python - BTC Leak

How to create a Bitcoin black hole

BTC Leak on July 27, 2020

It is surprisingly easy to construct a new Bitcoin address that can accept payments, which will be immediately and forever lost. Such addresses are called “provably unspendable,” meaning that you can prove beyond all doubt that no one ever can… Read the full article

We solved a P2SH transaction puzzle and redeemed Bitcoin

BTC Leak on July 19, 2020

This is a success story about how we solved a transaction puzzle and collected a small sum of Bitcoin, all details included. Pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) are the most fascinating and curious kind of Bitcoin transactions. They allow Bitcoins to be sent… Read the full article

A super-fast Bitcoin private key generator

BTC Leak on June 23, 2020

The good news first. We are going to code a script that outputs random 64 character hexadecimal strings at supersonic speeds, and then we are going to use them to try to bruteforce some Bitcoin addresses. Bitcoin private keys may… Read the full article

SHA-256 in Bash and Python – A speed comparison

BTC Leak on June 12, 2020

When experimenting with generating Bitcoin private key and public address pairs, also widely known as brainwallet cracking (which is a subject that we will revisit many times), what you do is computing SHA-256 hashes of words, passwords or passphrases. You… Read the full article

Double-SHA-256 in Bash and Python

BTC Leak on June 10, 2020

Being able to calculate Double-SHA-256 hashes (often simply referred to as “DSHA256”) is vital for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency applications and codes. Bitcoin mining itself is, after all, and somewhat simplified, only a matter of spitting out insane amounts DSHA256… Read the full article