Private key (privkey) hunters - unite!

[Flangler]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

For sure there are still people who do strive and hoping to get some jackpot into those wallets who do have balances but i do think

that most of them completely stop yet its pointless on hunting out btc private keys that do have corresponding balance considering on the odds.
You will find yourself on finding these keys for eternity 

It is not pointless. The odds for lotto lottery also are very small yet people stiil keep winning.

[1713873241]

1713873241

[1713873241]

1713873241

[Cryptoneze]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

For sure there are still people who do strive and hoping to get some jackpot into those wallets who do have balances but i do think

that most of them completely stop yet its pointless on hunting out btc private keys that do have corresponding balance considering on the odds.
You will find yourself on finding these keys for eternity  

I just started private key hunting a few days ago when I realized that BTC key generation is only pseudo random. It instead generates similar keys based on what keys have already been generated and used (this is where I realized it can be exploited). Why it does this I'm not sure, but it does nonetheless. Not going to give much more information until I make a large profit myself as I said I only realized this a couple of days ago. I've already found hundreds of keys with transactions in the past, and a couple with actual balances (dust).

[pooya87]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

actually with 2017-18 increased adoption and market filling with newcomers there has been an increased number of people who started wasting their time "searching" for private keys they can "steal"! i usually see new projects on GitHub's explore popping up

It is not pointless. The odds for lotto lottery also are very small yet people stiil keep winning.

take the odds of winning a lottery, divide them by millions. then divide that result by millions, and continue calculating that for the rest of your life. you still haven't come close to the odds of finding a private key with a balance in it.

[Kemarit]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

Maybe there are people still hunting, but I gave up in 2017. 

@Flangler  - Not pointless? Well I do hope you have enough computing power, and the lotto comparison? Nah, finding a BTC private keys is way more difficult so the odds is far more difficult as compare to winning a lotto.

[rijaljun]

What are you going to do with there private keys?
You should not think that you can steal any coin from just guessing other people private keys because in wallet generators, after number one is not number two. So that this kind of action is such a waste time.

[Cryptoneze]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

actually with 2017-18 increased adoption and market filling with newcomers there has been an increased number of people who started wasting their time "searching" for private keys they can "steal"! i usually see new projects on GitHub's explore popping up

It is not pointless. The odds for lotto lottery also are very small yet people stiil keep winning.

take the odds of winning a lottery, divide them by millions. then divide that result by millions, and continue calculating that for the rest of your life. you still haven't come close to the odds of finding a private key with a balance in it.

Everything that can happen, will happen. And finding a private key with a balance can happen, however small the chances are. Therefore it will happen. The odds are small but that doesn't make it impossible, I don't think that people seem to understand that just because the odds are greatly against the possibility of it happening it doesn't mean that someone on their first try on keys.lol can type in a random number and find a wallet with a huge balance attached to it. I personally have created a webscraper running that randomly check private keys so if I never find anything major it's cost me basically nothing but the time it took to create the scraper which was only a few minutes. Not even electricity as my pc runs 24/7 anyway

[stomachgrowls]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

For sure there are still people who do strive and hoping to get some jackpot into those wallets who do have balances but i do think

that most of them completely stop yet its pointless on hunting out btc private keys that do have corresponding balance considering on the odds.
You will find yourself on finding these keys for eternity 

It is not pointless. The odds for lotto lottery also are very small yet people stiil keep winning.

But the question is, would you entirely devote yourself or simply seek out keys for lifetime? 

Everything that can happen, will happen. And finding a private key with a balance can happen, however small the chances are. Therefore it will happen. The odds are small but that doesn't make it impossible, I don't think that people seem to understand that just because the odds are greatly against the possibility of it happening it doesn't mean that someone on their first try on keys.lol can type in a random number and find a wallet with a huge balance attached to it. I personally have created a webscraper running that randomly check private keys so if I never find anything major it's cost me basically nothing but the time it took to create the scraper which was only a few minutes. Not even electricity as my pc runs 24/7 anyway

Your choice yet each people do have different views on this and we do have our own minds on what would be the actions we should do.
You'll soon realize on what we are trying to say.

[bitdaric]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

If I had what your username says, I tried it

[Cryptoneze]

Everything that can happen, will happen. And finding a private key with a balance can happen, however small the chances are. Therefore it will happen. The odds are small but that doesn't make it impossible, I don't think that people seem to understand that just because the odds are greatly against the possibility of it happening it doesn't mean that someone on their first try on keys.lol can type in a random number and find a wallet with a huge balance attached to it. I personally have created a webscraper running that randomly check private keys so if I never find anything major it's cost me basically nothing but the time it took to create the scraper which was only a few minutes. Not even electricity as my pc runs 24/7 anyway

Is it possible? Yes
Is it probable? No

You clearly don't understand :
1. How big is 2^256 possible private key and 2^160 possible bitcoin address. Please calculate how long it'd took to get all possibility with today's supercomputer.
2. Most wallet uses CSPRNG which won't let people guess your private key easily.

Simply brute-force all possible permutation won't get you anywhere, you must reduce space search either by finding flaws on CSPRNG used by a wallet or knowing whether a user use insecure way to generate his bitcoin address/seed.

The point isn't to brute force in attempting to crack a single address, it's to use an algorithm that generates random private keys and the possibility is still there that on the very first try the key can be one that is tied to a large bitcoin address. I've done it and am doing it and have generated some addresses that match with already created addresses that have been used and a couple that have had small balances in them so it's not like it never happens. The only thing that makes it not so noteworthy is that it hasn't been tied to an account with 50+ btc or something, but the odds that I and others even reached one with an already used balance proves that private key collision is a common occurrence even given the trillions to 1 odds.


