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A comment on U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road. Parent comment

Re:U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked... by laurent92 on Thursday November 05, 2020 @12:59PM (#25000370)
Same question: Ok we may not be able to brute-force it today for less than $1bn, but tomorrow, may a vulnerability in the algorithm make it possible to regenerate the private key?
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Re:U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked... by monokh on Thursday November 05, 2020 @01:03PM (#25000420)
If there is ever such a vulnerability in bitcoin that allows you to either

- Generate private keys at a rate in which you will be able to produce it in a reasonable time

or

- Outright reverse engineer the private key from the public key or other metadata

Then Bitcoin is broken and that 1bn is worth next to nothing.

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Re:U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked... by matt_kantor on Thursday November 05, 2020 @01:54PM (#25000826)
If someone discovers such a vulnerability and is able to cash out before it's publicized then they'll make a lot of money anyway.

They could also short Bitcoin before intentionally crashing it.

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Re:U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked... by cloudhead on Thursday November 05, 2020 @01:55PM (#25000843)
Keep in mind the receiving public key is not revealed when money is sent to an address, only its hash. So you'd have to "reverse" SHA256 first.
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