Can You Guess a Private Key?
Let’s figure out the odds of guessing a private key, which would give you the ability to move the coins at the corresponding public address. Remember, a key is made up of 256 bits. Each bit has only two values (one or zero). That means you can visualize each bit like a coin toss.
If we had a 1-bit private key, it’s like tossing a coin. Heads or tails, one or zero? You have a one in two chance of guessing right.
Quick basic probability review: the probability of multiple events occurring is calculated by multiplying together each event’s individual probability. If a coin toss has a 1/2 chance of landing heads, then the chance of two coin tosses in a row landing heads is 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 or 1 in 4.
If we had 2 bits, that’s two coin tosses in a row. 22 = 4, so you have a one in 4 chance.If you were to guess the outcome of 8 coin tosses in a row that would be 28, or a one in 256 chance.
A license plate has 6 letters/numbers. There are 26 letters and 10 numbers, so a total of 36 characters. Since there are six of them, the number of possible license plates = 366, so your odds of guessing mine are one in 2,176,782,336 (one in two billion)
Example: A credit card is sixteen digits. Each digit can have 10 values, and there are 16 of them so your odds of guessing my credit card are one in 1016, which is one in 10,000,000,000,000,000 or roughly one in ten quin-tillion.There are about 1050 atoms on earth. If I’m thinking of one at random,your chances of guess..
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There is a probability to get key to one particular wallet and there is a probability to get key to any wallet , even if empty. If seed phrase is 12 or 24 words and we have around 200'000 meaningful English words , what is a probability to get key to any active wallet (I do not know how many active wallets there are) for a period of time?