I have 26 out of 24 mnemonic words. Am I able to brute force still?

[Grantrocks]

So I'm solving a private puzzle and I have a list of 26 valid mnemonic words out of 24. The first 6 are in order and the rest are not. Would it be possible to bruteforce this mnemonic still? If so how can I and how long would it roughly take?

[1714781798]

1714781798

[1714781798]

1714781798

[1714781798]

1714781798

[apogio]

You have to place 20 words in the correct order (26 total - 6 in known places).

So how many combinations (the correct word is permutations because order matters) of 20 objects do you get ?

The first word can be in 20 positions.
The second word can be in 19 positions.
...
The 20th word can be in 1 position.

So it's 20x19x18x...x1 = 20! = 2,432,902,008,176,640,000

How fast does this get brute-forced? I will leave this to be answered by the rest of the forum. I have no idea! I was never good in brute-force stuff.

[hosseinimr93]

26 out of 24 words? Are you saying you have two extra words?

If that's the case and since you say you know the 6 first words in the correct order, there should be 1.2 *10¹⁸ possible combinations. Assuming your seed phrase is BIP39, around 4.7 * 10¹⁵ out of those combinations should be valid on average. That's a very big number and you can't brute-force your seed phrase.

So it's 20x19x18x...x1 = 20! = 2,432,902,008,176,640,000

If I got OP correctly, there should be (20!)/2 possible combinations.
(Seed phrases with invalid checksum are also included.)

[philipma1957]

26 out of 24 words? Are you saying you have two extra words?

If that's the case and since you say you know the 6 first words in the correct order, there should be 1.2 *10¹⁸ possible combinations. Assuming your seed phrase is BIP39, around 4.7 * 10¹⁵ out of those combinations should be valid on average. That's a very big number and you can't brute-force your seed phrase.

he could attempt brute force but mathematically it would take many many many lifetimes.

any number can be attempted to be brute forced.

but as you said the number is too large to think it is worth while.

at the op if the value of cracking it is high you can stab at it but you won’t hit it.

I would say it is harder to hit than it would be to pick the correct grain of sand out of the Sahara desert on 1 try.

[Grantrocks]

It's alright Its not a big prize anyway only 70 USD as of rn. Thanks for the advise I'd probably be better off cracking the btc transaction puzzles lol.

[pooya87]

The first word can be in 20 positions.
The second word can be in 19 positions.
...
The 20th word can be in 1 position.

So it's 20x19x18x...x1 = 20! = 2,432,902,008,176,640,000

You have 20 words to place in 18 positions (the first 6 are already filled and 24-6=18) so it is 20*19*18*...*4*3

[greenAlien]

Do you know ANY right position of the words? that would reduce the number of possibilities. Otherwise... As the rest of the people have told you, you need many lifetimes to solve it...

[Grantrocks]

Do you know ANY right position of the words? that would reduce the number of possibilities. Otherwise... As the rest of the people have told you, you need many lifetimes to solve it...

I know the first 6