Bitcoin address - are there enough for us all?

[jeraldskie11]

Technically we will run out of address combination after 250-300 years. We dont know yet that whether Bitcoin will survive that long, I dont think even Earth will survive that long if we continue to mine our Planet, So i guess no worries.

I think 250 years is end of the world. 250 years is too long and as we can the bible we are last few days. So I think bitcoin addresses will survive because there are many combination of address to made. And it will continue until the developers of the bitcoin is still alive.

[deisik]

Maybe in 100 years after we are long gone this could become an issue. For now there are plenty of addresses to go around.

Ha... this is not a problem for even another 1000 year... the number is so so so huge...

That claim has been refuted many times

And exactly according to the laws of physics (or of this Universe if you want me to put it this way). In short, the lowest theoretically possible amount of energy equals the energy of a single photon whose wavelength is approximately the size of the observable universe. You see that would be small enough to theoretically build a device that would count to 2^256 in less than half a jiffy, so "nothing more efficient possible" is a false assumption. And that has nothing to do with thermodynamics as such (as this picture suggests)

where all this come from do you have a source to back this up? if this was possible it was already real by now, but i don't see anything that can count to 2^256 in a short time like you said, that image simply say thay you need more energy than the universe can hold for now to run a device that can break the 2^256 key, and not even quantum computer can break that

I suspect you should actually read what is written in small letters in the image

Apart from that, what source do you need? Did you finish school? If you didn't, then be advised to do that. If you did, you may want to visit it again. The energy of a single photon is determined by its wavelength. The longer the wavelength of it, the lower will be its energy, as simple as that. Since the text in the picture above talks about the lowest possible energy for storing a single bit (it is not my idea after all, so ask the dude who drew that image), a photon with a wavelength equal to the size of the Universe will have such energy. And I guess you can take as many photons as you need to count in parallel. Further, there is no upper limit on energy in the Universe so even without taking the lowest possible energy to count, the claim is effectively false on its own

[Mometaskers]

Don't worry too much about it. There's enough address for everyone even with our current population growth rate. And even if it comes to the point where there will not be enough, they can impose a limit on how many address a person can make. Also, addresses can be reused anyway.

[BurtW]

Hi Burt, how does your calculation differ from the one I provided? In other words, what am I missing in the math?

What you are missing is that the encoded Bitcoin address you are looking at is not the hash of the Bitcoin public key. It is an encoded version of the hash of the Bitcoin public key.

I took the number of digits in the public address to the power of the number of combinations. I'm obviously not incorporating the private key.

The encoded Bitcoin address you are looking at has nothing at all to do with the private key.  The hash of the public key is a 160 bit number.  To that 160 bit number a checksum is added and then it is encoded.  That is the Bitcoin address you are looking at.  Basically it contains the checksum bits so it has more bits that the 160 bit public key hash. The checksum is added so that if you type it incorrectly it can be recognized as an invalid Bitcoin address.

Also, what system verifies that a new address is created (rather than a duplicate)? Are all addresses generated from blockchain.info?

Bitcoin private keys are approximately 256 bits long.  They are generated randomly.  It is just the immense address space that is used to avoid collisions.  There is no checking to see if there is a collision.  Then the public key, which is actually a point on an elliptical curve is calculated from the private key.  The public key is a point on a curve with an x and a y coordinate.  Then the public key is hashed three times and this produces the 160 bit hash of the public key.  Then the checksum is added and the whole thing is encoded and then you have a Bitcoin public address.

Note that there are approximately 2⁹⁶ public/private key pairs that map to each of the 2¹⁶⁰ Bitcoin addresses.

Good talk here, friends, thanks!

Good to talk to you.  It is refreshing to find someone who actually reads a thread instead of just stopping by, reading just the OP (or even just the title), and then leaving a steaming pile of their opinion in the thread just to bump their post count.

[FasTroy]

Considering that bitcoin addresses get wasted and discarded like plastic bottles of water, is there ever a risk that we'd use up all the bitcoin addresses?

