lost BTC's

[Gologuzan]

hi i am interested in finding out precise or approximate amount of destroyed/lost BTC's.

how can i find out that?

i think that i was reading somewhere about lost of 2600 BTC due to crash of HDD on one PC, or something like that.

thx for your support and time.

[piramida]

there is no way. lost btc is exactly the same as non-lost ones, besides that noone knows the PK for them. also, some trash workers could revive that HD and suddenly that BTCs become not lost. so no, you can not calculate that with any reliability.

[Gologuzan]

thx.

there is no way. lost btc is exactly the same as non-lost ones, besides that noone knows the PK for them. also, some trash workers could revive that HD and suddenly that BTCs become not lost. so no, you can not calculate that with any reliability.

[dg2010]

there is no way. lost btc is exactly the same as non-lost ones, besides that noone knows the PK for them. also, some trash workers could revive that HD and suddenly that BTCs become not lost. so no, you can not calculate that with any reliability.

What you can do is look at all the addresses that haven't been touched for X number of months/years and then make a judgement.

If an address has not been touched for 3-4 years say you could put it in the "probably lost" pile, but they may come active at a later date.

[Wilhelm]

there is no way. lost btc is exactly the same as non-lost ones, besides that noone knows the PK for them. also, some trash workers could revive that HD and suddenly that BTCs become not lost. so no, you can not calculate that with any reliability.

What you can do is look at all the addresses that haven't been touched for X number of months/years and then make a judgement.

If an address has not been touched for 3-4 years say you could put it in the "probably lost" pile, but they may come active at a later date.

Or the offline wallet pile

[Rygon]

There's a good thread somewhere where the sum of known lost coins are estimated. But the uncertainty is pretty high.

[wobber]

So, since nobody knows how many coins are lost, the market cap we see in the media is irrelevant.

One could also count cold storage wallets as lost. Those wallet don't bring anything to the bitcoin economy / ecosystem.

Therefore, bitcoin's ecosystem is unique, never seen before and I think lots of surprises are in for us...

[DieJohnny]

Can someone give me a short explanation as to why it is so hard to crack the private key? Won't the motivations to crack private keys be so high right now that someone is going to figure out how to do it? Won't we have enough computing power to eventually be able to do it?

Also, how is it possible that from the private key you can generate the public key and that fact in no way makes it easier to do the opposite???

[Odalv]

Can someone give me a short explanation as to why it is so hard to crack the private key? Won't the motivations to crack private keys be so high right now that someone is going to figure out how to do it? Won't we have enough computing power to eventually be able to do it?

Also, how is it possible that from the private key you can generate the public key and that fact in no way makes it easier to do the opposite???

http://www.bitcointrading.com/img/bitcoinwallpaper1.jpg

[BTCtrader71]

If an address has not been touched for 3-4 years say you could put it in the "probably lost" pile, but they may come active at a later date.

Or the offline wallet pile

Relevant article in today's Coindesk:

http://www.coindesk.com/hoarded-bitcoins-flood-blockchain-mystery/

[piramida]

Also, how is it possible that from the private key you can generate the public key and that fact in no way makes it easier to do the opposite???

This is an assymetric process. Imagine how easy it is to make a scrambled egg from an egg, and how pretty fkn hard it is to do the opposite. Or read here if you want depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

[knightcoin]

Also, how is it possible that from the private key you can generate the public key and that fact in no way makes it easier to do the opposite???

This is an assymetric process. Imagine how easy it is to make a scrambled egg from an egg, and how pretty fkn hard it is to do the opposite. Or read here if you want depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

+1

yep,
reminds me that movie called Mr. "Nobody"

http://youtu.be/uQEFDUB0xHo?t=3m59s

ps-> btw dword 'nobody' has triggered old memories  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_(username) ) 

[piramida]

reminds me that movie called Mr. "Nobody"

quite an awesome movie, that one. seen it about 5 times now and never tiring too bad hollywood does not make smart movies like that, instead going for the prettey. could have created a smarter populus...

[Rygon]

Can someone give me a short explanation as to why it is so hard to crack the private key? Won't the motivations to crack private keys be so high right now that someone is going to figure out how to do it? Won't we have enough computing power to eventually be able to do it?

The short answer is no. And if technology progressed to the point where we got close to it (perhaps through quantum computing - still decades away at least), then the bitcoin source code would just update to a more secure algorithm.

[hilariousandco]

reminds me that movie called Mr. "Nobody"

quite an awesome movie, that one. seen it about 5 times now and never tiring too bad hollywood does not make smart movies like that, instead going for the prettey. could have created a smarter populus...

That is such an underrated film, and I think Jared Leto is such an underrated actor. I need to watch it again, but it was probably my favourite film of 2009.

[Wilhelm]

Can someone give me a short explanation as to why it is so hard to crack the private key? Won't the motivations to crack private keys be so high right now that someone is going to figure out how to do it? Won't we have enough computing power to eventually be able to do it?

Also, how is it possible that from the private key you can generate the public key and that fact in no way makes it easier to do the opposite???

There is no easy way and I'm no specialist on the suibject.


First wait for a spend transaction on the account you want to hack, only then will the public key be known.
The bitcoin address is a sha-256 hash of the public key. Since a hash doesn't have all the data you are unable to find a public key easily. So you must wait for an outgoing transaction.
(This is the reason offline wallets are mega safe ;-) )

Once you have the public key you can use Eliptic curve calculations with some bitcoin specifics to work back the public key towards the factorization problem.
Once you have that big ass number (c) you simply need to break it in to two numbers (a and b) like the formula c=a*b so grab your quantum-computer and do the math.
Using a and b you can then calculate a private key that fits the lock. Then turn it into the private key form for BTC.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_DSA
Also there is some dude on the internet who hacked weak private keys. He explains the process and in the weak-key case a random number generator failed (same number every time) making the private key easily hackable.
If you understand his math then you can go hack private keys if you can solve the factorization problem (if you can you are the most powerful person on the planet).

[knightcoin]

There is no easy way and I'm no specialist on the suibject.

sui, my keyboard is terrible as well ...

Once ECC
a random number generator failed.

shu ... its reminds me my old Zxspectrum given by my dad ( RAND USR 0 didn't restore the ULA to the original state ) ... the blood string in PI ... back again after/over 65535 interactions ...)

sounds bit like ( ISBN-10: 0763776270 ) &&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRg93P2YEX0&list=PLABE41A0C254CD1D5