or vice versa?
Is it possible to create an address offline? if so then how the system knows if it can deposit bitcoins in it or not?
Now what if a group of few thousands members decide to clone bitcoin and have control over a few considerably large volume exchanges and do trades then how can we tell the difference?
Or what if a bitcoin node which has the ledger tries to clone bitcoins by using the blockchain information in hard drive? or they just use blockchain as their clone's block chain?

What should people know when using different wallets and exchanges?
What happens if 50 nodes go offline or in a fake online environment and do transactions and do the confirming themselves? is it possible for miners to predict the hashes of future to be bitcoins and use it to create them and then the network verify those coins as legit ones?
Where exactly new bitcoins generated by which mechanism that is in nodes wallet software? which one of nodes creates the problems for miners to solve? and what if someone finds a way to make the system favor some selected miners? 

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[ArcCsch]

Read about bitcoin, watch videos, read the whitepaper, read bitcoin wiki, google is your friend.
I am off to check your posts to see how on earth you became a Sr. Member.

[bigpattywhack]

How exactly bitcoin addresses work? what determines whether an address is for bitcoin and not for it's clones or some altcoins?
What happens if you send bitcoin to other addresses or vice versa?
Is it possible to create an address offline? if so then how the system knows if it can deposit bitcoins in it or not?
Now what if a group of few thousands members decide to clone bitcoin and have control over a few considerably large volume exchanges and do trades then how can we tell the difference?
Or what if a bitcoin node which has the ledger tries to clone bitcoins by using the blockchain information in hard drive? or they just use blockchain as their clone's block chain?

What should people know when using different wallets and exchanges?
What happens if 50 nodes go offline or in a fake online environment and do transactions and do the confirming themselves? is it possible for miners to predict the hashes of future to be bitcoins and use it to create them and then the network verify those coins as legit ones?
Where exactly new bitcoins generated by which mechanism that is in nodes wallet software? which one of nodes creates the problems for miners to solve? and what if someone finds a way to make the system favor some selected miners? 

Hows it you have 800 posts but don't know these basics? Watch some videos, read some books and if you're really interested in the nitty gritties learn to code since it'll give you the fundamental understanding of how it all comes together but don't expect to do any of this over night.

[digaran]

Read about bitcoin, watch videos, read the whitepaper, read bitcoin wiki, google is your friend.
I am off to check your posts to see how on earth you became a Sr. Member.

Really? I save your time by telling you that having ranks is just a matter of time and not knowledge or skills.
I don't want the information from wiki and google just refers to places like this forum? so first those infos need to exist and my questions aren't simple and they have many different answers, I wanted to know other people's answers and to see how many people think about such things and even if know any answers to my questions.
For second poster, so anyone going to use bitcoin and know the basics needs to be familiar with coding?

[achow101]

How exactly bitcoin addresses work?

Bitcoin addresses are a specific encoding (base 58 check encoding) of the RIPEMD160 of the SHA256 of a public key. This hash is known as the hash160 of a public key. When you enter an address into your wallet, it decodes the address into the hash160 and builds the proper output based upon the version number (the thing that decides whether an address begins with a '1' or a '3'). This output is used in your transaction.

what determines whether an address is for bitcoin and not for it's clones or some altcoins?

Nothing does. Generally a different version byte is chosen so that the prefix of the address will be different and thus distinguishable. However some altcoins do use the same version bytes and thus are indistinguishable from a Bitcoin address (e.g. litecoin's p2sh addresses are the same as bitcoin's). Other than that there is no difference as the addresses are still the base58 check encoding of the hash160 of an ECDSA public key.

What happens if you send bitcoin to other addresses or vice versa?

The Bitcoin goes to a normal output. Generally the coin is considered burned, but it is still possible to access it because the receiver of the transaction can simply import their private key from another coin and import it to the coin that was actually sent.

Is it possible to create an address offline? if so then how the system knows if it can deposit bitcoins in it or not?

Yes. Addresses do not need to register with anything to indicate that it can be sent to. As I said earlier, addresses are simply used to build transaction outputs. Transaction outputs don't care whether they are actually spendable, they just have to be valid outputs.

Now what if a group of few thousands members decide to clone bitcoin and have control over a few considerably large volume exchanges and do trades then how can we tell the difference?

The transactions made with the cloned coin will not have the same blockchain as Bitcoin. The transactions that they try to spend from do not exist on the Bitcoin network so their transactions are considered invalid.

Or what if a bitcoin node which has the ledger tries to clone bitcoins by using the blockchain information in hard drive? or they just use blockchain as their clone's block chain?

