Replying to Avatar TBone

It just dawned on me that we should be calculating the number of possible public keys (not private keys) when illustrating the chances to steal someone's bitcoin. (The whole 'single atom in the universe' thing)

Since there are far fewer possible public keys than there are private keys, there is obviously a less-than 1:1 ratio between them, and therefore multiple private keys could clash and produce the same public key - and therefore would be able to spend the bitcoin associated with its UTXO set.

Am I wrong?
98
Beiner 1y ago

I'm no expert, but the way you get a private key is with math. You know who has a really good explanation on this Andreas Antonopoulos

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98
Beiner 1y ago

So you can't go backwards only foward and something about you add to the private key to get a public key or something like that so you cant get a private key randomly he explains it very very well

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TBone 1y ago

Yes. There's hashing involved in that case.

98
Beiner 1y ago

Yes so when you hash i take it as math 1+1 but its random numbers that never give the same outcome

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TBone 1y ago

My point is, everything that uses SHA256, will generate an outcome of 1 in 2²⁵⁶, including any collisions.