I realize the possible combinations is 36 to the power of 32, but I don't have a way to make sense of the resulting number. How many address are used in a day? How quickly are we going through these possible combinations?

The actual number of possible Bitcoin addresses is 2¹⁶⁰

This number is so large our tiny human brains cannot comprehend it.

There is no need to worry about running out.  We never will.

You are right, 2¹⁶⁰ is too high number for bitcoin address. I don't think that one day will reach this number of btc address even in 40 years later.
So, we don't need to worry about it, So we can use our address normally like we do now.

[BitcoinPanther]

As for me, I will never worry about this kind of thing and I believe Bitcoin address is enough for all of us and if it is proven to be not enough, developer will make it enough.  There are lots of approaches to solve this problem and honestly, I think this is an easy to fix issue.  Just what I read on the previous post, telephone numbers or cellphone numbers uses far too short numbers of combination but everyone have enough. Bitcoin is ever evolving, that is the assurance that we will have enough Bitcoin address for everyone.

[DoomDumas]

Considering that bitcoin addresses get wasted and discarded like plastic bottles of water, is there ever a risk that we'd use up all the bitcoin addresses?

I realize the possible combinations is 36 to the power of 32, but I don't have a way to make sense of the resulting number. How many address are used in a day? How quickly are we going through these possible combinations?

The actual number of possible Bitcoin addresses is 2¹⁶⁰

This number is so large our tiny human brains cannot comprehend it.

There is no need to worry about running out.  We never will.

We have enough bitcoin addressees and there is no shortage of it. What makes me feel worried is the total number of bitcoins in circulation.If everyone in the world start using Bitcoins it might get out of supply  

Indeed, number of address are almost infinite compared to anything we can imagine as human.  I totally agree that a possible issue is the number of bitcoin in existence.  IMO, sooner than later, we will speak in Satoshi..

[jonald_fyookball]

Maybe in 100 years after we are long gone this could become an issue. For now there are plenty of addresses to go around.

Ha... this is not a problem for even another 1000 year... the number is so so so huge...

That claim has been refuted many times

And exactly according to the laws of physics (or of this Universe if you want me to put it this way). In short, the lowest theoretically possible amount of energy equals the energy of a single photon whose wavelength is approximately the size of the observable universe. You see that would be small enough to theoretically build a device that would count to 2^256 in less than half a jiffy, so "nothing more efficient possible" is a false assumption. And that has nothing to do with thermodynamics as such (as this picture suggests)

What the heck are you babbling about?

Laundauer's limit defines the amount of energy needed here.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

The only thing inaccurate here is that brute forcing a key doesn't require 2^256 as you only get 128 bits of security from a 256 ECDSA key.  Unused addresses have 160 bits of security.

[BeGoods]

Of course it will be more than enough. Bitcoin addresses have a combination of letters and numbers. With that in bitcoin could create billions of addresses. So you should not be afraid the bitcoin address will be exhausted lol

[jonald_fyookball]

Of course it will be more than enough. Bitcoin addresses have a combination of letters and numbers. With that in bitcoin could create billions of addresses. So you should not be afraid the bitcoin address will be exhausted lol

stop shitposting and read the thread next time before you reply. 

[noictib]

Of course it will be more than enough. Bitcoin addresses have a combination of letters and numbers. With that in bitcoin could create billions of addresses. So you should not be afraid the bitcoin address will be exhausted lol

I think we don't need to take worry about such things because already the blockchain network made plan for such things to handle .
As an example we can estimate that we can complete our need with the fee numbers of the digits in ip adress , so you shouldn't​ worry such things .
Recently a system of up adress in the internet is going to change from iov4 to ipv6 so it may be possible if the limit of the adress in bitcoin came then they will start to any new pattern of Adress like the up adress .

[deisik]

Maybe in 100 years after we are long gone this could become an issue. For now there are plenty of addresses to go around.

