Newbie Question

[burlyman007]

Hello,

So this is my first post, but I have been reading the forums here for a while.

From what I understand, your private keys sitting in your wallet could someday theoretically be "squatted" on by someone randomly generating that same private key. Now I understand that the possibility of this is nearly 1/10^36 or something similarly small.

What's to stop me from writing a script to write a single transaction for 5BTC on a random public key, to an address in my wallet, until something hits?

It seems very susceptible to misuse.

[jimbo77]

BTC appears when a block is generated. To move them you need the private keys. Otherwise you can't do anything. Even if you had a huge wallet filled with trillions of private keys the chances you will get nothing!

[burlyman007]

So there's no way to automize the potential of "squatting" on someone else's keys? Or it's not worth the effort because the chances are incredibly slim?

[Maged]

So there's no way to automize the potential of "squatting" on someone else's keys? Or it's not worth the effort because the chances are incredibly slim?

It's not worth the effort. You will see significantly more profit if you just mine.

[burlyman007]

I guess that makes sense. Thanks!