Re: [WO] Perennially popular misinformation about Bitcoin keys.
Nobody who has even the slightest knowledge of cryptography will ever attempt to guess a Bitcoin private key that way.
For an P2PKH or P2WPKH address where the public key has not been revealed, the search space is 2160; and there are approximately slightly fewer than 296 valid keys per address.
If the public key is known, it has a notional 2128 security level.
An attacker would not try to guess the key by bruteforce. Rather than bruteforce, an attacker would use something like this free, open-source program:
And even if someone wanted to try bruteforce for some ridiculous unreason, there are about 2256 - 2128.3457 valid private keys, not exactly 2256 keys. That is a negligible difference; but if one wishes to count keys, count the keys properly!
Technical information must be accurate. The good cause of teaching the public about Bitcoin’s security is not helped by misleading explanations and misinformation.
Let me repost an old thread of mine:
There are 2^256 private keys out there: how big is that number?
That thread contains some substantial inaccuracies. Some of them were corrected by a newbie account that has not posted since 2020; I sent it some merit. If you want to learn about Bitcoin, I suggest that you should read the above-linked thread about Bitcoin’s Public-Key Security Level.
But there is a bigger problem: You are a wannabe wallet-thief, worse than rico666. Tagged.
Your private key are listed on that website.
So? It’s not the first. I don’t know which one the first one was with that idea; it is moderately clever for the first to think of making such a site, but trivial to implement. The code for keys-dot-lol is trash (look on Github).
I think this is the first time I posted a link to one of those sites—about four days after I started posting on the Bitcoin Forum:
Yes, “straight up brute forcing” is indeed possible. I sincerely suggest that you try this. It will keep you busy and out of trouble. To make it easier, there is a public directory of all Bitcoin private keys. Yes, that site really does list all Bitcoin private keys. Get rich! Happy hunting!
(P.S., why are highly intelligent people in a “Development & Technical Discussion” forum seriously answering questions about bruteforcing secp256k1!? Doubly-hashed, undisclosed public keys are just gravy.)
(P.S., why are highly intelligent people in a “Development & Technical Discussion” forum seriously answering questions about bruteforcing secp256k1!? Doubly-hashed, undisclosed public keys are just gravy.)