Tricking an early bitcoin core application to reproduce a 2010 address!!

[0btc_holder]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

[bitmover]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

No.

Every transaction is in the blockchain. You cannot insert an early transaction of 50 btc in the past.

You will just generate an address with zero balance. At most, you can create a legacy format address, which starts with 1. The old format of address

[logfiles]

It's not gonna happen, even in your dreams 
If it was the case, we would have had so many of satoshi era addresses have the Bitcoins drained out of them because the Amount of BTC in value they have is way too irresistible. We would be having people who are harvesting BTCs that way instead of mining or trading.

[Dave1]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

No, it has a fail safe system that will not allow us to do this. As even if you run those really old Bitcoin Core, the generation process relies on entropy and not your system clock. And even new addresses is created with a new set of private key, meaning even if you go back and used old software, it won't generate old addresses.

[seoincorporation]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

I the addresses were generated only with the date that would be possible, but since other factors are involved, then the chance to generate an address that has been used is the same chance than doing it with the current date.

You could even try to bruteforce and generate millions of addresses but the odds of creating a used address is still really low. It doesn't even worth trying it.

[avikz]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

We all want that! Isn't it?

You read the replies and that's where blockchain comes into play. It's not your system or wallet, it's more of where blockchain stands and how it is secured today.

There's no shortcut available for anything, especially not in Bitcoin market! Get into mining, invest into rigs and electricity and earn rewards like everyone else does. 

[avikz]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

We all want that! Isn't it?

You read the replies and that's where blockchain comes into play. It's not your system or wallet, it's more of where blockchain stands and how it is secured today.

There's no shortcut available for anything, especially not in Bitcoin market! Get into mining, invest into rigs and electricity and earn rewards like everyone else does.  

[Cricktor]

Early Bitcoin client wallets didn't use determistically derived private keys and public addresses from those. They had a key pool of independent random private keys.

The likelyhood that a wallet generates private keys identical to ones that someone else used before and that control some coins is so unimaginably miniscule that you can consider it zero (it's not mathematically zero, it's just very ... very close to zero).

Humans usually can't grasp the vastness of large numbers, like the number of valid Bitcoin private keys (close to 2²⁵⁶).

Imagine a Bitcoin private key as a vault. The funny thing is that all those vaults basically have no doors! You just can't find those vaults that have something in them...

[OgNasty]

Luckily the key generation has always been randomized on the Bitcoin client. I see where your mind is coming from but the randomness of the key generation isn’t based on the system’s clock. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other key generation tools that aren’t, but you’d have to know when the keys were generated.

[mocacinno]

The other posters in this thread are 100% correct... Sure, you can run a 2009-2010 era node, sure you can generate "old" addresses, but always with a random private key, so the odds of generating exactly the same key satoshi did are sooooo small that in reality those odds are ~0.

If you don't believe us, why don't you try for yourself? You don't need windows XP, you don't need to compile an old core version... You just need some machine that can run docker or podman... Just set back your system's clock, grab my docker image of bitcoin core v2.7 (this was the earliest version that wasn't gui-only...), log in to the container, start bitcoind and generate addresses... Hell, why don't you do this in a loop (setting your system's clock, starting the container and generating addresses) and generate a couple thousand... Sometimes the best way to learn is to try something for yourself  

Code:

docker pull mocacinno/btc_core:v0.2.7

[x187soldier]

I thought old addresses had lower entropy

[EluguHcman]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

Who else had that phishing sensitivity towards OP with his question being maliciously contaminated? Because it is assumed he is at all course trying to step on ones wallet which may have been disclosed to be an old wallet probably holding an attractive sum of Bitcoin in it.

Why would you even think of  tricking the Blockchain with your PC and get revealed of a wallet seed phrase because with that intuition, you want to get access to the wallet trickily and not even that you are thriving to recover your lost wallet seed phrase.

Well that is a great work in the security mechanism of cryptographic as a Blockchain network because, you can not trick the network neither can you encode your PC to execute to break through and reveal others Privacies for you unless the rightful wallet owners device Privacies has been hijacked or the wallet security provider has been made vulnerable.

But if I must be kinda positive despites my skeptic thought, is the wallet you are referring to a custodian or non custodian wallet? Because if it is a non custodian wallet and you don't back the seed phrase and private keys up, there is absolutely no measure to have access to it but it it is a custodian, then you can use your contact address such as your email, phone number or whatever contact you may have used to backed it on the registration process to retrieve back your keys.

