but when a computer does it... can someone explain how that works?
It creates a combination, checks that it is valid, and if it is then goes through the process of turning that combination of words in to usually either a master public key which it can compare against one you have entered, or in to an address which it compare against one you have entered or the blockchain for any previous transactions.
So you would see on the screen... it typing those word combinations and pressing enter each time... then move on to the next word etc?
I mean, you could write a program to do this if you wanted, but given that it could likely check tens of thousands combinations a second, then there really is no point.
You mean out of twelve words right? So how much is limit for the twenty four word seed?
The same. If you are missing 4 words then there are 2048
4 possible combinations, regardless of how many total words there.
I mean theres tons of addresses out there so its like how could you not hit one
Because there are this many possible valid 12 word seeds:
340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456
And there only approximately 30 million bitcoin addresses with balance on them. Divide those two numbers and you get a roughly 1 in 11 million trillion trillion chance of finding a collision. (Now, this is not quite accurate since any seed can generate potentially billions of addresses, but you get the idea.)
I had no idea there was this much seeds possible out of just 12 word seeds. But how do you know there is 30 million bitcoin addresses with balance on them? Where did you find this information out?
So you telling me on average, one address has around 0.6 btc in each wallet? That seems way too high don't you think? Obviously there are wallets with say 1000 btc in it and some with much less etc... but isn't like 95% of bitcoin addresses contain 1 or less btc and its more like 80% contain 0.5 btc or less or something like that?
Well take a look at those combinations. I do know that a seed that repeat itself. So you telling me some seeds would include seeds that repeat itself more than twice? Here is the issue though. Wouldn't that mean with all those combinations... then say the word is OVER. I'm not sure if OVER is a word in the word list or not. So wouldn't OVER written 12 or 24 times be a possible seed? Imagine when someone generates a seed with their nano ledger s or electrum... ley say it was electrum... and the seed was like
Over Over Dog Over Over Over Over Over Over Over Over Over
First off... this is possible for electrum or nano ledger s to generate this seed right? Because if so, wouldn't you not want this seed since it repeats itself every word except Dog?
Like if you know about seeds and generate a new seed and a word shows up say 6 times in a 24 word seed... surely you would reject it? I mean I certainly wouldn't want a seed that repeats itself this many times right?
So with all those combinations of just 12 word seeds, what percentage of them uses the same word once? Twice? Three times? Imagine 6 times? Surely you wouldn't feel safe with that seed right?