lianabitcoin on Nostr: GM. The 68-bit #Bitcoin puzzle has been solved! Winners sweep 6.8 BTC reward! Never ...
GM. The 68-bit #Bitcoin puzzle has been solved!
Winners sweep 6.8 BTC reward!
Never heard of the 68-bit puzzle?
Let's learn about key entropy, brute-forcing, and why 12 words is enough!
First: entropy and Bitcoin
Bitcoins are secured by a key
This key is actually just a really big number
When people talk about entropy in this context they mean:
How big is the set of numbers from which you randomly chose your key
So if you have a key that has 1 bit of entropy
Your key is one of only two possible numbers
If you have a key with 10 bits of entropy
It is one of 1024 possible numbers
Luckily, your bitcoin key has a lot more entropy than that
Most bitcoin are locked with 128 bits of entropy
Which means your key is one of 2^128 numbers
ie. more grains of sand than are on all Earth's beaches...
AND all the beaches on a trillion copies of Earth
Back to the puzzles:
In 2015, someone spread ~32BTC across a series of 160 addresses locked by varying levels of entropy.
The first key only had 1 bit
The second key had 2 bits
The third key had 3...
You get the idea
All the easy keys have been swept
Over the years, people sent additional BTC to the more difficult to crack addresses
Kind of like a bounty for brute forcing varying levels of entropy
Whoever cracks the key, gets the BTC
The 66-bit key was cracked in September 2024, nabbing 6.6BTC
But because these keys have intentionally low entropy
Someone sniped the bitcoin out from under the people who cracked the key
maybe...
Get the low-down here: https://stacker.news/items/683489
In Febuary of this year, the 67-bit key was found, earning the folks who brute forced it a whopping 6.7BTC
They seem to be on a roll...
https://x.com/Kowala24731/status/1892831634921082991
On 7 April the 6.8BTC in the 68-bit puzzle showed up in a transaction in mempools.
It turns out that the same folks who cracked the 67-bit puzzle announced that they had cracked the 68-bit puzzle as well.
https://x.com/Kowala24731/status/1909320999235096764
These puzzles teach us the importance of using key with high entropy.
But they also let us know that brute force attacks are a long way from being able to crack 128 bit randomness
Your 12-word seed phrase is still safe
Who created the puzzles is a mystery.
This BitcoinTalk thread is the first mention of them:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.msg13381244#msg13381244
Bitcoin is so cool!
Winners sweep 6.8 BTC reward!
Never heard of the 68-bit puzzle?
Let's learn about key entropy, brute-forcing, and why 12 words is enough!
First: entropy and Bitcoin
Bitcoins are secured by a key
This key is actually just a really big number
When people talk about entropy in this context they mean:
How big is the set of numbers from which you randomly chose your key
So if you have a key that has 1 bit of entropy
Your key is one of only two possible numbers
If you have a key with 10 bits of entropy
It is one of 1024 possible numbers
Luckily, your bitcoin key has a lot more entropy than that
Most bitcoin are locked with 128 bits of entropy
Which means your key is one of 2^128 numbers
ie. more grains of sand than are on all Earth's beaches...
AND all the beaches on a trillion copies of Earth
Back to the puzzles:
In 2015, someone spread ~32BTC across a series of 160 addresses locked by varying levels of entropy.
The first key only had 1 bit
The second key had 2 bits
The third key had 3...
You get the idea
All the easy keys have been swept
Over the years, people sent additional BTC to the more difficult to crack addresses
Kind of like a bounty for brute forcing varying levels of entropy
Whoever cracks the key, gets the BTC
The 66-bit key was cracked in September 2024, nabbing 6.6BTC
But because these keys have intentionally low entropy
Someone sniped the bitcoin out from under the people who cracked the key
maybe...
Get the low-down here: https://stacker.news/items/683489
In Febuary of this year, the 67-bit key was found, earning the folks who brute forced it a whopping 6.7BTC
They seem to be on a roll...
https://x.com/Kowala24731/status/1892831634921082991
On 7 April the 6.8BTC in the 68-bit puzzle showed up in a transaction in mempools.
It turns out that the same folks who cracked the 67-bit puzzle announced that they had cracked the 68-bit puzzle as well.
https://x.com/Kowala24731/status/1909320999235096764
These puzzles teach us the importance of using key with high entropy.
But they also let us know that brute force attacks are a long way from being able to crack 128 bit randomness
Your 12-word seed phrase is still safe
Who created the puzzles is a mystery.
This BitcoinTalk thread is the first mention of them:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.msg13381244#msg13381244
Bitcoin is so cool!