All 160 puzzles/Puzzle 66
Puzzle 66 of 16066 bit rangeSolved: September 12, 2024

Bitcoin Puzzle 66

One of the 160 puzzle addresses created in 2015 to show how hard it is to guess a Bitcoin private key. This one has fallen: the key was found on September 12, 2024 and the prize was claimed.

Puzzle
#66
Range size
3.7 × 1019
Balance
0
Status
Solved

Puzzle address

13zb1hQbWVsc2S7ZTZnP2G4undNNpdh5so
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Private key search range

The private key of this address is a number between 265 and 266, which is 3.7 × 1019 possible keys. In hex, the range looks like this:

From
20000000000000000
To
3ffffffffffffffff

Revealed private key

Since this puzzle is solved, its private key is public knowledge and the prize was claimed long ago. It is shown here for reference and study: you can verify that this key really does produce the address above.

Hex
2832ed74f2b5e35ee
WIF (compressed)
KwDiBf89QgGbjEhKnhXJuH7LrciVrZi3qZfFoWMiwBt943V7CQeX

Watch the search find this key

This puzzle is already solved, so the demo scans the range from the start and stops when it reaches the known key. It is a replay, not a treasure hunt.

About puzzle 66

In 2015, an anonymous user created 160 Bitcoin addresses and funded them with about 1000 BTC in total. Each address hides its private key in a range that doubles with every puzzle number: puzzle 1 uses a 1 bit range, puzzle 160 a 160 bit range. Puzzle 66 sits at the 66 bit mark, so its key is one of 3.7 × 1019 candidates.

This range was small enough for conventional brute force. GPU search tools walked through the keyspace until one of them produced the matching address, and the key was confirmed on September 12, 2024. Every solved puzzle like this one calibrates the difficulty curve: it marks how far real hardware has actually reached, which makes the still standing puzzles above it all the more meaningful.

The whole series is best understood as a public experiment, not a hacking contest. These coins were placed on purpose to be found, and the solved and unsolved puzzles together map the exact frontier of what today's hardware can do against Bitcoin's cryptography. Guessing the key of a normal wallet remains astronomically out of reach: a real 256 bit key has a keyspace about 1029 times larger than even puzzle 160. Read more about the math and the quantum angle in the FAQ on the main page.