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Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

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Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#221

Post by y42 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #187
iJohnDoe wrote: post #158

Can someone EILI5? I thought cracking anything to steal bitcoin was impossible due to the keys sizes involved? Is this possible because a portion of the key is already available so there is less to crack? Which key is known? The public or private? Another comment said the “now known public” but then also said the private key can now be recovered by cracking it? Two keys need to be cracked? What kind computing power i…

As I understand it, they are basically private keys. The idea is to find the wallet address that they go with. Once that is done, the winner can create a transaction that sends the contents of the wallet to their own as a prize. This would normally be computationally intractable but these keys are much smaller than normal, with most of their leading digits intentionally zeroed out to make it easier to 'steal' the fun…

As of this thread, which is AFAIK the starting point, it's about Public Keys and the goal is to find the according Private Key:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1305887.0

Someone, back in the 2015, created this puzzle when BTC was cheap. He/she posted a couple of public keys (Wallet Addresses):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5218972.0

Though, I don't understand the actual task. It's a couple of transactions and one have to "guess" (aka bruteforce) the private key to a known public key. There's an increasing level of complexity, which makes it harder, the higher you get in this list.

Would appreciate any more details.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#222

Post by teekert »

yosito wrote: post #118
teekert wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity net controllers here are pretty happy when I boil some ocean on a sunny day. In fact at times they give me money for it. And then I can donate sats to indie content creators using podcasting 2.0 features. But I think you are one of those people that threw out that baby with the bath water long ago.

Where is here for you?

Netherlands, on an ANWB, variable, energy contract [0]

[0] https://www.anwb.nl/energie (Dutch)

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#223

Post by teekert »

kelnos wrote: post #111
teekert wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electricity net controllers here are pretty happy when I boil some ocean on a sunny day. In fact at times they give me money for it. And then I can donate sats to indie content creators using podcasting 2.0 features. But I think you are one of those people that threw out that baby with the bath water long ago.

The kind of use you describe is almost certainly a small minority of the whole.

It’s certainly growing. We have many issues here where solar panel are turned off at peak hours. People get less and less money for delivering power to the net, and indeed sometimes have to pay to do so. This will only increase.

In fact solar panel sales are dropping very fast.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#224

Post by sourraspberry »

Jerrrrrrry wrote: post #157
fernandopj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how could he have avoided this attack? I'm only familiar with Bitcoin's blockchain on a begginner level. But I assume the only way would be to avoid revealing the answer key (public) when sending the transaction to get the reward?

There is actually no way to avoid this, aside from setting the Fee nearly to the reward. It's essentially MitM all the way down. even the private mempool can attempt a double-spend with a larger fee, get one transaction ahead, then try to maintain an edge long enough to be the "longest branch" for consensus - the 51% attack only needs 33% in reality, much less when your the private mempool that can take advantage of…

Isn't this a bit insane? Does this not imply the entire Bitcoin protocol is fundamentally flawed?

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#225

Post by baobabKoodaa »

dheera wrote: post #212
dartos wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly how bitcoins works. As a miner, if I see two conflicting transactions I will prioritize the one which pays more rather than the one I saw first.

So can I avoid the attack by voluntarily paying a super high fee?

The attacker can see what fee you are offering, so they just offer higher

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#226

Post by chr15m »

zeagle wrote: post #206
a_dabbler wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to. Most of us will never understand the complexity of banking either

You mean the one where someone else pays a higher ATM fee and scoops my cheque deposit? We can talk about reduced bits in the puzzle vs a regular transaction but when you need to consider how you are going to safely claim your money as if you are laundering you have to admit this is a little nuts.

idk $34 billion in annual global card fraud is also a little nuts.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#227

Post by n2d4 »

sltkr wrote: post #195
matthewdgreen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one rho algorithm for discrete logarithms and one for factoring. Published three years apart.

Neither of which helps with elliptic curve cryptography.

Pollard's rho algorithm can be applied to not just numbers but any cyclic group, which secp256k1 (the elliptic curve used by Bitcoin) is.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#228

Post by fragmede »

rkagerer wrote: post #179
mrb wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No private key was posted too early. What happened is the person who spent all the computing power to brute force the 66 bits broadcasted, naively, a transaction to send the 6.6 BTC reward to his wallet. However, when doing so, the public key is by design revealed on the blockchain. Someone's bot whose sole purpose is to steal this puzzles rewards was monitoring the blockchain and spotted the transaction before it go…

How would said bot have recognized this transaction was one of these puzzles, and thus worth brute-forcing? Given only a random public key, is it possible to quickly recognize when its corresponding private key has weak entropy?

The bot was written specifically to steal the winnings of the puzzle.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#230

Post by DreadPriateRob »

my assumption is the only way you will be able to stop any bot from double spend attack is to multisig the puzzle address when its solved so any transaction there forth would need your main wallets or any wallet that you set up to need its signature or signature(s) if using multiple before any transactions are made but you will need to be quick about it maybe even setting up your own script or bot to do so i find it wild that the solver didn't think that someone could swoop in and take the reward i multisig all my addresses for that very reason and yes i know a lot about mutisig it's impossible to use a double spend attack with that set up
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