Nice old post about the mnemonics brute-forcing complexity:
So if we take in consideration todays total hashrate of the whole bitcoin network (https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate) and assume that the network can check mnemonic combinations with the same speed (which it cannot actually) - the “guessing speed” will be ~35K PH/s
or ~3e4 * 1e15
or ~3e19 H/s
. Which means that every second the whole network will guess ~30’000’000’000’000’000’000 combinations. That’s A LOT, isn’t it?
For a standard cardano wallet with 12 mnemonics there are (2048^12)/16
possible valid combinations, or ~3e38
combinations. If we divide the number of all combinations on the number of combinations guessed each second - we will get that the whole bitcoin network will need around 1e19
seconds, to try all possible combinations.
1e19
seconds is ~1.6e17
minutes, or 2.7e15
hours, or 1.15e14
days or 3.17e11
years. There we have it - the whole bitcoin network would need ~317’000’000’000 YEARS in order to try all possible standard 12-word wallets.
Want to do the same for paper-wallets? Paper wallets have 27 secret words, which gives
(2048^27)/512
possible combinations with is ~5e86
. Dividing it by hash-power and rounding up gives us ~5.07e59
years, or somewhere around this number of years:
507 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
P.S. There was a lot of discussion about the security of 9 words that are not printed on the paper-wallet but filled out manually. Well, (2048^9)/512
~ 1.2e27
which gives us ~1.3
years.
So even if some extra “el33t h4x0r”, or CIA, or aliens would decide to break into your printer just to steal your 18 secret words that are printed on the paper - they would additionally have to rent the WHOLE bitcoin network for more than a year to have a guaranteed chance to get your ADA
And don’t forget that it’s an IMAGINARY use of a LARGEST computer-power network on the planet, which, of course, impossible in reality. Idk, works for me. As I mentioned before - I am totally ok getting some paper-wallets on a USB stick and going to a public printing-service to get them done on a colored printer and some nice paper. Zero concern about their clerks hacking me later
P.P.S Just some interesting stats, but anything under 9 words should already be considered totally insecure, for example:
-
3 word key gives
(2048^3)/2
or~4e9
combinations and would be completely iterated by the assumed network in under a second -
6 word key gives
(2048^6)/4
or~1.8e19
and would also be iterated by the imaginary network in under a second.