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Board Beginners & Help
Re: About bitcoin wallet address
by
DannyHamilton
on 15/03/2017, 20:13:40 UTC
Now, the next question is this: Will they not run out of unique wallet address later on?

No.

In my opinion, it can take so many years before that could happen but I am not a mathematician so don't take my words for it.

Bitcoin addresses are a 160 bit hash.

Therefore there are 2160 = 1461501637330902918203684832716283019655932542976 possible addresses.

That's 1.46 X 1048 possible addresses

The universe has existed so far for about:

13.8 billion years * 365.25 days per year * 86400 seconds per day = 436126032000000000 seconds.

That's 4.36 X 1017 seconds.

If you started 1 BILLION computers at the Big Bang and each computer created 1 BILLION addresses every second until today....

You would only have created about

436126032000000000 seconds * 1000000000 computers * 1000000000 addresses = 436126032000000000000000000000000000 addresses.

That's 4.36 X 1035 addresses created.

That means with a BILLION computers each creating a BILLION addresses EVERY SECOND since the BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE, you still would NOT have computed even 0.00000000001% OF THE POSSIBLE ADDRESSES yet.

How many years do you think it is going to take a normal amount of computers, creating a normal amount of addresses to "run out of unique wallet addresses"?