At the time of any fork of the blockchain, the attackers blockchain will diverge from the Bitcoin blockchain. If they try to steal coins that are not theirs, Bitcoin nodes will simply reject the transactions as invalid. Sure they will have the coins on their blockchain, but no one cares about that because that blockchain is not Bitcoin's.

What should people know when using different wallets and exchanges?

They all must follow the consensus rules in order to be using Bitcoin.

What happens if 50 nodes go offline or in a fake online environment and do transactions and do the confirming themselves?

Then they have forked the blockchain and their transactions and blocks will not be considered valid. With the current difficulty, their chain would lose.

is it possible for miners to predict the hashes of future to be bitcoins and use it to create them and then the network verify those coins as legit ones?

No, that is not how Bitcoin works. First of all, hashes are randomly distributed, so you cannot predict a hash. Secondly, Bitcoins are not objects. Rather they are values assigned to transaction outputs.

Where exactly new bitcoins generated by which mechanism that is in nodes wallet software?

When a miner mines a block, they include, as the first transaction in their block, a coin generation transaction. This transaction has no inputs and creates one or more outputs whose values are at most the sum of the block subsidy (currently 12.5 Bitcoin) and all of the transaction fees paid by the transactions in the block.

which one of nodes creates the problems for miners to solve?

No node does that. Miners don't actually solve problems. What they do is they build an 80 byte block header which consists of a version number, timestamp, the previous block hash, merkle root of all transactions in the block, the current target, and a nonce. Then that is hashed with SHA256 double. This hash is then compared to the current target. If it is less than the target, then the block is valid and broadcast to the rest of the network. If it is invalid, the miner changes something in the header (usually the nonce, then the merkle root) until a valid hash is found.

and what if someone finds a way to make the system favor some selected miners?  

The Bitcoin network does not choose a miner to win. All miners attempt to find a valid hash for the current block. It is a competition, and only one wins. If multiple miners solve a block simultaneously, the block considered the winner is the one that is built on top of next. A sustained fork is incredibly unlikely to happen.


I highly suggest that you do your own research into how Bitcoin works. There is lots of documentation on all of the technical inner workings of Bitcoin. A good place to start is the developer documentation on bitcoin.org.

[ArcCsch]

667 words total (excluding quotes)

You actually took the time to write this? 

[achow101]

667 words total (excluding quotes)

You actually took the time to write this?  

Yes, gotta increase my post count  

But seriously, OP asked some questions, I answered. He clearly has a lack of understanding of how Bitcoin works, so I am taking the time to inform him. Of course he should do his own research and not rely on hand-holding and the good will of strangers to answer his questions. But simply saying "You don't understand Bitcoin, do your own research" simply is not helping, especially if you don't point him to any good resources on how it works.

Also, regarding his current rank and lack of knowledge, having a high ranking account does not mean that you should understand Bitcoin. It just means that you are active on the forum for a while or bought a high ranking account. Don't expect much out of high ranking members unless they have shown a history of knowledge and understanding.

[digaran]

667 words total (excluding quotes)

You actually took the time to write this?  

Yes, gotta increase my post count  

But seriously, OP asked some questions, I answered. He clearly has a lack of understanding of how Bitcoin works, so I am taking the time to inform him. Of course he should do his own research and not rely on hand-holding and the good will of strangers to answer his questions. But simply saying "You don't understand Bitcoin, do your own research" simply is not helping, especially if you don't point him to any good resources on how it works.

Also, regarding his current rank and lack of knowledge, having a high ranking account does not mean that you should understand Bitcoin. It just means that you are active on the forum for a while or bought a high ranking account. Don't expect much out of high ranking members unless they have shown a history of knowledge and understanding.

After reading someone posted saying that he/she wants to do study on bitcoin I provided some info but not the technicalities and that got me thinking about a few questions that I needed the answers in one place for reference.
Problem many people facing and the reason for not using bitcoin is because of the same lack of knowledge and the process needed to fully and truly understand them simply scares away the general population.

And no this isn't a bought account, and things you said is like satoshi himself telling them I want to know if others knowing those things and are not part of the bitcointalk or bitcoin.org group of experts.
But again the results I was looking for are the same, either have the skills in coding and understanding of crypto and mathematics and mechanisms involved or trust the experts which in my case I'm trying to see how many nice and skillful polite experts like yourself are here that I am trusting them and could refer people to for knowing them, read their posts and decide for themselves if they want to enter crypto world and not just take my words.


In case if any one wondering if I'm just trying to make more posts for my signature? I will not post again here if not needed and will edit my already submitted posts.

[jeraldskie11]

the bitcoin when receive to other addresses ofcourse the bitcoin will go to the address that you sent. And you can't vise versa it but if you are the owner of the address that you sended bitcoin you can do vise-versa.

