Collisions on private addresses? Balances?

[ABCbits]

Lol.
Ok so started to build the app. First got 12 million computations per day as a test, this generates the private key, and public key etc. I now compare that to a database of 60000 known public keys and balances.

Day 3, improved the code somewhat. Now the same app is running at 500 million computations per 24 hrs, comparing the generated output against a dBASE of 60000 known balances addresses

So my computations are now 500 million * 60000 per 24hrs. The numbers is to big to calculate.
This is running on a Windows 7 pc icore 5.

Let's see what it comes up with in a day, a week, a year.

I know the numbers are huge.

FYI, you're not the first people trying to generate all private keys. Have you checked LBC? According to them, their pool performance currently is 107.85 million keys/second[2]. Some people don't like LBC though since it use closed source software and there's speculation they targeting specific address.

--snip--

I would double-check your numbers though, they seem a little high for a core i5...

Actually i find it's quite slow. Recovery software such as FinderOuter could achieve 64 thousand address per second on i3[3].

[1] https://lbc.cryptoguru.org/
[2] https://lbc.cryptoguru.org/stats
[3] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214021.msg56043632#msg56043632

[PowerGlove]

So my computations are now 500 million * 60000 per 24hrs.

I would double-check your numbers though, they seem a little high for a core i5...

Actually i find it's quite slow.

I suppose it's difficult to say without knowing anything about his implementation. He's saying he's doing 500 million * 60000 address comparisons per day. If his implementation is naive (checking each generated key against each address in the "database") that works out to ~350 million key comparisons per second. If his implementation is less naive (using a hash table for the 60000 "known" addresses) then that works out to nearly 6000 keys generated and compared per second.

If he's doing it the first (naive) way, then I think he's probably made a mistake somewhere without realizing it, because that number (350 million comparisons per second) seems obviously out-of-range for an i5 (to me, anyway).

If he's doing it the second (less naive) way, then assuming it's "homebrew" that's been quickly slapped together in 3 days, it's still suspiciously fast, IMHO.

Maybe I've misread/misunderstood something or calculated incorrectly. I'm always happy to be corrected

[marksanchez5544]

107 Million keys per second, wow incredible performance.

I am now where near it. I am around 2400 keys per second, as I have now had time to let the app settle down, and as above the naive guess is about right.

I am not targeting any specific address, just generating an address, and then matching against random addresses, from a dBASE of 60000.

If I were to match against one specific address then the speed goes up.

Because I use a binary sorted search, matching against 1 or 60000 addresses does not really decrease the speed, so matching against a large database improves my chances of success.

I will put up a link to a video so u can see this running. Would u believe this is built with vb6, as I can't find the right c code yet.

[PowerGlove]

Would u believe this is built with vb6, as I can't find the right c code yet.

Man, that really warms my heart. VB6 was great back in the day! I'm so happy someone out there is still using it! I really miss that era (Windows 95/98/2000, VB6, VC++6, etc.)

[marksanchez5544]

It's so easy and quick to use, for scratch code it's perfect.

[marksanchez5544]

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a YouTube video, if not, moderator please delete it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJ_pGaJZlw

Video of the address guesser in action.

[PowerGlove]

After reading more carefully about LBC (thanks ETFbitcoin) I now realize that finding private keys by brute-force is a lot less hopeless than I originally thought it was. Their reasoning¹ about why the search space is actually much smaller than 2^256 seems pretty solid to me.

[1] https://lbc.cryptoguru.org/man/theory

[codehtcmail]

Search for LBC the Large Bitcoin Collider and you'll find they have been doing it for years now with very little results compared to what is spent in ressources.

[marksanchez5544]

3yrs long time wow. I guess it's a bit like playing a free lottery.

[PowerGlove]

[This search could take you up to 2 octillion years] -> "Meh. Imma try anyway!"

[Someone else has been doing this for 3 years already] -> "Wow. long time."

Just pointing out something funny about humans, don't take too seriously

[Diplester6666]

@marksanchez5544
I guess you know that possibility of finding an address with non-zero balance via brute-forcing has low probability, but I believe you don't understand how astronomically low the chances are.

[PowerGlove]

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a YouTube video, if not, moderator please delete it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJ_pGaJZlw

Video of the address guesser in action.

That's cool, man. You get 100 style points for using VB6!

I wouldn't spend much more time on this, however.

Even if you upgrade to C/C++ or start experimenting with GPU acceleration, you'll still just be wasting power (average reward per spent energy unit is pitiful, solo mining on a 486 would be more profitable).

Also, the "reward" is immoral, no? What if, by some miracle, you actually find an address with balance? Are you going to keep it? Help yourself to a finder's fee? What if it's someone's life savings?

If I were you, I'd take what I'd learned so far (finite fields, elliptic curves, hashing, etc.) and move on to a more worthwhile project.

Just some unsolicited advice from a fellow programmer, feel free to ignore

[marksanchez5544]

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a YouTube video, if not, moderator please delete it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJ_pGaJZlw

Video of the address guesser in action.

That's cool, man. You get 100 style points for using VB6!

I wouldn't spend much more time on this, however.

Even if you upgrade to C/C++ or start experimenting with GPU acceleration, you'll still just be wasting power (average reward per spent energy unit is pitiful, solo mining on a 486 would be more profitable).

