Hacker News Reader

Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

How would you verify that the private key is unknown? I guess an auditable process in a black box to confirm the key is ever stored. But with $1B at stake, there’s some serious incentive to measure electrical output or something to snoop the key.

I guess you could send to a random address, but there’s an infinitesimal chance that someone in the future generates a key with that address, right?

View on HN

This address has no known private key https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1BitcoinEaterAddressD...

Sure someone could randomly guess it but not likely. You don't need to have or know a private key to generate a valid checksum bitcoin address that can be sent to.

I just created several trillion “disposal” sounding addresses and started sharing the one that I guessed a private key for. There’ll be some real surprises in 2025!

If you can generate the private key to a 27 character or longer English readable Bitcoin address then you can use the same magical technology you possess to earn far more than $1 billion USD.

Same question: Ok we may not be able to brute-force it today for less than $1bn, but tomorrow, may a vulnerability in the algorithm make it possible to regenerate the private key?

If there is ever such a vulnerability in bitcoin that allows you to either

- Generate private keys at a rate in which you will be able to produce it in a reasonable time

- Outright reverse engineer the private key from the public key or other metadata

Then Bitcoin is broken and that 1bn is worth next to nothing.

If someone discovers such a vulnerability and is able to cash out before it's publicized then they'll make a lot of money anyway.

They could also short Bitcoin before intentionally crashing it.

Keep in mind the receiving public key is not revealed when money is sent to an address, only its hash. So you'd have to "reverse" SHA256 first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com