<p>Yes, in theory but it would take so long that neither you, nor I will still be alive by a long shot.</p>

<p>At about 10,000 key pairs per second, with an address space of 2^160, it would take you 50 tredecillion years to finish.</p>

<p>Thats 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years
To put that into perspective, the age of the universe is about 13,000,000,000 years</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-18T13:38:04.857Z
2017-08-18T13:38:04.857Z
Christoph Winter
<p>yes, it will just take more energy, than the sun can currently provide :-) 
Or otherwise: how to store 2^160 addresses...
Here is a discussion on bitcoin forum:</p>

<p><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1164265.0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1164265.0</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-18T13:01:52.490Z
2017-08-18T13:01:52.490Z
pebwindkraft
<p>This is technically impossible and economically illogical. If you could check this many addresses, you could also mine bitcoins.</p>

<p>Here are a couple of fun vids:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZloHVKk7DHk" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bitcoin 101 - Quindecillions &amp; The Amazing Math Of Bitcoin's Private Keys</a></p>

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ever wonder how Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) actually work?</a></p>

<p>Both discuss the 'size' of the bitcoin address space.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-18T15:04:21.280Z
2017-08-18T15:04:21.280Z
Dan Bolser
<p>Lets say one big company or country start a war against bitcoin and they have very powerful machines. What happens if they starts to create public key all the time? Is it possible to finish all the public keys?</p>

<blockchain><bitcoin-core><bitcoin-core-development>
what if someone tries to finish public keys by non-stop creating
Ahmet Tufan Helvacı
# what if someone tries to finish public keys by non-stop creating

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-08-18)

Lets say one big company or country start a war against bitcoin and they have very powerful machines. What happens if they starts to create public key all the time? Is it possible to finish all the public keys?

**Tags:** blockchain, bitcoin-core, bitcoin-core-development


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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-08-18. Score: 2 | Accepted answer

Yes, in theory but it would take so long that neither you, nor I will still be alive by a long shot.

At about 10,000 key pairs per second, with an address space of 2^160, it would take you 50 tredecillion years to finish.

Thats 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years
To put that into perspective, the age of the universe is about 13,000,000,000 years


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### Answer by username_2 on 2017-08-18. Score: 1

yes, it will just take more energy, than the sun can currently provide :-)
Or otherwise: how to store 2^160 addresses...
Here is a discussion on bitcoin forum:

<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1164265.0>


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### Answer by username_3 on 2017-08-18. Score: 1

This is technically impossible and economically illogical. If you could check this many addresses, you could also mine bitcoins.

Here are a couple of fun vids:

[Bitcoin 101 - Quindecillions & The Amazing Math Of Bitcoin's Private Keys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZloHVKk7DHk)

[Ever wonder how Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) actually work?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4)

Both discuss the 'size' of the bitcoin address space.


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