Also, the "reward" is immoral, no? What if, by some miracle, you actually find an address with balance? Are you going to keep it? Help yourself to a finder's fee? What if it's someone's life savings?

If I were you, I'd take what I'd learned so far (finite fields, elliptic curves, hashing, etc.) and move on to a more worthwhile project.

Just some unsolicited advice from a fellow programmer, feel free to ignore

I know it's astronomically unreal, but so is the playing of the lottery, however people do win. Morally would I take someone's life savings, I don't think so, I'm really just interested in the subject.
I read up on bitcrack, so will probably take a dabble in that, as purchase of lowend GPU card is about 150$, in theory it would boost my little vb6 attempt of 2.4k per second to supposedly 25 M per sec if using bitcrack.

The whole point of this is a learning thing. I have a pc which is turned on the all time anyway, so why not run something on it, and as for the zero balances, I have chosen balances with 1000 dollars in them and upwards.

Again morally, would I take the balance?? Well I will be completely honest, I don't know, I guess it's down to how much is the balance. Again for me, it's a free lottery. Lol

[aoluain]

Is it true if that were to happen, all I need is the private key to spend the funds?

Private keys are the means by which transactions are signed from corresponding addresses on the blockchain which were generated from they xpriv key. So, with the private keys you will be able to spend funds from that address.

If it were possible to generate private keys and public keys which has a balance on it, then it would not have been worth it, as the network would haveko value.

Of course, the network isnt as fragile or hackable as some people think and if anyone
could achieve what the OP proposes the BTC they steal would be worthless.

If I wrote a computer program that generates private btc addresses and then generated the public address, if that public address has a balance, and if I then imported that private address into a wallet, could I claim the money on that wallet?

You don't need a special program to generate private and public keys, any bitcoin wallet can do the trick. The odds of you accidentally finding a private key with a balance are extremely slim, but no one can stop you from trying. However, keep in mind that stealing someone else's coins is to be considered a crime in most jurisdictions.

Erm I dont get how someone would publicaly ask how to steal someone elses property?
and think its ok.

Obviously the OP has given it plenty of thought as have others, if you have the knowledge
why not use that to benefit the community?

[LoyceMobile]

3yrs long time wow. I guess it's a bit like playing a free lottery.

Except that the lottery isn't free, you pay per second (mostly electricity). And the chance of winning is practically zero.

Why don't you start by guessing my creditcard number and phone number? It's much more likely to be found!

It's easier to get jackpot on lottery though. For example, jackpot odds on Powerball is 1:292.201.338 or approximately 1:2^28.12.

Even without buying a ticket, the chances of winning after finding someone's lost ticket are still larger than the chance of finding a funded Bitcoin address.

[pawanjain]

As far as I know, it's almost impossible to find out a public address which has some BTC balance on it.
Generating a private address and then it's public key and then it's public address takes some computational power.
Current computing powers would take it years before you find some address with balance on it.
Super computers might help in this case but then who would give us that access to a super computer.
Even a super computer would take ample amount of time to find an address with a balance on it.

[marksanchez5544]

I think you miss the point.

I'm not guessing one particular number. I generate an address and then compare that to 60000 known addresses with balances, thus increasing the chance by 60000 on every attempt.

The computer is on for other reasons 24hrs a day, so no extra electric being used.

250 million numbers which is compared to 60000 known addresses with balances every 24hrs!

So if it does get one, it's will have a balance.

I believe bitcrack does exactly this but uses a GPU card.

Still a bit of fun.

[nc50lc]

The computer is on for other reasons 24hrs a day, so no extra electric being used.

If the processor had been running @10% load all day before, it'll increase its power consumption if your brute-force software bumped it to 90~100%.

I believe bitcrack does exactly this but uses a GPU card.

I believe Bitcrack is designed to bruteforce the puzzle transaction with outputs' addresses derived from private keys of limited range.
If you want to use your CPU to something more viable, I'd suggest you to bruteforce the puzzle's unspent outputs' keys instead and limit your search space depending on the puzzle's output.

Good Luck!

[LoyceMobile]

I'm not guessing one particular number. I generate an address and then compare that to 60000 known addresses with balances, thus increasing the chance by 60000 on every attempt.

Why limit yourself to only a few addresses, while you can easily use all 40 ish million Bitcoin address with a balance?

Not that it matters, you won't find anything anyway.

[bitbollo]

I think you miss the point.

I'm not guessing one particular number. I generate an address and then compare that to 60000 known addresses with balances, thus increasing the chance by 60000 on every attempt.

The computer is on for other reasons 24hrs a day, so no extra electric being used.

250 million numbers which is compared to 60000 known addresses with balances every 24hrs!

So if it does get one, it's will have a balance.

I believe bitcrack does exactly this but uses a GPU card.

Still a bit of fun.

LOL
It's a nice exercise but a complete waste of time and resource.
Just to give an idea of what number you're searching for...

If you consider all "grain of sand" of the earth is one private address ... and for each of this "grain of sand" you consider another earth with all "grain of sand" you have the idea of a really big number that is much much lower of the total number of bitcoin address!

Please see below some "bitcoin address" that I left in my pocket after my last tour in a desert