Who Can Explain What This Guy is Saying About Bitcoin On Reddit?

[OddJobsForBitcoin]

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/gRFcZ2M

[1714642810]

1714642810

[paid2]

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/gRFcZ2M

Low effort man, you could at least quote the text lol.

Anyway, you can read this topic, same idea with private keys : There are 2^256 private keys out there: how big is that number?

probabilities to find a wallet with an active balance is near to 0... Same with guessing seeds

[Mia Chloe]

He actually was talking about seed phrases and he is bluffing You can obviously see that from his post engagement. Seed phrases are one of the most secure forms of pass security and protection due to their present in ability to even be brute forced.
Let's take a normal 4 digit pass code for example. Now the number of possible permutations of making a passcode is about 10⁴ now taking this into consideration if one should guess like he said he did, your chances of getting it correctly is;  1/10⁴ which is about 0.01% which is practically impossible but however not impossible to brute force since it's about 10000 permutations.

However the number of possible permutations of private keys out there is 2²⁵⁶ . Of which brute forcing from scratch is currently impossible. Even for a 12 word combination seed phrase, assuming you already have all the words but are wrongly placed, the permutations of placing them is 12! = 479,001,600 of which guessing the correct placement is impossible.

[Assface16678]

I think it is just a bluff or lie because from how he constructs his statement, it is evident that he doesn't know what he is saying, and he doesn't have enough proof that he actually did it. If it's just guessing, then who's sane will believe in him? a different combination of words? Are you kidding? There are many words existing in the world. How could a mere person unlock a seed phrase just by guessing? That's why seed phrases are one of the most secure ways of securing an account because the combination of the words makes the password complex, and even a program that would run different combinations just to unlock a seed phrase will take a very long time. We would appreciate it if you also paste the reddit link to that post so that we can validate if he's provided proof that he actually did it or if he is just bluffing to attract attention.

[PIMPdev]

The guy is just lying, or lucky, Brute force doesn't really work with seed phrases. And I don't understand why he is trying to do it by himself; if he's interested in it he can use some program to try those combinations.

[bobbybkk]

Lets say it was correct what he said:

This is just like playing lottery, there are always people beating the odds. Kind of winning 2 times in a row. Unlikely, but not impossible....

If he can do this in a controlled setting again, then things really get interesting...

So far just sounds like a lucky streak....


But actually a good option to spent time with, you only invest time and maybe you hit the jackpot quickly

[mk4]

Is it really "guessing" a seed phrase if there's nothing in it? Lmao. What he's describing is him pretty much just like generating a wallet. The difficulty is actually in guessing a wallet address that someone actually owns and use.

The guy is just lying, or lucky, Brute force doesn't really work with seed phrases. And I don't understand why he is trying to do it by himself; if he's interested in it he can use some program to try those combinations.

It technically can work, but in practicality no. Very very unlikely that some bruteforcer lands upon a wallet with funds in it.

[CODE200]

I don't believe this guy, my rule when it comes to outrageous claims like this is that there's got to be a video that will prove that they did what they claim to have done, sure they've got to show us the guess but the problem is that there's no way to really prove they can do it anyway even with video so it's a total bullshit. I mean the fact that you can just fake it like it's actually just your wallet and you pretend that you've lost the seed phrase is just the only way that it can possibly happen. It's a lie to generate karma in that Reddit account. I don't think luck is a factor here because there's hundreds of thousands of words in the dictionary and you just happen to stumble upon the right words and the correct sequence of that? I don't think so.

[bittraffic]

I could do the same for Eth address but identifying the seed of a particular BTC address I think is what they mean to be the most difficult which could make him try for 20k years.

I dont know what the guy is trying to prove but if he really could do it, he would have provided one of his wallet where he send coins from the wallet he guessed its seed as an ultimate test.

[bobbybkk]

Is it really "guessing" a seed phrase if there's nothing in it? Lmao. What he's describing is him pretty much just like generating a wallet. The difficulty is actually in guessing a wallet address that someone actually owns and use.

The guy is just lying, or lucky, Brute force doesn't really work with seed phrases. And I don't understand why he is trying to do it by himself; if he's interested in it he can use some program to try those combinations.

I think I found the explanation in an older post here:
_________________

This is not true.
The checksum isn't the last word. The checksum is the last 4 bits.
Each of words include 11 bits. The first 7 bits of the last word have been generated randomly and its last 4 bits are the checksum.
So, if you have 11 word, for selecting the 12th word, you have to test different words until you find a valid word. As I already said in my previous post, 128 out of the 2048 words will lead to valid BIP39 seed phrase.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5414874.msg61008375#msg61008375
--------------------

So the guy just created valid seed phrases, means he selected 11 random words and for the 12th word he had a chance of 128 out of 2048, or about 5 percent to get a valid checksum...... sounds quite doable, but of course no corresponding existing wallet with plenty of bitcoins...

[Wexnident]

I mean, he already answered part of the question when he revealed that the wallet had no transaction history. You can brute force seed phrase to find a wallet, but finding a particular/specific wallet is much more harder than just getting a random seed phrase that can match a random wallet. There's a difference between finding a specific wallet address versus finding a random one.