Ha... this is not a problem for even another 1000 year... the number is so so so huge...

That claim has been refuted many times

And exactly according to the laws of physics (or of this Universe if you want me to put it this way). In short, the lowest theoretically possible amount of energy equals the energy of a single photon whose wavelength is approximately the size of the observable universe. You see that would be small enough to theoretically build a device that would count to 2^256 in less than half a jiffy, so "nothing more efficient possible" is a false assumption. And that has nothing to do with thermodynamics as such (as this picture suggests)

What the heck are you babbling about?

Laundauer's limit defines the amount of energy needed here. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

Did you read my posts above and before?

I think you may really want to read them again to understand that you have chosen the wrong person to jump at. If you still fail to understand what my "babbling" is about (which I'm not surprised, anyway), I can tell you that the question is certainly not about building a real computer (as the legend makes it unambiguously clear). Nevertheless, I can point you to the relevant part which you seem to have missed entirely:

Since the text in the picture above talks about the lowest possible energy for storing a single bit (it is not my idea after all, so ask the dude who drew that image), a photon with a wavelength equal to the size of the Universe will have such energy

So wtf are you attacking me here? And what exactly do you disagree with?

[Wesimon]

I have encountered this kind of thread before asking if the number of bitcoin adresses is adequate for all users so this question is not new at all. As for my side, it would seem impossible (if not possible) to use all addresses. These addresses are intended to be used by everyone across the globe so its number was planned beforehand. As for the probability of usage 10^48 is so much. Let us say than the actual number of user is about 10^9 (saying that all people are using bitcoin at some point in the future), if we are to use multiple addresses, we can use about 10^39 each. By any chance that you can use them all up? To think that not all users would use so much addresses so why bother.

[Betwrong]

Technically we will run out of address combination after 250-300 years. We dont know yet that whether Bitcoin will survive that long, I dont think even Earth will survive that long if we continue to mine our Planet, So i guess no worries.

No, we will not. 300 years is roughly 100,000 days. If everyone from 10,000,000,000 people will use 100 addresses per day during the next 300 years(which will hardly happen) the number of used addresses will be still not even close to 10^48.

And even that is impossible.
Because right now we can do only 600k transactions transactions per day.
So it is impossible to actually use 10billion * 100 addresses.

Yes, that was my point. Even if it was technically possible to do so many transactions per day we still wouldn't run out of addresses. So the answer to the OP's question is there are enough addresses for us all for the next billion years.

[Ayers]

Maybe in 100 years after we are long gone this could become an issue. For now there are plenty of addresses to go around.

Ha... this is not a problem for even another 1000 year... the number is so so so huge...

That claim has been refuted many times

And exactly according to the laws of physics (or of this Universe if you want me to put it this way). In short, the lowest theoretically possible amount of energy equals the energy of a single photon whose wavelength is approximately the size of the observable universe. You see that would be small enough to theoretically build a device that would count to 2^256 in less than half a jiffy, so "nothing more efficient possible" is a false assumption. And that has nothing to do with thermodynamics as such (as this picture suggests)

What the heck are you babbling about?

Laundauer's limit defines the amount of energy needed here.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

Did you read my posts above and before?

I think you may really want to read them again to understand that you have chosen the wrong person to jump at. If you still fail to understand what my "babbling" is about (which I'm not surprised, anyway), I can tell you that the question is certainly not about building a real computer (as the legend makes it unambiguously clear). Nevertheless, I can point you to the relevant part which you seem to have missed entirely:

Since the text in the picture above talks about the lowest possible energy for storing a single bit (it is not my idea after all, so ask the dude who drew that image), a photon with a wavelength equal to the size of the Universe will have such energy

So wtf are you attacking me here? And what exactly do you disagree with?

but what you refer is another thing in that image they are talking about brute forcing, not the lowest possible energy, and brute forcing isn't possible no matter how much energy you get, this was the point of that image, nitpicking and playing with semantic just to say that something is wrong is stupid

[naughty1]

Considering that bitcoin addresses get wasted and discarded like plastic bottles of water, is there ever a risk that we'd use up all the bitcoin addresses?

