Could Someone Guess Your Bitcoin Private Key?

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In this video, I discuss whether someone could guess your Bitcoin private key and use it to steal your Bitcoin.

A Bitcoin private key is simply a very long binary number (256 bits) that can be used to sign Bitcoin transactions, and thus verify ownership of that particular UTXO.

There are somewhere on the order of 10^77 possible Bitcoin private keys. Guessing the right private key is much worse than trying to find a single grain of sand on earth, or trying to find a single drop of water in the oceans. It's equivalent to trying to find a single atom in the known, observable universe.

Even if you could try 1 billion private keys every second, it would still take you many multiples of the current age of the universe using current computing power to find the right private key.

A 256 qubit quantum computer could find the right key instantaneously. At some point, Bitcoin's signature algorithms will need to be updated to include one or more quantum-safe signature algorithms. This is very easy to do using a simple soft fork.

Not investment advice! Consult a financial advisor.

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[Bitcoin_University]

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[martinfernandes]

Appreciate the work you put into helping us understand the value of BTC

[Dorfjunge]

Quantum computers
1.) The concept is largely misunderstood and over-hyped. In short, they don't work or it is absolutely unfeasible to let them them run. Ans so far only very primitive calculations could be performed to validate the concept. Nothing that would resemble programming could be done on a quantum computer yet and programming would be needed to break the code.
2.) Any computer that would be strong enough to brute-force it's way through bitcoin addresses would make a million times more money with mining and therefore supporting the bitcoin network.
3.) While computer technology evolves that could threat the bitcoin network, at the same time this technological progress will be there to support the network. While bitcoin adoption increases, interest to support the bitcoin network especially by rich people will more and more lean towards support.

[humzaha]

0:09 Why does this matter?
2:25 What is a Bitcoin Private Key?
4:35 Could someone guess your Private Key?
5:19 How difficult would it be to guess a Private Key?
10:38 Quantum Computers

[shiningstar]

What an absolute gem this video is. The comparisons make it really helpful to understand how secure it is. The issue of Quantum Computing is something that needs more clarity though.

[justincross]

so you're tellin me there's a chance

[ghqst]

I appreciate the breakdown and explanation... I have actually wondered myself, just how difficult this would be and just how safe one's BTC is...

[lifeisabeginning]

The enormity of the private key universe is incomprehensible

[alygomes]

The courage it takes is insane. These are people who risk their lives but still decide to go into rehab in order to fight bad liars. True respect to the almod cyber genius on the internet!!! America would be a safer country if the FBI had half your professionalism and resourcefulness (and honesty). Amazing work.

[f.flinstone]

When I began to watch I hoped you’d answer a few of my questions and you did. You’re the best

[EDDY_MAVEDIX]

WOW WELL ORGANIZED & WELL EXPLAINED EASY TO UNDERSTAND

[ArnoldSommerfeld]

Not to shabby for an English major.
100 years ago (winter of 1921-22, statistical mechanics seminar in Germany) Einstein posed a probability question that none of the physicists in the seminar could answer. Einstein asked:
"Life is finite. Time is infinite. The probability that I am alive is zero. In spite of this, I am now alive. Now, how is that?"
Nobody in the seminar could answer. (Einstein did eventually answer it for them.)
Even simple questions in probability can be tricky.

[alexleach]

even if your coin is not fair (75% heads/ 25% tails) you can still generate more than enough entropy using it.

[alexlarry]

This is hilarious I was literally searching for this yesterday.

[leandrowx]

One of the best videos talking about this topic. Thanks a lot.

[beatcreepz]

Very interesting, this is based off looking for one specific private key. Since there are more than a million btc wallets, how does the math work when theres more wallets that could be guessed? Appreciate your work 🙏

[astromatheo_pl]

I would like to see a video from you about Sovryn (RSK) DeFi

[hartfam]

This was truly mindblowing, even for a die hard bitcoiner. Thank you for your work.

[mlarktar]

For those who think are 'smart' and want to use your own randomness, know that it _has_ to be random. If you use 'never', 'gonna', 'give', 'you', 'up'... or some 'clever' combination of words know that there are people constantly testing the network for guessable passphrases (dictionary) and if they find a match they swipe it right away.

[georgharutunian]

instead of guessing the private key isn't that easier to access the wallet that containes the private keys? I think the probability of that should be considered instead because that is the weaker link