Quote from: Joel_Jantsen on May 29, 2018, 06:32:39 PM

Quote from: robolove on May 29, 2018, 01:16:42 PM

My fellow crypto hackers. I've been into finding BTC private keys for a little more than a year. I have slightly less than 18k private keys in my own database.

That's interesting. What are the sources of your private keys ? How do you come across them ? What do you do if you find a key with addresses with some notable amount of bitcoins ?

Quote from: robolove on May 29, 2018, 01:16:42 PM

The vast majority of the privkeys I've discovered are NOT from brainwallets (i.e. weak SHA256 hashes). Image search for QR-codes was nice for a while though, but those days are over. I have a couple of other techniques that I'm fairly sure anyone else hasn't thought of.

I know you wouldn't share but makes me a little insecure if you have established 'ways' to discover private keys online.

Quote from: robolove on May 29, 2018, 01:16:42 PM

Anyways.... I was thinking maybe someone here has the same hobby as I do? Care to hook up and share some thoughts and strategies?

Me too.I'm a rookie though.Started collecting private keys just 2 minutes back.

It's difficult to talk in general terms about my sources of private keys. I'm not sniffing networks or breaking into other peoples' machines. Nothing illegal. It's more math than networks, if that makes any sense. And I did mention one of my early methods in the first post - searching for images of QR-codes. In 2014, people would post pictures of their paper wallets on Instagram. Don't do that.

I have so far never had access to a private key with a life-changing balance on it. The vast majority have a zero balance (but all have been active on the blockchain and MAY therefore be used again), and say 1-2% have some dust in them. I've never moved funds from any of them. But honestly, if I stumble over a privkey gives me access to say 50 BTC or more, I don't know what I'm gonna do. They say whoever has the privkey owns the coins.... quite a moral dilemma.

I once found a privkey that had held close to 530 BTC only a month earlier. In one way I'm glad the funds had been transferred before I came in. In one way not.

Hoping to connect with others like me. I'm sure you're out there. I'm not entirely sure what we're gonna do