These are some of the methods that AI suggests. What you think, are they good enough to outpace the bots?
1. Use an Offline Method (Air-gapped System)
Key Idea: Generate the transaction entirely offline and broadcast it directly to the Bitcoin network without exposing your private key or transaction details until the transaction is sent.
Steps:
Use a secure offline wallet (like Electrum, Sparrow, or Bitcoin Core in offline mode) to sign the transaction offline.
Prepare the transaction with the highest possible fee to discourage bots from outbidding you.
Save the signed transaction in raw hex format.
Go to a secure location or use a trusted network (not public Wi-Fi) to broadcast the transaction manually through:
A Bitcoin node you control.
A trusted broadcasting service like Blockstream's transaction broadcaster.
Immediately monitor the transaction confirmation process.
By doing this, the private key never touches an internet-connected system, so bots cannot monitor or reverse-engineer it.
2. Use a Decoy (Preemptive Sweep or Dust Address)
This involves sending a decoy transaction before attempting to claim the full amount from the puzzle wallet:
Before broadcasting your real transaction, send a small transaction (dust) from the same address to another wallet.
Bots may detect the small outgoing transaction and focus their resources on trying to extract the private key. By the time they react, your main transaction (with high fees) can already be confirmed.
3. Use Child Pays for Parent (CPFP)
If you're concerned that bots might try to replace your transaction, you can use a Child Pays for Parent (CPFP) strategy to increase the likelihood of your transaction being confirmed:
Submit a follow-up transaction that uses the unconfirmed output of your original transaction and pays a significantly higher fee.
This incentivizes miners to confirm your original transaction (since it's a dependency of the follow-up transaction).
4. Use Lightning Network
If the puzzle wallet has small amounts of BTC in it (e.g., the 67th puzzle), you might withdraw the funds directly onto the Lightning Network:
Use a Lightning wallet that supports sweep functionality.
Create a Lightning invoice to withdraw the funds from the puzzle address into a channel.
This approach is less visible on the public Bitcoin network, making it harder for bots to track or react.
5. Execute a Replace-by-Fee (RBF) Race
If you suspect bots might outbid your transaction, you can preemptively enable RBF in your own transaction:
Create the initial transaction with RBF enabled and a moderate fee.
Monitor the network for activity.
If you detect interference or suspect bots might try to replace your transaction, immediately broadcast a replacement transaction with a higher fee to outpace them.
6. Minimize Transaction Propagation
When broadcasting your transaction:
Broadcast to a single trusted node first: Use a node you control or a private Bitcoin network peer.
Avoid using public wallets or services that broadcast to many nodes simultaneously (bots monitor these public gateways).
7. Be Prepared to Act Quickly
Bots act fast, so once you've submitted your transaction, you should:
Immediately monitor the mempool using a block explorer like mempool.space.
Be ready to increase the transaction fee if necessary using RBF or a follow-up CPFP transaction.
Best Practices to Avoid Key Extraction
Avoid Reusing Wallets: Once you've claimed the funds, never use the same private key again.
Use Hardware Wallets: A hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor can protect your private key even during the transaction creation process.
Encrypt Private Keys: If you're storing the key temporarily, use strong encryption.