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Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn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Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#281

Post by csomar »

ralfd wrote: post #254
csomar wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the real puzzle solver didn't see this coming, he kinda does deserve it. Bitcoin blocks takes 10-20 minutes to confirm. This leaves enough time for a bot/human to take over. I am pretty sure he could have contacted a miner/pool and arranged a deal with them.

Can you explain that? So the real puzzle solver could have theoretically triggered the transaction, but lurking bots are stealing the transaction from them?

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41555482

I'll try to give a brief here about how Bitcoin script works but you'd better read up on the Bitcoin wiki.

Essentially, to make a transaction valid, your script needs to pass.

1. + -> This is how most transactions are handled. You provide the transaction with a signature. This doesn't expose your private key and lock the receiver. (as the receiver is signed)

2. + -> To solve for Hash, you need to provide the Hash Content essentially solving the puzzle. Problem is, if you provide the Hashed Content publicly in the Script, anyone can also submit a competing transaction and set himself as the receiver.

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#282

Post by owlstuffing »

EGreg wrote: post #264
anothernewdude wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they don't need to take it now, just before anyone else does.

In other words, anyone else with access to the same computing power, and part of the conspiracy

"access"

Re: Bitcoin puzzle #66 was solved: 6.6 BTC (~$400k) withdrawn

#283

Post by avodonosov »

Maken wrote: post #59
mapt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I correct in assuming that beyond a certain point, this is basically an existence proof for somebody having a quantum-supreme solution to Shor's Algorithm? "Here's $400,000 sitting on the table, hope nobody takes it" which triggers an alarm telling us to replace all our old prequantum cryptography.

If anyone developed a solution to integer factorization, I'm sure they would be after larger prices than mere 400k in crypto. A practical application of this puzzle could be to have an estimation of how long it takes to break a public key by conventional means. The moment one of these prices can be claimed in mere months you know it's time to double the size of the Bitcoin public keys.

What larger prices (or prizes) do you mean?

I just think maybe public key crypto is not broken so far because there is no motivation for enough people to work on that. What whould one get, without endangering himself, if he breaks integer factorization?

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

#284

Post by shoshino »

y42 wrote: post #238
wodenokoto wrote: post #217

That’s not a trivial price. Who finance these puzzles?

It's somewhere hidden in those million threads. The puzzle was created 10 years ago when Bitcoin was cheap.

> 2023-04-16: somebody (maybe the owner) increased the unsolved puzzles prizes again by x10. Now the puzzle #66 prize is 6.6 BTC, #67 is 6.7 BTC and so on... puzzle #160 prize is 16 BTC.

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/12f34b5...

Bitcoin was not cheap in 2023, this is someone with $50m to spare!

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

#285

Post by kragen »

GTP wrote: post #270
Quindecillion wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with energy consumption? I think you might be confusing it with greenhouse gas emissions.

How's the electricity you're using produced? ;)

are we talking about people doing bitcoin mining or hash cracking?

bitcoin mining is an extremely competitive business of finding the cheapest sources of energy and mining hardware; because the cheapest energy sources are all renewable, mining bitcoin with fossil-fuel-produced power is unprofitable. so the electricity we're using to mine bitcoin is mostly solar, wind, and hydroelectric

as for the cracking, i don't think we know anything about where it was done or how much energy was needed, but if the energy cost was significant, i'd expect the solver to have done it somewhere where energy was cheap

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

#286

Post by the_clarence »

mrb wrote: post #136
arcanemachiner wrote: post #90

Looks like the coins were stolen by a bot: > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.msg64535839#... I'm not super familiar with the concept (and I'm too lazy to look into it TBH), but I think the would-be winner posted the private key before enough (any?) blocks were mined, and the thief posted a transaction with a bigger fee, and the thief's transaction was in the block that got mined.

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…

You need 2^65 operations so this is likely not what happened. What you're thinking about is the birthday attack that only works to find collisions and not to find a specific "pre-image"

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

#287

Post by lucubratory »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #214
dheera wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do? I'd claim the prize, sell for USD, then watch BTC crash

It would crash before you could sell it. Guarantee major market makers are watching these wallets specifically, and autonomously.

So if someone figures out how to do it, they then effectively have a button that destroys a massive amount of wealth worldwide owned by a pretty specific group of people? That's fascinating, with billions of dollars at stake people would absolutely kill for that, not to mention the governments that use crypto on a macro scale for avoiding sanctions etc. Would probably make a really good thriller.

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

#288

Post by fidelramos »

BigParm wrote: post #277
fidelramos wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok there is one good explanation for this case that I found in another comment here [0]: the person who found the private key made a transaction moving only part of the full reward, but in doing so exposed the full public key. A was monitoring the puzzle address for activity, picked up the public key, used it to crack the private key quickly and moved the rest of the funds. Fascinating that the original cracker would…

You can't derive an secp256k1 privkey from the associated pubkey. That's the whole point.

You are right in the general case. But the public key is included in a transaction when it gets signed, and in this particular case the attackers already had part of the private key, that's what allowed a different attacker to combine both pieces and break the private key quickly.

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

#289

Post by lelandfe »

motoxpro wrote: post #144
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…

As much as this sucks, I absolutely love how the blockchain is real life version of a Dark Forest

Broadcasting the secret and it immediately getting annihilated by some anonymous, stronger third party. Very much so.

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

#290

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

mapt wrote: post #32
mrb wrote: post #2

Discussion thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1306983.msg64526037#... Bitcoin puzzles are private keys with just a few unknown bits so that anyone can bruteforce them to collect a reward. Puzzle 66 contained 66 unknown bits and had 6.6 BTC deposited into it by the initial puzzle creator. The private key was 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002832ed74f2b5e35ee or 256 bits with mostly ze…

Am I correct in assuming that beyond a certain point, this is basically an existence proof for somebody having a quantum-supreme solution to Shor's Algorithm? "Here's $400,000 sitting on the table, hope nobody takes it" which triggers an alarm telling us to replace all our old prequantum cryptography.

That's all bitcoin is...

If someone had a quantum-supreme solution they would go after the sitoshi wallets. Some addresses have like $1B+ and combined represent ~$200B.

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