Sources

Primary sources only.

Every factual claim on this site traces to one of these.

The record on the home page

In January 2015 an anonymous person funded Bitcoin addresses whose private keys are 1 to 160 bits long: key n lies between 2n−1 and 2n. On 1 June 2019 they spent a tiny amount from every fifth one, which put those public keys onchain. From that moment each is a secp256k1 discrete-log problem over a known range. A key counts as found at the first transaction that moved its prize, because that needs the private key. Who found it is not recorded.

KeyPublic sinceFoundStood forProof
65-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 7, 20197 daystransaction
70-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 9, 20199 daystransaction
75-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 10, 201910 daystransaction
80-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 11, 201910 daystransaction
85-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 17, 201916 daystransaction
90-bitJun 1, 2019Jul 1, 201931 daystransaction
95-bitJun 1, 2019Jul 6, 201935 daystransaction
100-bitJun 1, 2019Jul 8, 201937 daystransaction
105-bitJun 1, 2019Sep 23, 2019114 daystransaction
110-bitJun 1, 2019May 30, 20201.0 yearstransaction
115-bitJun 1, 2019Jun 16, 20201.0 yearstransaction
120-bitJun 1, 2019Feb 27, 20233.7 yearstransaction
125-bitJun 1, 2019Jul 9, 20234.1 yearstransaction
130-bitJun 1, 2019Sep 23, 20245.3 yearstransaction
135-bitJun 1, 2019Jul 28, 20267.2 yearstransaction
140-bitJun 1, 2019still standing—address
145-bitJun 1, 2019still standing—address
150-bitJun 1, 2019still standing—address
155-bitJun 1, 2019still standing—address
160-bitJun 1, 2019still standing—address
  • Reveal transaction: 17e4e323cfbc68d7… · funding transaction: 08389f34c98c6063…
  • How long a key stood reflects effort and reward as well as difficulty. The prizes were raised tenfold in July 2017, and again for the larger keys in April 2023, both visible onchain.
  • Standing keys are rechecked against the chain at least hourly. The dataset is rebuilt from the chain by tools/revealed-keys.ts.

Prior work this builds on

Cost models and tools

Chain mechanics

Why measurement matters