Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 42 from 3 users
Re: A New Way to Search for Keys to Forgotten Bitcoin Addresses
by
odolvlobo
on 16/09/2024, 01:12:51 UTC
⭐ Merited by ABCbits (36) ,pooya87 (5) ,mcdouglasx (1)
I don't want to discourage you, but you are not the first to believe that addresses can be cracked by some ad hoc method.

First, there are a number of errors in your explanation.

Bitcoin addresses based on Base58 (like this: "1PnVcifB9EBwbaAauprqcucPgfUnrRLtWg") are generated from a random 256-bit value. Some might bring up seed phrases and such, but a seed phrase is essentially a shortened encoded and checksummed 128-bit or 256-bit number. In short, a random 256-bit number is turned into a 64 512-bit one, which is then turned into a private key, and based on the private key, a public key is created through hashing ECC, and then hashed twice and encoded in a format such as Base58Check, which gives an address similar to the one above.

FTFY

I’ve just explained why this isn’t worth counting on too much. But about a month ago, something changed my mind about finding these wallets. With the development of neural networks, people noticed that, from time to time, money was disappearing from old wallets.
I checked this information and confirmed it. So, there is some method, and neural networks may help discover it. ...

Neural networks have existed and been in use for a long time, so the fact that you are just now learning about neural nets at the same time as coins are being stolen is purely coincidence and is mostly a result of cognitive bias.

So far, I’ve found about a thousand wallets in total over a week of testing (testing, not continuous generation). Unfortunately, they all had zero balances, but some saw substantial amounts pass through, and their last transactions were this year. Here's one example, and I’ll also share its private key:

I bet you found those addresses by setting all but the last few bytes to the value 0. Those addresses are well-known and will always have a balance of 0.
If you set the bytes to any other values, I doubt you will ever find another address. Brute force cracking of addresses by setting the values of portions of the private keys is not a viable method for finding addresses.

While it's possible that neural nets may one day discover an extremely complex pattern of association between addresses and private keys, it is very unlikely, and so it is probably not a viable approach.

OTOH, go for it!