I don't get why most people can't accept a simple fact: there is no cheating, all of these ideas to shorten the brute force are actually increasing the time. Only way to success is to check all pvtKeys to H160, as fast as possible, and there is exactly one single way to do it optimally: iterate, hash, check, repeat, on hardware that does it with the highest efficiency (hashrate / watt).
I’ll join this discussion to say that I completely agree. There’s no way to bypass a uniform distribution, and many find it hard to admit.
The reality is that we are simply looking for a random number among many – a ball in a box, and the only way we can increase the chances of finding the winning ball is by searching for the balls faster.
I’ve added prefixes search to my software because many people asked for it. However, I don’t understand how this could be useful for the puzzle, unless it’s used as a proof of work.