[amaclin]

Yes, gotta increase my post count  

May I ask you to repeat your answer for me?
Slowly. I am not sure that I've got everything

[BuySomeBitcoins]

667 words total (excluding quotes)

You actually took the time to write this?  

Yes, gotta increase my post count  

But seriously, OP asked some questions, I answered. He clearly has a lack of understanding of how Bitcoin works, so I am taking the time to inform him. Of course he should do his own research and not rely on hand-holding and the good will of strangers to answer his questions. But simply saying "You don't understand Bitcoin, do your own research" simply is not helping, especially if you don't point him to any good resources on how it works.

Also, regarding his current rank and lack of knowledge, having a high ranking account does not mean that you should understand Bitcoin. It just means that you are active on the forum for a while or bought a high ranking account. Don't expect much out of high ranking members unless they have shown a history of knowledge and understanding.

You answer did not just help OP, but many readers.

I shared the link to your answer already on other forums where people had the same questions.

[Decoded]

An address does not store any Bitcoins, just like your bank number doesn't store your money. An address is just a representation of your balance, the difference between the total inputs and outputs of your account.

An address is the output of a cryptographic function. The network will not accept anything that's not valid.

If you send Bitcoin to an address that is used by an altcoin, if it's valid, it will send to the address on the Bitcoin network. Understand that all possible addresses exist, except that they haven't been used before. So you'll send to that address on the Bitcoin network.

[DuddlyDoRight]

Somebody will explain it...

...It's a part of a coin from a miner passed on and verified with crypto so each transaction doesn't have to trace back to it being mined.. All transactions are on a single ledger some wallet software host the ledger on verified mirrors and just send you block headers for it for efficiency over low-bandwidth and low-space..

I think this is actually more technical than at least 80% of the threads here no matter if it is a duplicate or whatever..

[meemiinii]

what happen if it is sent to a different address? well once bitcoin is sent to a certain address, theres no turning back or a rewind. IT CANNOT BE UNDO! so i suggest to try to copy paste and double check the address before sending bitcoins or altcoins.

[amaclin]

what happen if it is sent to a different address? well once bitcoin is sent to a certain address,
theres no turning back or a rewind. IT CANNOT BE UNDO!

It can. Give me your address, I will send you small amount and then I will take it back.

[morantis]

How exactly bitcoin addresses work? what determines whether an address is for bitcoin and not for it's clones or some altcoins?
What happens if you send bitcoin to other addresses or vice versa?
Is it possible to create an address offline? if so then how the system knows if it can deposit bitcoins in it or not?
Now what if a group of few thousands members decide to clone bitcoin and have control over a few considerably large volume exchanges and do trades then how can we tell the difference?
Or what if a bitcoin node which has the ledger tries to clone bitcoins by using the blockchain information in hard drive? or they just use blockchain as their clone's block chain?

What should people know when using different wallets and exchanges?
What happens if 50 nodes go offline or in a fake online environment and do transactions and do the confirming themselves? is it possible for miners to predict the hashes of future to be bitcoins and use it to create them and then the network verify those coins as legit ones?
Where exactly new bitcoins generated by which mechanism that is in nodes wallet software? which one of nodes creates the problems for miners to solve? and what if someone finds a way to make the system favor some selected miners? 

i was speaking to the high school students nearby about bitcoin and used this not entirely correct basic framework explanation.  every transaction gets broadcast to the entire network.  once there is a large number of them, those transaction are bundled into a block, the block is encrypted and the encryption password is thrown away.  then, the whole network tries to hack that block.  this creates enough work and enough consensual agreement that once cracked by enough separate people, the network assumes the information to be true.  this is an oversimplification and does not describe the transitions from one block to another and the true nature of the hashes, but it gets the point across,

as far as forks, anyone can completely fork bitcoin in an hour, maybe a little more. forking the code without changing things like the merkle, the name, the acronym, and other things will create a new separate version of bitcoin, you can even clone that coin and have two or more wallets that share this wrong fork.  as soon as the wallets and daemons are started, the false block chain starts.  you can be impressed by the number of mined bitcoins you have in your wallet, but it simply will not ever be part of the main network.  the blocks your wallet sends will never get confirmed and never be accepted.  you can try to send coins from these bad wallets and it will look right at first, but it won't work.  if you try to send btc from the bad fork to anyone on the good fork, they won't get the tx.  it would be like taking a bank of america check into capital bank and expecting them to cash it.

