Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Maths Q1 - address to key ratio
by
o_e_l_e_o
on 05/01/2021, 21:09:08 UTC
You still have almost 2252 different combinations.
Minor correction: If you have 4 possibilities for one character in a 64 character private key, then the total number of possibilities is 2254. If you knew for certain one character in the key, then you would have 2252 possibilities.

There may be addresses like this one: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 that have no private keys that unlocks them.
Another correction: This address does have a private key. In fact, it has many. It is just that nobody knows what any of them are (or at least, as far as we know nobody knows what any of them are). That address is generated from a RIPEMD-160 of:

Code:
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Any private key which produces a public key, which when hashed with SHA-256 then RIPEMD-160 produces the above number, would be able to spend coins at that address.