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Topic: Is it possible to guess a privkey? (Read 3956 times)

sr. member
Activity: 308
Merit: 250
December 05, 2015, 04:45:33 PM
#41
Assuming I was lucky enough to mine the exact same address, could I get the privkey?

Yes, if you got the exact same address, then you would have one of the 7.9 X 1028 (on average) working private keys for that address.
wait im not quite sure i understand, are you saying that every bitcoin address has more than 1 private key associated with it? I've always thought it was 1private key that links to 1 address

That is correct. There are 2256 private keys with 2256 public keys. The public key is hashed with ripemd160(sha256(pubkey)). Ripemd160 is limited to 2160 possible solutions thus[1] there are 2160 possible addresses with 2256 private keys or 2256/2160 = 296 private keys per address. 296 ~7.9*1028

[1] under some minor assumptions like even distribution

Basically you have a better chance of winning the lottery AND being hit by lightning than guessing the correct private key for a given address. As pointed about in a prior post, the math can change drastically if a faulty RNG was used.
member
Activity: 108
Merit: 10
December 05, 2015, 03:10:24 PM
#40
I've used vanity miner before, and I've tried guessing an existing address, but according do vanitygen, it takes more than a billion years on average to solve. Assuming I was lucky enough to mine the exact same address, could I get the privkey?

Yes, in theory.  Note however that you provided the actual answer yourself:  The chance is so vanishingly small that it is, for all practical purposes, simply impossible.

If there isn't some RNG collision... I had experience with one same address in btc core and on blockchain.info Probably got so lucky=) No import\export of course. Generated with period 1 month+. This year. When developing exchange of BitMoney. No proofs but it happened.

So...

P.S. Oh i see there was some bug on blockchain.info, but how it could coicide with btc core?
sr. member
Activity: 392
Merit: 251
December 05, 2015, 06:32:16 AM
#39
Yes it is, it just like crackin' a password. But it will take a long long long time to do it, because private key has so many characters in it.

The short answer is, "The earth will no longer exist by the time you guess a private key."

Here's the long answer.



Wow, now that I think about it, that makes an awful lot of sense. But hashing is a lot more random, on average it will be impossible, but even a lemon could guess a privkey first try.
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 251
December 03, 2015, 02:18:50 PM
#38
Don't worry, as stated before, private keys are strongly encrypted and would take quite some time even for supercomputers to decrypt. Don't worry, your coins are safe.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
December 03, 2015, 12:03:58 PM
#37
The initial distribution of CLAMs is interesting. Basically, if you owned Bitcoins at a certain point in time then you own the corresponding CLAMs, all you have to do is claim them.

Sorry, I did not want to derail the thread with this. They also did(?) this for litecoin and dogecoin. I say did with a questionmark because there recently was a big discussion whether the dev should fork CLAM to change this behaviour. I did not follow the coin for a while though, so ...

legendary
Activity: 2646
Merit: 1137
All paid signature campaigns should be banned.
December 03, 2015, 11:04:51 AM
#36
The initial distribution of CLAMs is interesting. Basically, if you owned Bitcoins at a certain point in time then you own the corresponding CLAMs, all you have to do is claim them.
sr. member
Activity: 412
Merit: 287
December 03, 2015, 09:57:15 AM
#35
It is possible. Just don't waste your time.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 4801
December 03, 2015, 07:15:40 AM
#34
- snip -
clam?

It's an "altcoin".  As a rule I generally avoid all altcoins, so I don't know a lot about it, but you can read a thread about it here if you like:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/annclam-clams-proof-of-chain-proof-of-working-stake-aka-clamcoin-623147
Was
member
Activity: 75
Merit: 14
We are Satoshi.
December 03, 2015, 05:37:24 AM
#33
excellent, thank you.

CLAM distribut(s|ed) its coins that way.


clam?
sr. member
Activity: 689
Merit: 269
December 02, 2015, 10:22:27 AM
#32
come to my house

take my pc

copy my key

you guessed it Cheesy

congratulation you stole my funds

chance is 100% when I sleep

when awake i beat you up
sr. member
Activity: 689
Merit: 269
December 02, 2015, 10:20:29 AM
#31
you can create address.


then guess it.


probability is 100% key is same Cheesy

but you're not richer
sad
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
December 02, 2015, 05:34:49 AM
#30
excellent, thank you.

CLAM distribut(s|ed) its coins that way.
Was
member
Activity: 75
Merit: 14
We are Satoshi.
December 02, 2015, 12:52:26 AM
#29
excellent, thank you.
sr. member
Activity: 412
Merit: 287
December 02, 2015, 12:50:16 AM
#28
Quick Spin on the question to anyone who feels obliged to answer,

If I created an Altcoin, and used the same algorithm (secpk256, i think) to generate the pub/priv key pairs, if I sent coins to an existing address on the bitcoin network, for example,one of Satoshi's, would the private key be the same for that address on the altcoin blockchain? i.e. would satoshi be able to spend these coins assuming he was aware of this?

thank in advance

Was

Yep!
Was
member
Activity: 75
Merit: 14
We are Satoshi.
December 02, 2015, 12:46:02 AM
#27
Quick Spin on the question to anyone who feels obliged to answer,

If I created an Altcoin, and used the same algorithm (secpk256, i think) to generate the pub/priv key pairs, if I sent coins to an existing address on the bitcoin network, for example,one of Satoshi's, would the private key be the same for that address on the altcoin blockchain? i.e. would satoshi be able to spend these coins assuming he was aware of this?

thank in advance

Was
legendary
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
November 30, 2015, 04:03:29 PM
#26
Theoratically yes.. its possible..
.. but its not worth the time trying.. you probably wouldn't guess the right private key in your entire life.

In theoretically it should be but practically it is not possible not for now but even for a decade from now.
legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 2481
November 30, 2015, 04:01:54 PM
#25
Theoratically yes.. its possible..
.. but its not worth the time trying.. you probably wouldn't guess the right private key in your entire life.
hero member
Activity: 1106
Merit: 521
November 30, 2015, 12:00:18 PM
#24
The sane answer is ....... "NO"  Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1030
give me your cryptos
November 29, 2015, 03:07:04 PM
#23
Yes, it is possible but a bitcoin address of just so long it souls take you a few trillion trillion trillion years, if I remember correctly. O don't think humans have even existed for that long.... Maybe we'll be able to goes a private key when Quantum computers come out though :-/

@DannyHamilton

I am astonished by the number of times you have replied to these kinds of threads. Anyone else would've lost their mind.

Sorry if this is a little off topic, but how do you change your name?
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1117
November 29, 2015, 01:06:56 PM
#22
i once asked the same question.
one answer is missing here:
nothing easier than that. this has already be done. have a look at: http://directory.io

edit: read carefully  Roll Eyes
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