as far as exchanges and main stream websites, even a large group of people with your "bitcoin" cannot interact with those sites,  the addresses will be right, but your private keys are different for those same addresses.  so, push comes to shove, your huge group gets more powerful and bigger than the original bitcoin, and you simply have another bitcoin, possibly with value, but the old sites, with balances won't work with the same coins, they may switch to yours, but the old bitcoin balances are lost.  so yes, you and millions of friends can take the name, the acronym and the popularity of bitcoin with a different fork, but never touch the first block chain with your coin.

if you end up playing with a coin called burstcoin, you may see this in person.  you can use your wallet software before the blockchain has finished downloading and you occasionally screw up and end up with a forked burstcoin, you split from the pack at some point and your last several transactions are simply wasted.

i am talking a lot and your last paragraph is pretty intense, i will throw these things out there.  in the block chain, part of the hash of a new block is created from the last block.  using any method to create a separate chain from the main chain will be the same as i described above, your second fake block will have a hash based on YOUR first fake block and that is where the failures begin.  wallets are like bank accounts, exchanges are sites that allow people to buy and sell bitcoin and other coins to other people, the prices go up and down based on what people will pay.  i believe that the computer that solves the last block creates the new one. as far as offline nodes

1. there are so many that they will never all go offline

2. if they did go offline, they process would simply begin again as nodes come online

3. ANY blocks created away from the main network will never make a change to the main block chain

and no, you cannot predict any hash for a future block because part of that hash comes from the previous solved block, so you are trying to guess what your grandchild will name their kid before you have even had children.

[DuddlyDoRight]

My small paragraph is 100% accurate and says the same thing..

Forked source wallets won't work on main ledger? They will.. There is nothing stopping them.. Wallets with hard coded or configured forked ledgers can easily be modified to work with the big main ledger too..

Nothing in BTC is complex. The hardest stuff is finding white listed script tricks or things not checked for and all that is just looking through GIT repos hour after hour day after day and it's pretty easy to read source code..

[morantis]

My small paragraph is 100% accurate and says the same thing..

Forked source wallets won't work on main ledger? They will.. There is nothing stopping them.. Wallets with hard coded or configured forked ledgers can easily be modified to work with the big main ledger too..

Nothing in BTC is complex. The hardest stuff is finding white listed script tricks or things not checked for and all that is just looking through GIT repos hour after hour day after day and it's pretty easy to read source code..

i can't see it.  let's try it this way

fork X....the current bitcoin accepted code with the current block chain that is consensus accepted
fork Y....exactly cloned fork, nothing changed from merkle up

comparing block zero 0...all math is the same so they should match

block 1 receives hash data from block 0 on both chains and if only one person has created a key pair, then i believe the data would still match sending identical data to block 2 as a hash

but, as soon as fork y sends transaction data to a block that is not identical to the original block chain, that block will forward a different hash to the next block and no other block will match again.

sending fork y's new blocks to same network will not be a rejection per se, its code, not a person, but each new block that fork y sends will simply be the runner up with the first block chain having already confirmed over and over a different set of data.

i have looked at early blocks and there are a good number of addresses in there, so i assume the confirmations are very high. 

i am not saying that what i have said is correct, but it is my understanding of the system, please correct me if i am wrong

[DuddlyDoRight]

My small paragraph is 100% accurate and says the same thing..

Forked source wallets won't work on main ledger? They will.. There is nothing stopping them.. Wallets with hard coded or configured forked ledgers can easily be modified to work with the big main ledger too..

Nothing in BTC is complex. The hardest stuff is finding white listed script tricks or things not checked for and all that is just looking through GIT repos hour after hour day after day and it's pretty easy to read source code..

i can't see it.  let's try it this way

fork X....the current bitcoin accepted code with the current block chain that is consensus accepted
fork Y....exactly cloned fork, nothing changed from merkle up

comparing block zero 0...all math is the same so they should match

block 1 receives hash data from block 0 on both chains and if only one person has created a key pair, then i believe the data would still match sending identical data to block 2 as a hash

but, as soon as fork y sends transaction data to a block that is not identical to the original block chain, that block will forward a different hash to the next block and no other block will match again.

sending fork y's new blocks to same network will not be a rejection per se, its code, not a person, but each new block that fork y sends will simply be the runner up with the first block chain having already confirmed over and over a different set of data.

i have looked at early blocks and there are a good number of addresses in there, so i assume the confirmations are very high.  

i am not saying that what i have said is correct, but it is my understanding of the system, please correct me if i am wrong

I didn't mean you could port coins between them... Because all coins are sourced from miners layered in the confirmations.

[buwaytress]

How exactly bitcoin addresses work?