 

[riritsurya1202]

but the odds that I and others even reached one with an already used balance proves that private key collision is a common occurrence even given the trillions to 1 odds.

Yeah it can happens but it's not common (how do you define common btw?).

Phishing give you better odds than looking for private key. But for sure if it's just for fun, let's try to find an address with 0.11111 BTC in it!

[LoyceV]

but the odds that I and others even reached one with an already used balance proves that private key collision is a common occurrence even given the trillions to 1 odds.

There's only one way to prove a private key collision: show 2 different private keys that both produce the same address. Nobody has been able to do that yet.

You can't brute-forcing a random private key. The only way to find it, is if it's not really random (or if someone leaks it).

[Cryptoneze]

but the odds that I and others even reached one with an already used balance proves that private key collision is a common occurrence even given the trillions to 1 odds.

There's only one way to prove a private key collision: show 2 different private keys that both produce the same address. Nobody has been able to do that yet.

You can't brute-forcing a random private key. The only way to find it, is if it's not really random (or if someone leaks it).

That's not what a collision is, a collision is two separate generators generating the same private key that points to the same address. Not two different keys pointing to the same address. The private key is the root of an address. The address is simply the hash of that private key.

[LoyceV]

That's not what a collision is, a collision is two separate generators generating the same private key that points to the same address.

There's no way to prove that. But that's more relevant for Large Bitcoin Collider Thread 2.0 than for this topic

[pooya87]

~
That's not what a collision is, a collision is two separate generators generating the same private key that points to the same address. Not two different keys pointing to the same address. The private key is the root of an address. The address is simply the hash of that private key.

address is not hash of private key, it is hash of public key. and what you explained (2 different entities find the same address with 2 different keys) is only one type of collision. the other type is indeed 2 different entities finding the same private key. the space they are in are different. the first one is in 160 bit and second is in 256 bit and both of them are huge enough to be considered impossible.

That's not what a collision is, a collision is two separate generators generating the same private key that points to the same address.

There's no way to prove that. But that's more relevant for Large Bitcoin Collider Thread 2.0 than for this topic

that topic is only solving a puzzle, it has nothing to do with collision despite what the name suggests! they have been basically searching from private key = 1 and incrementing it 1 at a time checking whether the result matches the puzzle addresses that were placed there to be found.

[Cryptoneze]

~
That's not what a collision is, a collision is two separate generators generating the same private key that points to the same address. Not two different keys pointing to the same address. The private key is the root of an address. The address is simply the hash of that private key.

address is not hash of private key, it is hash of public key. and what you explained (2 different entities find the same address with 2 different keys) is only one type of collision. the other type is indeed 2 different entities finding the same private key. the space they are in are different. the first one is in 160 bit and second is in 256 bit and both of them are huge enough to be considered impossible.

That is NOT what I explained, two different private keys will never link to a single address. But two different scripts can and have on several occasions generated identical private keys that have been tied to already used, and in some cases wallets with balances.

Secondly, It's a hash that roots from the private key, same difference.

[Atrax]

Shouldn't there be, theoretically, a "tipping point", i.e. mining difficulty becomes so high that it would make more sense to try to find a private key instead to mine?

[Cryptoneze]

That is NOT what I explained, two different private keys will never link to a single address.

Wrong, there are 2^256 possible private key permutation, but there are only 2^160 possible address permutation.
Even though i never see any cases where 2 different private keys leads to same address, it's possible since there's less possible address permutation than possible private key permutation.

If my calculation is right, 1 address has about 2^96 corresponding private key.

But two different scripts can and have on several occasions generated identical private keys that have been tied to already used, and in some cases wallets with balances.

Only applies if the script uses weak random algorithm/function. Wallet these days use more random algorithm/function which is cryptography secure.

Also not true, BTC addresses can and do vary in length. There will never be two private keys that match the same address.

e.g

Two Valid addresses {

15PLdWhPDFCyAwMF78SebDAeRRMva8Tgop

1SArTJ5PBwq69x9NHdpGVcBqv9eCmYcYg

}
Also it is no more likely to crack a weak private key than a 'strong' private key through 'RANDOM PRIVATE KEY' generation, not brute forcing. We are not speaking about brute force attacks.

[almightyruler]

The point isn't to brute force in attempting to crack a single address, it's to use an algorithm that generates random private keys and the possibility is still there that on the very first try the key can be one that is tied to a large bitcoin address. I've done it and am doing it and have generated some addresses that match with already created addresses that have been used and a couple that have had small balances in them so it's not like it never happens. The only thing that makes it not so noteworthy is that it hasn't been tied to an account with 50+ btc or something, but the odds that I and others even reached one with an already used balance proves that private key collision is a common occurrence even given the trillions to 1 odds.

I find this really hard to believe, especially since you imply it's happened more than once. Are you generating truly random numbers, between 0 and 2^256? There's (almost) no way you could coincidentally generate a random private key which matches a funded address. Can you provide proof by showing the addresses and a signed message?

[almightyruler]

Here's a random private key generator. Feed the output to brainflayer -x -t priv, or a suitable tool that takes a raw private key.

Code:

// output random hex digits as a 256 bit priv key

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/time.h>

uint64_t timeuseconds() {
        struct  timeval thistime;

        gettimeofday(&thistime, NULL);
        return((thistime.tv_sec * 1000000) + (thistime.tv_usec % 1000000));
}

int main() {

        int i;

        srandom(timeuseconds() );

        while (1)
        {
                for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
                {
                        printf("%04lx", random() & 0xffff);  /* not cryptographically secure */
                }
                printf("\n");
        }
}

[BareCrypto]

It's now May 1 2019, anybody still hunting BTC private keys?

Yeah I even seen pools that use miners to brute force private keys