What's the point in solving the puzzle transaction?

[ltcltcltc]

I came across some posts about a certain puzzle transaction that sent some good 32 BTC to 256 addresses.

What's the point in brute forcing all of these addresses. Aren't they empty?

[1715593787]

1715593787

[1715593787]

1715593787

[1715593787]

1715593787

[garlonicon]

Aren't they empty?

Many of them are still available. For example 13zb1hQbWVsc2S7ZTZnP2G4undNNpdh5so (hash-based puzzle 66) or 1Fo65aKq8s8iquMt6weF1rku1moWVEd5Ua (public-key-based puzzle 130). Only the first 65 keys, and some public keys are claimed, everything else is still available.

[ymgve2]

Maybe you looked at the last addresses - output number 160 to 255 are empty because the security of a Bitcoin P2PKH address is 160 bits, so the puzzle creator decided it was useless to have a puzzle with private keys with more than 160 bits, and spread the value from them out over the lower addresses.

[digaran]

I came across some posts about a certain puzzle transaction that sent some good 32 BTC to 256 addresses.

What's the point in brute forcing all of these addresses. Aren't they empty?

Maybe you mean the 1000 Bitcoin puzzle challenge? It's no longer 32 BTC. The purpose of it existing is to have a measurement on how fast they can be solved in order to plan for a change if necessary. Change of what? well of course when you get robbed, you'd change the locks.😉

[NeuroticFish]

What's the point in brute forcing all of these addresses. Aren't they empty?

The puzzle was made long ago and it looks like it was meant to have more and more difficult solution for each "new" address towards the end.

It was not like that, the addresses following a certain rule were all emptied and for the rest the brute force is being used.

And since, as I said, it's more and more difficult, not all of them were found/emptied yet. There are a couple of threads made on this topic, at least one of them is still updated regularly and you can see there what addresses still have money on them (or you can look on the blockchain, obviously) and how some even try to team up the find the next address' private key.

And no, it's not 100% pointless, although they burn a lot of electricity for this. Each new address holds a higher amount of BTC and with the price going this high they can pay for that electricity and also get profit... if they manage to find the key.


PS. Scroll into this list and you'll see that 66th entry has no solution found and 6.6 BTC prize. Do the math.