I noticed a while back that a lot of the brainwallets in the collection were filled with exactly 20108 satoshis, with phrases ranging from single words to some random seeming passwords. The repeated amount seemed weird, and I then discovered that someone back in 2014 had filled 456 addresses with exactly 20108 satoshis each.

I suspect this is some form of challenge/canary where each address is a different brainwallet, with varying levels of complexity in the phrase. Here are the transactions I've found so far:

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/16df5eed4c8d7ff965cf9d3676c7b71d80398714727792e71b7118abe3e16b03
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/b17d08f6b945a6a9edb526f2faaef9b825eaa27c14f454bd53bb423e44750e16
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/70ff6fc9ef96c80a435a0595477708630d092285ebeca30aa899d4dd409b1b45
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/16e72e11bfefe3222e5a3876d1038e49aaec8bc7c247212f8917c94e5b6fff49
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/594a3757b99943d4789fc588167cb40fd44e57f131f3822a3c9af2930ee01f52
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/4b07f21a2d9c408af5542288554aec49ac49195cf10295f1b17aa829d701a3dc
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/b71a1a9dc95319eae181d64865b16bf34deabdee0a689176df8aba450df34081
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/280933eae25e17a7a7274c4b672880b7c488c929872394dbc6ccacf9f68fc7c3
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/34b56d4dac1d43c8a7b8f922e044424094670445b1388fb89b79a0b607a2a28f
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/151f1b9dc77e7dfd77e2f23790d5dc6f8026602553fe64ff2ec4d641e644f9a8
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/c03fa7f40dc185e29b64c4ae421544364d9600fc1e960b1e0406b5fc1efc1843
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/78b5acfa93abd3d6761806dbcc88a82d9efc070bc798edf9cf70d75a8803351c
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/06f34556aa9fa495ae31fbb8134a66997f2a9672261a0d20c39d6eaa99ae323c
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/ccfd4b7ac82ef4dd944ab6174c77cef4cd80f12c3333443dbfd30133b9e4849f
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/39142cb1fce6109333c8672b00fa53cf1d75f4d5b23aac6204aae868df56bd65
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/5160e527cca3d98bcea61b70519d4d434df9e7da8f7bef62c114ce369747ab58

Now, to the real reson for the post - I just noticed that after almost a year of no activity, someone has started draining a few of these addresses again. I wonder if this means some more optimized brainwallet cracker has been developed, or someone has built a cracking machine that's much faster than previous attempts. The curious thing is that the drained coins go to both standard and segwit addresses, so it might indicate there are multiple people working on this cracking.

And as always, if you use a standard SHA256 brainwallet, this is another indication that your coins will be taken sooner or later.

ymgve2

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