Bitcoin addresses are a specific encoding (base 58 check encoding) of the RIPEMD160 of the SHA256 of a public key. This hash is known as the hash160 of a public key. When you enter an address into your wallet, it decodes the address into the hash160 and builds the proper output based upon the version number (the thing that decides whether an address begins with a '1' or a '3'). This output is used in your transaction.

what determines whether an address is for bitcoin and not for it's clones or some altcoins?

Nothing does. Generally a different version byte is chosen so that the prefix of the address will be different and thus distinguishable. However some altcoins do use the same version bytes and thus are indistinguishable from a Bitcoin address (e.g. litecoin's p2sh addresses are the same as bitcoin's). Other than that there is no difference as the addresses are still the base58 check encoding of the hash160 of an ECDSA public key.

What happens if you send bitcoin to other addresses or vice versa?

The Bitcoin goes to a normal output. Generally the coin is considered burned, but it is still possible to access it because the receiver of the transaction can simply import their private key from another coin and import it to the coin that was actually sent.

Is it possible to create an address offline? if so then how the system knows if it can deposit bitcoins in it or not?

Yes. Addresses do not need to register with anything to indicate that it can be sent to. As I said earlier, addresses are simply used to build transaction outputs. Transaction outputs don't care whether they are actually spendable, they just have to be valid outputs.

Now what if a group of few thousands members decide to clone bitcoin and have control over a few considerably large volume exchanges and do trades then how can we tell the difference?

The transactions made with the cloned coin will not have the same blockchain as Bitcoin. The transactions that they try to spend from do not exist on the Bitcoin network so their transactions are considered invalid.

Or what if a bitcoin node which has the ledger tries to clone bitcoins by using the blockchain information in hard drive? or they just use blockchain as their clone's block chain?

At the time of any fork of the blockchain, the attackers blockchain will diverge from the Bitcoin blockchain. If they try to steal coins that are not theirs, Bitcoin nodes will simply reject the transactions as invalid. Sure they will have the coins on their blockchain, but no one cares about that because that blockchain is not Bitcoin's.

What should people know when using different wallets and exchanges?

They all must follow the consensus rules in order to be using Bitcoin.

What happens if 50 nodes go offline or in a fake online environment and do transactions and do the confirming themselves?

Then they have forked the blockchain and their transactions and blocks will not be considered valid. With the current difficulty, their chain would lose.

is it possible for miners to predict the hashes of future to be bitcoins and use it to create them and then the network verify those coins as legit ones?

No, that is not how Bitcoin works. First of all, hashes are randomly distributed, so you cannot predict a hash. Secondly, Bitcoins are not objects. Rather they are values assigned to transaction outputs.

Where exactly new bitcoins generated by which mechanism that is in nodes wallet software?

When a miner mines a block, they include, as the first transaction in their block, a coin generation transaction. This transaction has no inputs and creates one or more outputs whose values are at most the sum of the block subsidy (currently 12.5 Bitcoin) and all of the transaction fees paid by the transactions in the block.

which one of nodes creates the problems for miners to solve?

No node does that. Miners don't actually solve problems. What they do is they build an 80 byte block header which consists of a version number, timestamp, the previous block hash, merkle root of all transactions in the block, the current target, and a nonce. Then that is hashed with SHA256 double. This hash is then compared to the current target. If it is less than the target, then the block is valid and broadcast to the rest of the network. If it is invalid, the miner changes something in the header (usually the nonce, then the merkle root) until a valid hash is found.

and what if someone finds a way to make the system favor some selected miners?  

The Bitcoin network does not choose a miner to win. All miners attempt to find a valid hash for the current block. It is a competition, and only one wins. If multiple miners solve a block simultaneously, the block considered the winner is the one that is built on top of next. A sustained fork is incredibly unlikely to happen.


I highly suggest that you do your own research into how Bitcoin works. There is lots of documentation on all of the technical inner workings of Bitcoin. A good place to start is the developer documentation on bitcoin.org.

First of all, must say I appreciate the staff member who took the trouble to answer each question. For readers like myself, who were complete newbies when we first found bitcoin and whose technical knowledge is at a beginner's level, these questions are actually not as simple as they may appear to a lot of forum users here. You might see also that I'm a Full Member and still consider myself perhaps at the lower 1% percentile in terms of bitcoin technical understanding.

Yes, we do attempt to do our own reading, or else we would not know how to ask questions like the above.

It is helpful to point out developer documentation but again, they are quite complex for someone like myself. Hell, even reading whitepapers on this forum is a confusing chore but I try to do as much reading as I can. On the other hand, more accessible and simpler documents are outdated (for example, I read all about fees and confirmation times from the wikis but found this to be different from practice - blockchain.info also only recently updated their estimated confirmation message on a tx page).