And to those curious, here's the reddit link to the thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1abhe89/i_guessed_two_seeds_under_5_minutes/

And quoting the OP of the thread

Hello Everyone,

I just need Explanation about seed words, every one say that they cannot be guessed or they need 20000 years to guess a seed pass in order ...

I successfully guessed TWO 12 word seeds under 5 minutes and had access to that wallets ...

The wallets was empty with no Transaction history....

How is it possible?

The comments under actually answer OPs question and even more really. Just knowing how many combinations there are should be more than enough really to explain how hard it is to guess a valid address, let alone one that actually has funds in it.

[pooya87]

The funniest thing about this post is the guy's speed and the fact that he is excited about it.
"TWO 12 word seeds under 5 minutes" and shouting the "two" part! What was he using to generate the seed phrase and the wallet? An Abacus?
With any half decent computer, it shouldn't take more than a second or two to generate a new random seed phrase and the child keys (that are all empty). It definitely wouldn't take 2.5 minutes.

[adaseb]

Yeah I assumed this also. That with enough GPUs you could crack private key or at least find the private key of some address with a balance on it.

But if you dig into it you will find that it’s near impossible. Some keys have low entropy because they were brain wallets and those are easy to crack but for a regular key made with a regular wallet software you are never going to find any key to an address with a balance or with some prior activity.

[muncuss]

The funniest thing about this post is the guy's speed and the fact that he is excited about it.
"TWO 12 word seeds under 5 minutes" and shouting the "two" part! What was he using to generate the seed phrase and the wallet? An Abacus?
With any half decent computer, it shouldn't take more than a second or two to generate a new random seed phrase and the child keys (that are all empty). It definitely wouldn't take 2.5 minutes.

I legit chuckled at it. He probably felt like a successful treasure hunter. I once see someone successfully got used address with brute force, but what inside is a shitty altcoin instead, lol

[bettercrypto]

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/gRFcZ2M

Believe it or not, I've been in the crypto industry for a few years, but I've never heard of anyone in the crypto space who guessed at least two words in its seed and had access. What trip is this? You are making the subject simple, but you are making it complicated.

Remember, no one can guess the seed phrase of other holders unless you tell someone else or you neglect to save it somewhere; then the one who sees it has an idea about crypto.

[hosseinimr93]

Even for a 12 word combination seed phrase, assuming you already have all the words but are wrongly placed, the permutations of placing them is 12! = 479,001,600 of which guessing the correct placement is impossible.

12! isn't really a big number.
If you have all the 12 words in the wrong order, you can brute-force the seed phrase in a very short time even with a modest hardware.

but I've never heard of anyone in the crypto space who guessed at least two words in its seed and had access. What trip is this? You are making the subject simple, but you are making it complicated.

If you miss only 2 words, you can easily brute-force your seed phrase.
For two words, there are only 4,194,304 possibilities and if we exclude the seed phrases that don't pass the checksum, there would be only 262,144 possibilities.

[crwth]

Screenshot: https://ibb.co/gRFcZ2M

Believe it or not, I've been in the crypto industry for a few years, but I've never heard of anyone in the crypto space who guessed at least two words in its seed and had access. What trip is this? You are making the subject simple, but you are making it complicated.

Remember, no one can guess the seed phrase of other holders unless you tell someone else or you neglect to save it somewhere; then the one who sees it has an idea about crypto.

The poster in Reddit definitely meant that as a joke I believe. You need to think about it. I can guess any random word and phrase and show a wallet but for sure it wouldn't have any transaction because it's really impossible to open someone who has one because of the chances.

I could do that as well, just get 12 phrase words can be put onto that software but the chances of you guessing one that has transactions is very very low.

[hosseinimr93]

I can guess any random word and phrase and show a wallet

Not all combination of words give you a valid seed phrase.
In a 12 word BIP39 seed phrase, the last 4 bits are checksum and if you use random words, there's a 15/16 chance that the seed phrase is invalid.
In a 24 word BIP39 seed phrase, the last 8 bits are checksum and if you use random words, there's a 255/256 chance that the seed phrase is invalid.

[examplens]

Is it really "guessing" a seed phrase if there's nothing in it? Lmao. What he's describing is him pretty much just like generating a wallet. The difficulty is actually in guessing a wallet address that someone actually owns and use.

And the first thing I thought was that he actually created two new wallets.
This whole story could only be taken seriously if he managed to access a wallet with funds or at least where there was a minimum of one transaction. Everything else is children's wet dreams.

[franky1]

The guy is just lying, or lucky, Brute force doesn't really work with seed phrases. And I don't understand why he is trying to do it by himself; if he's interested in it he can use some program to try those combinations.

he CREATED 2 seeds
the seeds had no coin nor history.. so he didnt guess anything.. he didnt brute anything. he just chose 2 new seeds

I can guess any random word and phrase and show a wallet

Not all combination of words give you a valid seed phrase.
In a 12 word BIP39 seed phrase, the last 4 bits are checksum and if you use random words, there's a 15/16 chance that the seed phrase is invalid.
In a 24 word BIP39 seed phrase, the last 8 bits are checksum and if you use random words, there's a 255/256 chance that the seed phrase is invalid.

most wallets these days, even if you input 12 random words. would notice your 12th word is wrong and do a checksum on the 11 words plus couple bytes of 12th word and correct to display new 12th word using the real checksum