I realize the possible combinations is 36 to the power of 32, but I don't have a way to make sense of the resulting number. How many address are used in a day? How quickly are we going through these possible combinations?

You make me laugh when I read this article, a silly question. Anyone who has graduated from high school knows this, bitcoin addresses are made up of a long and complicated sequence of characters that are encrypted and connected to a system to avoid duplication. Repeat happens, so, even though the whole world uses bitcoin, there is always enough address for everyone. Never ask such questions, it wastes everyone's time.

[virasog]

Considering that bitcoin addresses get wasted and discarded like plastic bottles of water, is there ever a risk that we'd use up all the bitcoin addresses?

I realize the possible combinations is 36 to the power of 32, but I don't have a way to make sense of the resulting number. How many address are used in a day? How quickly are we going through these possible combinations?

Yes, I agree with you time will come the combinations will be use already and reach its limit so those who kill thier accounts will be use again by others those with dead accounts that is not use for so long. But maybe this will not gonna happen anytime soon. First we need to consume all addresses and then we could have shortage, maybe after 50 years.

[deisik]

Maybe in 100 years after we are long gone this could become an issue. For now there are plenty of addresses to go around.

Ha... this is not a problem for even another 1000 year... the number is so so so huge...

That claim has been refuted many times

And exactly according to the laws of physics (or of this Universe if you want me to put it this way). In short, the lowest theoretically possible amount of energy equals the energy of a single photon whose wavelength is approximately the size of the observable universe. You see that would be small enough to theoretically build a device that would count to 2^256 in less than half a jiffy, so "nothing more efficient possible" is a false assumption. And that has nothing to do with thermodynamics as such (as this picture suggests)

What the heck are you babbling about?

Laundauer's limit defines the amount of energy needed here. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

Did you read my posts above and before?

I think you may really want to read them again to understand that you have chosen the wrong person to jump at. If you still fail to understand what my "babbling" is about (which I'm not surprised, anyway), I can tell you that the question is certainly not about building a real computer (as the legend makes it unambiguously clear). Nevertheless, I can point you to the relevant part which you seem to have missed entirely:

Since the text in the picture above talks about the lowest possible energy for storing a single bit (it is not my idea after all, so ask the dude who drew that image), a photon with a wavelength equal to the size of the Universe will have such energy

So wtf are you attacking me here? And what exactly do you disagree with?

but what you refer is another thing in that image they are talking about brute forcing, not the lowest possible energy, and brute forcing isn't possible no matter how much energy you get, this was the point of that image, nitpicking and playing with semantic just to say that something is wrong is stupid

How is it stupid to say and prove that something is wrong?

Are you serious or what? The creator of that image bases his point on the premise that it is not even hypothetically possible to count to 2²⁵⁶ given the resources available in the Universe. So, according to you, proving that this premise as absolutely wrong is nitpicking and playing with semantics? May I ask you what semantics do you refer to here? Maybe, it is in fact you who is "playing with semantics" in this case?

[SvenBomvolen]

If I counted right the bitcoin address has 32 marks and consist from numbers and letter. The phone numbers are much shorter and they are enough for everybody, and not used numbers with the time are coming to new users. So, I think with such wide combination of numbers and letters bitcoin wallets will be enough to every human on the Earth get his own.

[BurtW]

If I counted right the bitcoin address has 32 marks and consist from numbers and letter. The phone numbers are much shorter and they are enough for everybody, and not used numbers with the time are coming to new users. So, I think with such wide combination of numbers and letters bitcoin wallets will be enough to every human on the Earth get his own.

BAN ALL PAID SIGNATURES

Fucking shit posting dipshits.  Read the thread, contribute to the thread or don't post at all.

We have to fix this.