Do Vanity Address Generators hurt bitcoin?

[michaeladair]

It's an honest question, I'm just wondering if Vanity Address generators create a bunch of unusable addresses...

[1714173033]

1714173033

[1714173033]

1714173033

[Flashman]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

[michaeladair]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

My point exactly. xD

Just kidding, but I mean after a Vanity Generator goes through different addresses, does it make it so that certain address is no longer available for others to use?

[rz20]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

My point exactly. xD

Just kidding, but I mean after a Vanity Generator goes through different addresses, does it make it so that certain address is no longer available for others to use?

There are almost unlimited address.

[michaeladair]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

My point exactly. xD

Just kidding, but I mean after a Vanity Generator goes through different addresses, does it make it so that certain address is no longer available for others to use?

There are almost unlimited address.

Almost.

[coinableS]

There are almost unlimited address.

I think it would be fair to get rid of the "almost" in this case.  What was that address factoid? Something like if 100,000 addresses were created every second since the beginning of the universe there still would be unused addresses left over.

[michaeladair]

There are almost unlimited address.

I think it would be fair to get rid of the "almost" in this case.  What was that address factoid? Something like if 100,000 addresses were created every second since the beginning of the universe there still would be unused addresses left over.

Oh shit... I guess that is a ton, so I guess my skepticism is fading.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

There are almost unlimited address.

I think it would be fair to get rid of the "almost" in this case.  What was that address factoid? Something like if 100,000 addresses were created every second since the beginning of the universe there still would be unused addresses left over.

Oh shit... I guess that is a ton, so I guess my skepticism is fading.

Oh boy, here we go again.

1. There are almost 115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,853,269,984,665,640,564,039,457,584,007,913,129,639,936 possible ECDSA private keys. Almost.
Most people know how to count to the bolded part.

Read this whole thread starting from this post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=892752.msg9909378#msg9909378

To generate a used address, unless due to a glitch, you'd need a dyson sphere, a young star, negative energy and the knowledge of how to open a wormhole for the purpose of time-traveling to the future.

[coinableS]

Most people know how to count to the bolded part.

Quadrillion, right?

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Theymos really needs to add a button to insert this very large number in the text field.

[ruletheworld]

If you want the same explanation in a video format, here's a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZloHVKk7DHk
Yes, the numbers are huge.

[Flashman]

Using the basic quantitative appreciation system of the human brain "one, two, three, many, lots" we can see that the number of addresses is "lots", since the total MIPS possible for the top 500 is "lots" then if we used all those to brute force all the addresses, then we'd have it done in no time, maybe between lunch and dinner. Unless you were hungry, then it would seem longer.

*trollface*

[monsanto]

No, that's the whole point behind bitcoin's operation as I understand it. That's how you can make offline addresses because the solution space is so large that it is for all practical purposes impossible to generate an address that has already been generated before.  Which also, as I understand it, would be the equivalent to hacking your account, which can only happen if you had poor entropy by using a bad brain wallet password or bad random number generator, etc.  
 

[jasemoney]

Hello, the addresses search function of vanity gen may be running a dozen million keys a second but they are not being stored by the program. it outputs ones relevant to your search prefix only. as user remember remember the 5th pointed out theres an absurd amount of possible private keys, but even if your computer tripped over one the vanity gen program is not searching for collisions while also searching for your prefix, so you would never know. You could try using vanity gen to brute force a well known address but it only takes prefix sizes for a certain length nowhere near the size of a bitcoin public address. and by the time the heat death of the universe passed you by you might still not have been able to crack into those coins

[Fernandez]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

Incorrect analogy, but it gets the point across.
Its not as if any address generated prevents it being from generated again, its that it is so unlikely. Tomorrow you may generate an address and see it has got 20000 BTCs in it, but don't keep hoping for it.

[michaeladair]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

Incorrect analogy, but it gets the point across.
Its not as if any address generated prevents it being from generated again, its that it is so unlikely. Tomorrow you may generate an address and see it has got 20000 BTCs in it, but don't keep hoping for it.

Couldn't you just set yours to search for an address of like an exhange or whatnot? Even though it'd take a long ass time.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

Incorrect analogy, but it gets the point across.
Its not as if any address generated prevents it being from generated again, its that it is so unlikely. Tomorrow you may generate an address and see it has got 20000 BTCs in it, but don't keep hoping for it.

Couldn't you just set yours to search for an address of like an exhange or whatnot? Even though it'd take a long ass time.

The exchange would at some point use another address. I think you are still not getting the billion years concept.

[eleuthria]

What about how all the electric freezers have been using up all the snowflake designs wastefully since early in the 20th Century, when nature runs out of unique designs, it might just drop huge chunks of ice on us.

Incorrect analogy, but it gets the point across.
Its not as if any address generated prevents it being from generated again, its that it is so unlikely. Tomorrow you may generate an address and see it has got 20000 BTCs in it, but don't keep hoping for it.

Couldn't you just set yours to search for an address of like an exhange or whatnot? Even though it'd take a long ass time.

Targeting a specific address wouldn't matter.  The odds are so astronomically high that I can't even think of a statistical analogy.  Probably something along the lines of winning the powerball lottery hundreds of times, in a row, with only a single ticket for each lottery.

Yes, it can happen.  But at some point you have to just accept that it won't ever happen in the lifetime of the universe, unless a flaw is discovered that allows somebody to reverse the process of creating an asymmetrical key pair.

[jasemoney]

following the offtopic discussion: it'd be as lucky as me typing "setgenerate true 1" in my wallet and mining a block in 5-10 minutes today.  actually me mining that block in a few minutes is much much more likely than finding a collision to a known rich address or even a known address. I think I read theres been 1 known collision (seperate priv keys control same address) so far, and it was to an unused address.

[twister]

To generate a used address, unless due to a glitch, you'd need a dyson sphere, a young star, negative energy and the knowledge of how to open a wormhole for the purpose of time-traveling to the future.

So this means it can be done.