FAQ

What is this site for?

This site allows you to explore the entire Bitcoin private keys keyspace and discover addresses with balances.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital crypto-currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: transaction management and money issuance are carried out collectively by the network.

What is a private key?

A private key in the context of Bitcoin is a secret number that allows bitcoins to be spent. Every Bitcoin wallet contains one or more private keys, which are saved in the wallet file. The private keys are mathematically related to all Bitcoin addresses generated for the wallet. Because the private key is the "ticket" that allows someone to spend bitcoins, it is important that these are kept secret and safe. Private keys can be kept on computer files, but are also often written on paper.

What is the range of private keys?

In Bitcoin, a private key is a 256-bit number between 1 and 115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494336 or in hexadecimal from 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 to FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEBAAEDCE6AF48A03BBFD25E8CD0364140.

The range of valid private keys is governed by the secp256k1 ECDSA standard used by Bitcoin.

Do you store all the private keys?

No, it is not possible. Since there are a huge number of private keys (nearly 1077) we just generate a range of these keys on the fly from a page number in the URL.

What is a public key?

A public key is a number that corresponds to a private key, but does not need to be kept secret. A public key can be calculated from a private key, but not vice versa. A public key can be used to determine if a signature is genuine (in other words, produced with the proper key) without requiring the private key to be divulged. In Bitcoin, public keys are either compressed or uncompressed. Compressed public keys are 33 bytes, consisting of a prefix either 0x02 or 0x03, and a 256-bit integer called x. The older uncompressed keys are 65 bytes, consisting of constant prefix (0x04), followed by two 256-bit integers called x and y (2 * 32 bytes). The prefix of a compressed key allows for the y value to be derived from the x value.

What is a Bitcoin address?

A Bitcoin address is a unique identifier used to receive and send Bitcoin. It is a string of alphanumeric characters that typically begins with a "1" or "3" and is generated using cryptographic techniques. Bitcoin addresses are generated from the corresponding private keys, which are used to sign transactions and prove ownership of the associated Bitcoin. When someone wants to send Bitcoin to another person or entity, they need to know the recipient's Bitcoin address to specify where the funds should be sent. Similarly, when someone wants to receive Bitcoin, they provide their Bitcoin address to the sender, who can then initiate the transaction to that address.

Technically Bitcoin address is a BASE-58 encoding of RIPEMD-160 hash derived from a public key. There are 2160 (nearly 1048) Bitcoin addresses.

I have a Bitcoin address, can I get a private key for it?

No, it is not possible. While a Bitcoin address is just a hash of the public key, it is not feasible to reverse this process to obtain the private key.

What is WIF?

WIF is an abbreviation of Wallet Import Format (also known as Wallet Export Format) and is a way of encoding a private key to make it shorter and easier to copy.

Every single private key can be represented as two different WIF private keys: compressed and uncompressed. A compressed WIF private key starts with "K" or "L" and corresponds to a compressed public key/address. An uncompressed WIF key starts with "5" and corresponds to an uncompressed public key/address.

What is a brainwallet?

A brainwallet is the concept of storing Bitcoins in one's own mind by memorizing a recovery passphrase. An early old-style brainwallet was created by memorization of a passphrase and converting it to a private key with a hashing or key derivation algorithm (example: SHA-256). This method was found to be very insecure and should not be used because humans are not a good source of entropy.

What is the Mini private key format?

The mini private key format is a method of encoding a Bitcoin private key in as few as 30 characters for the purpose of being embedded in a small space. A private key encoded in this format is called a minikey. This private key format was designed for and first used in Casascius physical bitcoins, and is also favorable for use in QR codes. The mini private key format offers its own built-in check code as a small margin of protection against typos.

How to find a funded private key?

There are multiple vectors to find a private key with associated balance:

What tools can be used to find private keys?

What is a wallet.dat file?

The original Bitcoin client stores private key information in a file named wallet.dat following the so called "bitkeys" format. The wallet.dat file contains your private keys, public keys, scripts (which correspond to addresses), key metadata (e.g. labels), and the transactions related to your wallet. If you have an HD wallet, it also includes the HD seed and the derivation paths for each private key.

The wallet.dat file is located in the Bitcoin data directory and may be encrypted with a password. The format of this file is Berkeley DB. Tools that can manipulate wallet files include pywallet.

Where I can find my wallet.dat file?

By default wallet.dat file is located here:

Windows: C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin
Linux: ~/.bitcoin