What I'm trying to say here is that... if posters don't want to help or answer, it's fine but you don't have to patronise users who may genuinely seek simple explanations.

Thank you again to the Staff Member who responded. Some answers gave me information I had never been aware of. The burnt bitcoins for example:
"The Bitcoin goes to a normal output. Generally the coin is considered burned, but it is still possible to access it because the receiver of the transaction can simply import their private key from another coin and import it to the coin that was actually sent."

Did you mean to say I could retrieve mistakenly burnt Bitcoin by import my alt's private key into, for example, Electrum?

[achow101]

Thank you again to the Staff Member who responded. Some answers gave me information I had never been aware of. The burnt bitcoins for example:
"The Bitcoin goes to a normal output. Generally the coin is considered burned, but it is still possible to access it because the receiver of the transaction can simply import their private key from another coin and import it to the coin that was actually sent."

Did you mean to say I could retrieve mistakenly burnt Bitcoin by import my alt's private key into, for example, Electrum?

Yes. You can, and I believe it has actually been done before with multisig addresses with Litecoin.

[morantis]

Thank you again to the Staff Member who responded. Some answers gave me information I had never been aware of. The burnt bitcoins for example:
"The Bitcoin goes to a normal output. Generally the coin is considered burned, but it is still possible to access it because the receiver of the transaction can simply import their private key from another coin and import it to the coin that was actually sent."

Did you mean to say I could retrieve mistakenly burnt Bitcoin by import my alt's private key into, for example, Electrum?

Yes. You can, and I believe it has actually been done before with multisig addresses with Litecoin.

i did know a guy last year that thought the most final way to burn coins was to simply make up an address and never request it from the network, uisng the right two first digits.  he did have the sense to check the address balance and history online and used a basically random address as a burn wallet.

only thing with that is the fact that requesting an address from the network allows the network to consider that address used and not give it out again.  with the guy i was talking about, his method did indeed mean there was never a private key to get rid of, but by chance someone, someday day will get a little surprise in their new wallet address

[DannyHamilton]

requesting an address from the network allows the network to consider that address used and not give it out again.

This is not true.  This is not how bitcoin works.

Wallets do not "request addresses from the network".

Wallet generate a random 256 bit number (On their own, without communicating with the network about it at all)  They use that number as a private key.  Then they use elliptic curve point multiplication to calculate a public key from that private key.  Finally they use SHA256 and RIPEMD160 hashing algorithms along with base58 numeric representation to calculate the bitcoin address from the public key.

"The network" doesn't know anything about bitcoin addresses, and it doesn't check to see if an address is used yet or not.

This was already explained to you yesterday...

- snip -
The private key is a large integer that is randomly chosen. The public key is derived from the private key by performing elliptic curve multiplication by a scalar on the curve point where the private key is the scalar. The wikipedia article of ECDSA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_Digital_Signature_Algorithm describes what you need to know. The actual parameters for the secp256k1 curve is defined in http://www.secg.org/sec2-v2.pdf.
- snip -
Private keys are generated randomly, not using any other data except that used to seed the RNG.
- snip -

And also...

- snip -
What do you mean by "addresses requested"? Addresses requested by who? Given by who? The blockchain does not do any of this, it does not care about addresses.
- snip -

The only reason that two people don't end up with the same address is because the random number generation is very good at being random AND the pool of valid numbers to choose from is so big.

It doesn't matter if you generate your address with a wallet, or if you generate your address completely offline with a calculator.  The odds of someone else getting the same address are exactly the same either way.  Those odds are so incredibly small that it is safe to consider it impossible as long as your random number generator is good enough.

by chance someone, someday day will get a little surprise in their new wallet address

No.  They won't.

[ArcCsch]

by chance someone, someday day will get a little surprise in their new wallet address

No.  They won't.

Actually, this has happened before, some wallet software was created by n00bs, who sometimes used poor random number generators, resulting in users generating a wallet and finding someone else's bitcoin, and someone else opening their wallet and finding it empty.

[DannyHamilton]

by chance someone, someday day will get a little surprise in their new wallet address

No.  They won't.

Actually, this has happened before, some wallet software was created by n00bs, who sometimes used poor random number generators, resulting in users generating a wallet and finding someone else's bitcoin, and someone else opening their wallet and finding it empty.

No.  THIS  has not happened before:

simply make up an address . . . using the right . . . digits . . . a basically random address as a burn wallet . . . there was never a private key . . . by chance someone, someday day will get a little surprise in their new wallet address

ArsCsch is talking about generating an address from a private key that wasn't securely random.  If your software has a flaw in the selection of private key, then it is possible that someone else could run get the same private key (accidentally or intentionally).  If that happens, then they will have the same address and be able to spend the bitcoins that are received at that address.

morantis is talking about creating a string of letters and numbers that matches the requirements to be a valid bitcoin address without using any private key or public key at all.  If you do that, and you don't intentionally just copy an existing address, then nobody is going to stumble into  the same address.