[bitbollo]

the whole topic is a non-sense. if you have a minimum idea on how many address can be generated, even a "low entropy" wallet would requires thousands and thousands of years before generating something. And even I have serious doubts you could generate anything valid.
If it was so easy to access fundd/keys, bitcoin wasn't here "mainstream"... it was not a "safe heaven" but it was just a shitcoin like all others shitcoins.

[DeathAngel]

Unfortunately for OP but fortunately for the rest of us invested in Bitcoin, this will not be possible. If it was that easy most of us would have dome it already & Bitcoin price would tank hard. There are a lot of very smart people involved in Bitcoin, there are many old addresses with a lot of Bitcoin & they would have been drained if this was remotely possible.

[ABCbits]

That's not how RNG (for cryptography usage) works. There's no report that old version of Bitcoin full node client use terrible RNG based on system time.

[nemesis_incarnate]

The chances are so low it's not worth it for the effort it requires, and even then - you would be cooked by the blockchain, as it was outlined.

[0btc_holder]

The other posters in this thread are 100% correct... Sure, you can run a 2009-2010 era node, sure you can generate "old" addresses, but always with a random private key, so the odds of generating exactly the same key satoshi did are sooooo small that in reality those odds are ~0.

If you don't believe us, why don't you try for yourself? You don't need windows XP, you don't need to compile an old core version... You just need some machine that can run docker or podman... Just set back your system's clock, grab my docker image of bitcoin core v2.7 (this was the earliest version that wasn't gui-only...), log in to the container, start bitcoind and generate addresses... Hell, why don't you do this in a loop (setting your system's clock, starting the container and generating addresses) and generate a couple thousand... Sometimes the best way to learn is to try something for yourself 

Code:

docker pull mocacinno/btc_core:v0.2.7

thank you for the code, but i think everyone is correct, i even did some digging and find out that the bitcoin entropy was so strong since day one !!!
But i still wanted to share my idea of that maybe there was flaw back in 2009 when Satoshi made the bitcoin, obviously there is almost 0 vulnerability in blockchain bcz millions of eyes are on the source code!
But i said to myself what about the bitcoin core application that was released in 2009 !!!

[Bastketsrus]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

Fun idea, but nope—it won’t work like that. Bitcoin keys aren’t tied to the date or software version. Without the original private key, there’s no way to recreate someone else’s wallet.

[nutildah]

I can't remember the specifics of it right now but a few years back there was a guy who really thought he could recreate the keys of the genesis block by recreating the exact same environment that Satoshi used when running Bitcoin for the first time. He wanted to mirror everything from the same PC model, the same gear, the same time, all the way to the same temperature. Of course not all of this information is publicly known, and of course he failed. But he did go out of his way to actually try it. A lot of work all for nothing. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

[Sticky Bomb]

If I install a really old Bitcoin Core on old pc with Windows XP (offline), set the system clock to 2010, could it trick the software into generating the same address/private key as an early miner's wallet (e.g., one that mined 50 BTC in 2010 and lost his wallet )?

I the addresses were generated only with the date that would be possible, but since other factors are involved, then the chance to generate an address that has been used is the same chance than doing it with the current date.

You could even try to bruteforce and generate millions of addresses but the odds of creating a used address is still really low. It doesn't even worth trying it.

This reminds me of a guy I met on telegram recently who claims of scanning the blockchain for seed phrases of lost wallets. I did not even waste another second with him knowing that seed phrases are not stored on the blockchain, rather it is only a means of unlocking wallets to give you access to your funds on the blockchain through your wallet addresses.

OP is on another delusional joke because bitcoin wallets generates private keys using random number generations, so it is computationally impossible to get the same randomness that was used in generating those private keys and more impossible to get the exact inputs used (if even the old wallets relied on easy and predictable entropies) in those private key generations. It is good to know that even in 2010, bitcoin keys were generated from entropy sources and not limited to system clock.

Old wallets are still very much secure since the cryptographic principles behind bitcoin has not been altered and private key generations are not dependent on predictable or user-defined inputs. OP should know that even older wallets depended on a broad 256- bit private keys which literally means a 2¹²⁸ security, thereby making bruteforcing attack almost impossible.