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Topic: How does private key compromise a wallet? - page 2. (Read 378 times)

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Merit: 100
October 26, 2017, 11:25:56 AM
#1
 Forgive me for my poor understanding and allow me what is probably a stupid question.

The private key methodology seems to me to be highly dependent on a a very large pool of random numbers for which it is assumed that there can be no collisions (i.e. the probability of 2 or more people having the same private key is as good as impossible (not impossible, just very low possibility)

Doesn't this mean that a crypto (coin, token) can be the victim of its own success because when more people have wallets for that crypto, the probability of guessing a legitimate private key increases?

 Just for example,  let's say that I have a 1 in 1000000 chance of guessing correctly for 1 wallet user. If there are 2 wallet users, my chances have doubled to 1 in 500000. If there are 4, my chances now are 1 in 250000.

For this example, if the crypto is popular and gets 500000 wallet users, I have a 50 percent chance of randomly guessing a private key!

I'm probably getting something wrong somewhere, so I'm hoping someone could help.
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