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Disclaimer

This isn't intended to be used, but rather a thought experiment.

Problem

Running 24/7 at ~2 wallet tests per second (about the most I can do before getting a 429 response code :( ), how long will it take to find a wallet with coin in it?

second = 2

minute = second * 60 = 120

hour = minute * 60 = 7200

day = hour * 24 = 172800

week = day * 7 = 1209600

year = week * 52 = 62899200 = 6.28992 * 10^7

Assumptions

  1. 42 million (4.2 * 10^7) active Bitcoin wallets (as of December 2019 source).
  2. All of which have a balance > 0.
  3. No more wallets will be created... ever.

Results

While there are 2^256 possible private keys, there are only 2^160 == (1.4615016 * 10^48) possible public addresses.

Probability of hitting a wallet: 1 in 3.4797658 * 10^40

Time to find an active wallet: (3.4797658 * 10^40) / ( 6.28992 * 10^7) = ~(5.5322894 * 10^32) = ~553228940000000000000000000000000 years

So if the universe is ~ 13.8 billion years old, how man universe lifetimes would it take to find a wallet? (5.5322894 * 10 ^32) / (13.8 * 10^9) = (4.0089054 * 10^22) = ~40089054000000000000000 universe life times.

All of these are approximations, do your own math.

tl;dr You'll never find a wallet with coin in it.

Credits to https://blockchain.info, Google for the Base58 encoder, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIPEMD

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