[buwaytress]

The only reason that two people don't end up with the same address is because the random number generation is very good at being random AND the pool of valid numbers to choose from is so big.

It doesn't matter if you generate your address with a wallet, or if you generate your address completely offline with a calculator.  The odds of someone else getting the same address are exactly the same either way.  Those odds are so incredibly small that it is safe to consider it impossible as long as your random number generator is good enough.

I don't know the statistical odds of a person getting an address that was already generated for someone else previously - from your explanation this is very, very small to the point of virtual impossibility. But, this is not a theoretical impossibility, am I correct?

Does this pool of valid numbers grow bigger or is it stagnant? What if, for argument's sake, the rate of address generation multiplies a million-fold in 50 years? When we have 20 billion population and a trillion computers generating addresses at the rate of trillions a day? Surely this impossibility suddenly becomes only extremely unlikely?

Only curious=)

[achow101]

I don't know the statistical odds of a person getting an address that was already generated for someone else previously - from your explanation this is very, very small to the point of virtual impossibility. But, this is not a theoretical impossibility, am I correct?

Yes, in theory there is a non-zero probability that there will be an address collision. This probability is just so low that it is in effect zero.

Does this pool of valid numbers grow bigger or is it stagnant?

It is stagnant. There are 2^160 possible addresses.

What if, for argument's sake, the rate of address generation multiplies a million-fold in 50 years? When we have 20 billion population and a trillion computers generating addresses at the rate of trillions a day? Surely this impossibility suddenly becomes only extremely unlikely?

Only curious=)

Suppose addresses were generated at a rate of 1 trillion addresses per day since the beginning of Bitcoin (or now for that matter, it wouldn't make a difference). It would take 4.0041141*10^33 years to run out of addresses. To put that into context, that is the sun's lifespan 4.0041141*10^23 times over.

[morantis]

I don't know the statistical odds of a person getting an address that was already generated for someone else previously - from your explanation this is very, very small to the point of virtual impossibility. But, this is not a theoretical impossibility, am I correct?

Yes, in theory there is a non-zero probability that there will be an address collision. This probability is just so low that it is in effect zero.

Does this pool of valid numbers grow bigger or is it stagnant?

It is stagnant. There are 2^160 possible addresses.

What if, for argument's sake, the rate of address generation multiplies a million-fold in 50 years? When we have 20 billion population and a trillion computers generating addresses at the rate of trillions a day? Surely this impossibility suddenly becomes only extremely unlikely?

Only curious=)

Suppose addresses were generated at a rate of 1 trillion addresses per day since the beginning of Bitcoin (or now for that matter, it wouldn't make a difference). It would take 4.0041141*10^33 years to run out of addresses. To put that into context, that is the sun's lifespan 4.0041141*10^23 times over.

  if you soft fork the code line where a hash is supplied to determine the address format, say just change a single digit and now newly generated addresses start with whatever "24" instead of "14" does that affect the previous addresses that have been generated causing them to be invalid or simply alter the new addresses?

[achow101]

if you soft fork the code line where a hash is supplied to determine the address format, say just change a single digit and now newly generated addresses start with whatever "24" instead of "14" does that affect the previous addresses that have been generated causing them to be invalid or simply alter the new addresses?

That's not how addresses work. Addresses are determined by the output type they represent. 1... addresses represent p2pkh outputs which are of the form

Code:

OP_DUP OP_HASH160 <pubkey hash> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG

3... addresses represent p2sh outputs which are of the form

Code:

OP_HASH160 <redeemscript hash> OP_EQUAL

The limiting factor here is the hash160. With p2sh hash collisions can result in the loss of Bitcoins. With p2pkh, public key hashes have to collide to result in Bitcoin loss.

A new output type (say segwit outputs, or replace the OP_HASH160 with OP_HASH256) can be defined and a subsequent address version number assigned to that output to get more than 2^160 addresses.

[morantis]

if you soft fork the code line where a hash is supplied to determine the address format, say just change a single digit and now newly generated addresses start with whatever "24" instead of "14" does that affect the previous addresses that have been generated causing them to be invalid or simply alter the new addresses?

That's not how addresses work. Addresses are determined by the output type they represent. 1... addresses represent p2pkh outputs which are of the form

Code:

OP_DUP OP_HASH160 <pubkey hash> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG

3... addresses represent p2sh outputs which are of the form

Code:

OP_HASH160 <redeemscript hash> OP_EQUAL

The limiting factor here is the hash160. With p2sh hash collisions can result in the loss of Bitcoins. With p2pkh, public key hashes have to collide to result in Bitcoin loss.

