I've done a decent amount of work in "vanity" searches, which are basically prefix searches. However, that is normally over the entire curve, not a super small subset such as 66 or 67 bits.
And yes, my script was pretty good at it. For those who didn't know, I helped LoyceV find some crazy, some difficult, prefixes, for his project:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/5532768.0But again, that was over the entire range and it wasn't for a prize, or the fastest to a prize. And when dealing with the whole curve, you can use some tricks. When I was helping Loyce, I kept modifying my code and eventually, it became good at looking for the types of prefixes he was looking for.
But these challenges puzzles, and their smaller range sizes, are more problematic lol. Especially since we are looking for a complete address and we can't use more tricks (symm, endos).
Yes, everyone can talk about averages and probabilities, but at the end of the day, I do not know how or what base you would use, to say if I found x amount of h160 matching characters, I can jump x amount, because the probabilities say it will not be closer than y.
And anyone who says they can truly narrow it down, without the possibility of skipping the address we are looking for...I would not trust them lol. I don't care who they are. If I told you that, do not trust me either lol. I don't even know how you can say, well there is a x amount of chance we skip the key, but it is very low.
Old sayings I like, "Math never lies, people do" and "Facts don't care about your feelings". Which thanks to Bram, everyone can study the same data. So I did the math...it will tell you the truth.
Look at these numbers:
First Run:
- Average difference: 282602011632656
- Smallest difference: 194903573833
- Largest difference: 1946984192923367
Second Run (Excluding Smallest and Largest Differences):
- Average difference: 281241799946404
For reference, 2^48 = 281474976710656
Those numbers are from a data set of (12 matching, leading characters of the h160) prefixes found, over a range size of 2^58. Anything stick out to you?
Without removing the smallest and largest differences, the average distance is greater than 2^48, when removed, just below it. But, did you see the largest and smallest differences?
- Smallest difference: 194903573833
- Largest difference: 1946984192923367
the smallest gap between 2 prefixes was less than 38 bits and the largest gap was over 51 bits.
So, someone tell me how you can say you can widdle searches down or jump x amount, and not miss the actual key that we are looking for... (for vanity address, this is fine, but we are looking for 100% address, not just x leading prefixes)
For those that claim they have a really good formula, please explain it here. I am genuinely curious.
