Numbers of bitcoin address is greater than all sands on earth

[BUK2016]

In circumstances were bitcoin addresses are not active(dormant) will they still count them? What of those addresses that passwords have been forgotten? Inconclusiveness the number of bitcoin addresses are not equal to the sand of a continent. My own opinion.

[Crypto one]

I have no idea about how many wallet that have been generated in bitcoins history and how many unique addresses they have, but I'm sure there's more grains of sand on earth.
Even if bitcoins became the only currency on earth and each transaction would generate 2 new addresses. The number of generated bitcoins addresses would not surpass the number of grains of sand any time soon, and that would probably never happen.

[BorisWCR]

This is so much exaggerated to say that the numbers in the bitcoin address is greater than all sands on earth. If I will say my own opinion to this, this is not so in reality. Truly, the numbers of Bitcoin address is so many to be count on but sand or dust is still greater than this.

[udidrone]

well, since no one knows how much sands out there on this planet, how dare the experts say the numbers of bitcoin address is greater that all sands on earth (or dust over the universe )? How they come up with this conclusion?

Maybe because bitcoin addresses can created easily, even in 1 blockchain wallet for example, there are a lot of address that can generated. It is if for 1 person with any kind of wallet. If all people in this earth generated a lot of addresses it will be a ton of it. But in fact what make it unique is each address  is different. That what make it amazing.

[MainIbem]

well, since no one knows how much sands out there on this planet, how dare the experts say the numbers of bitcoin address is greater that all sands on earth (or dust over the universe )? How they come up with this conclusion?

It is simple logic. It is not that the sand and dust have no numbers, but the number is beyond human comprehension. So also is the number of bitcoin addresses. It is not endless, yet the end cannot be comprehended by me and you at this point.

So it is just a logical way of telling you not to bother to imagine the numbers.

[Kakmakr]

I think the key thing to grasp here is that this is just a method to explain to people who does not have the ability to understand the numbers involved with Bitcoin. They can actually see a mental representation of those numbers, if they think of the magnitude of sand that there are on earth. 

Nobody has actually counted the exact amount of sand on earth and I think it will be impossible to do that, but you can imagine the enormity of this number, if you think about the total amount of sand that there might be on earth. 

[oceantiger]

They are just using the statement as an idiom. That is telling you that there are so many bitcoin addresses because one person may have more than ten or even 20 bitcoin addresses. Just take for instance www.blockchain.com on registration will assign an address to you but on a subsequent transaction, a different address will be assigned to you but both the former and the later are both yours and will be used to receive funds to your wallet.

[o_e_l_e_o]

That is telling you that there are so many bitcoin addresses because one person may have more than ten or even 20 bitcoin addresses.

You are underestimating by just a touch. Our best estimates are that since modern humans first evolved 50,000 years ago, there have been around 110 billion of us on the planet. That means that every human that has ever lived could have started using a trillion new bitcoin addresses every second of every day of every year for the last 50,000 years, and we would have so far used 1.73*10³⁵ addresses, which is somewhere in the region of 0.00000000001% of all possible addresses.

[leonair]

Just over reacting on the issue.
It is not true as there are such less than 20 percent of population of the world is using bitcoin.
And there are few who has 10 or more wallet address. So that is full of exaggeration.

The comparison is obviously an exaggeration but it's all about the number of Bitcoin addresses and not the active/inactive users who uses it. Everything on this earth is countable if we may want to but there are no specific technology that can do it as of this moment and it's pointless to do so.

[SiDtHeBeSt]

I'm quite sure and many would also be that estimation is way-way wrong than a huge margin and I don't know what was this expert smoking while making such estimation and also the OP got a topic which is actually not something that important or worth posting here. OP just posted this to maybe try getting some merits by users else this was just a rubbish topic to be posted here in my opinion. No Hate. 

[izanagi narukami]

By seeing the fact that every people let say own 10 or even more btc address , that's possible to happen.
The combination between alfhabet and number make it possible.

Will someday bitcoin address will be run out ?
It's possible but in few thousand years ahead !

[stompix]

Will someday bitcoin address will be run out ?
It's possible but in few thousand years ahead !

When I see a legendary member saying something like I'm speechless. Seriously?

Did you bother to read what o_e_l_e_o explained just 3 posts above?

You are underestimating by just a touch. Our best estimates are that since modern humans first evolved 50,000 years ago, there have been around 110 billion of us on the planet. That means that every human that has ever lived could have started using a trillion new bitcoin addresses every second of every day of every year for the last 50,000 years, and we would have so far used 1.73*10³⁵ addresses, which is somewhere in the region of 0.00000000001% of all possible addresses.

If bitcoin addresses would run out in a few thousand years, at a rate let's say of 3 uses per persons per day and a population of 10 billion, then the Large Bitcoin Collider would have already guessed about half of the privkeys.

[Nolimitz84]

Even from 4 digits there are 10,000 different options.This is a combination of only 4 digits. .Bitcoin address has from 26 to 35 alphanumeric.Can you imagine how many options there are?I am not good at math, but in principle you can derive a formula and approximately find out how many possible addresses there can be.