Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to start from a specific private key, for example: 'KwDiBf89QgGbjEhKnhXJuH7LrciVrZi3qYjgd9M7rFU73sVHnoWn', which corresponds to '0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001', and therefore from the associated ripemd160 prefix '751e76e8199196d454941c45d1b3a323f1433bd6', to search for a collision starting from this point.
Thank you very much.
It certainly is possible, but since that portion of the private key space has had so much attention and no collision has been found, I would choose a different starting point.
BTW, the math suggests that finding a collision by testing a sequence of private keys is impractical. It might seem like the odds of finding a collision are good because there are perhaps 2
256-160, or 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 private keys with that RIPEMD-160 hash. But, the probability of a number colliding is still extraordinarily small. On average, you still have to try 2
160, or
1,461,501,637,330,902,918,203,684,832,716,283,019,655,932,542,976, numbers before finding a collision.