A new output type (say segwit outputs, or replace the OP_HASH160 with OP_HASH256) can be defined and a subsequent address version number assigned to that output to get more than 2^160 addresses.

maybe i am saying it wrong or the latest fork is different, but let me use litecoin as an example.  the address start letter is determined by a base8 hash that is hard coded in the source.  i agree that it is absolutely impossible to run out of addresses

[DannyHamilton]

maybe i am saying it wrong or the latest fork is different, but let me use litecoin as an example.  the address start letter is determined by a base8 hash that is hard coded in the source.  i agree that it is absolutely impossible to run out of addresses

In bitcoin (and litecoin) the address actually consists of 3 separate numerical values that are represented in the wallet software as integers.

• A 1 byte script indicator
• A 20 byte RIPEMD160 hash
• A 4 byte checksum

These 25 bytes are concatenated together, and the resulting 25 byte (200 bit) integer is converted from binary to base58.  This base58 value is what we humans call an "address".  At the blockchain level, and the network communications level, addresses aren't used.  The addresses are converted into the data that they represent.

For instance, in bitcoin, a script indicator with a hex value of 0x00 indicates to the wallet software that it should use the P2PKH script, while a script indicator with a decimal value of 0x05 indicates to the wallet that it should use the P2SH script.  When converting the 25 byte value to base58, the P2PKH script (first byte = 0x00) results in a base58 value with a first character of a "1" whereas the P2SH script (first byte = 0x05) results in a base 58 value with a first character of "3".

Your question about "if you soft fork the code line where a hash is supplied to determine the address format" doesn't make any sense.  Changing the first character would mean adding a new script type for bitcoin to use.  Whether or not this affects the number of distinct possible ways to secure some value of bitcoins would depend on that that new script type is.

[morantis]

maybe i am saying it wrong or the latest fork is different, but let me use litecoin as an example.  the address start letter is determined by a base8 hash that is hard coded in the source.  i agree that it is absolutely impossible to run out of addresses

In bitcoin (and litecoin) the address actually consists of 3 separate numerical values that are represented in the wallet software as integers.

• A 1 byte script indicator
• A 20 byte RIPEMD160 hash
• A 4 byte checksum

These 25 bytes are concatenated together, and the resulting 25 byte (200 bit) integer is converted from binary to base58.  This base58 value is what we humans call an "address".  At the blockchain level, and the network communications level, addresses aren't used.  The addresses are converted into the data that they represent.

For instance, in bitcoin, a script indicator with a hex value of 0x00 indicates to the wallet software that it should use the P2PKH script, while a script indicator with a decimal value of 0x05 indicates to the wallet that it should use the P2SH script.  When converting the 25 byte value to base58, the P2PKH script (first byte = 0x00) results in a base58 value with a first character of a "1" whereas the P2SH script (first byte = 0x05) results in a base 58 value with a first character of "3".

Your question about "if you soft fork the code line where a hash is supplied to determine the address format" doesn't make any sense.  Changing the first character would mean adding a new script type for bitcoin to use.  Whether or not this affects the number of distinct possible ways to secure some value of bitcoins would depend on that that new script type is.

you are right, it is very late here and i am getting very tired, thanks

[buwaytress]

I don't know the statistical odds of a person getting an address that was already generated for someone else previously - from your explanation this is very, very small to the point of virtual impossibility. But, this is not a theoretical impossibility, am I correct?

Yes, in theory there is a non-zero probability that there will be an address collision. This probability is just so low that it is in effect zero.

Does this pool of valid numbers grow bigger or is it stagnant?

It is stagnant. There are 2^160 possible addresses.

What if, for argument's sake, the rate of address generation multiplies a million-fold in 50 years? When we have 20 billion population and a trillion computers generating addresses at the rate of trillions a day? Surely this impossibility suddenly becomes only extremely unlikely?

Only curious=)

Suppose addresses were generated at a rate of 1 trillion addresses per day since the beginning of Bitcoin (or now for that matter, it wouldn't make a difference). It would take 4.0041141*10^33 years to run out of addresses. To put that into context, that is the sun's lifespan 4.0041141*10^23 times over.

Now that is something that I'd add to any proper "curious facts about bitcoin" document. Thanks very much for the answer. I personally can't quote any other more improbably event. This is the type of answer/comparison that helps people like me put perspectives into the "why" of bitcoin.

It's a cold comfort that our sun would likelier die first before an address identical to a previously generated one is generated again.