Quote from: OnkelPaul on March 25, 2014, 11:00:31 AM

Quote from: olloman on March 25, 2014, 10:16:06 AM

I don't know if I'm off topic, but I read somewhere (can't remember the article) that approximately the number of possible private keys is similar to the numer of atoms in the universe, and running a computer capable of cracking a private key would require the energy produced by a star...obviously there is always luck, but seems unlikely

As another poster has already noted, searching for the private key to a given address is different from encountering a collision between two random addresses which is much more likely due to the birthday paradox. However, the probability that such a collision happens, is being noticed, and leads to undesired transfer of bitcoins is extremely small.

Onkel Paul

I see, but I was directly answering op's question, which was about private keys