<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In this paper, we study and give the first detailed benchmarks on existing implementations of the secp256k1 elliptic curve used by at least hundreds of thousands of users in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Our implementation improves the state of the art by a factor of 2.5 with a focus on the cases, where side channel attacks are not a concern and a large quantity of RAM is available. As a result, we are able to scan the Bitcoin blockchain for weak keys faster than any previous implementation. We also give some examples of passwords which we have cracked, showing that brain wallets are not secure in practice even for quite complex passwords.</p></abstract>

In this paper, we study and give the first detailed benchmarks on existing implementations of the secp256k1 elliptic curve used by at least hundreds of thousands of users in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Our implementation improves the state of the art by a factor of 2.5 with a focus on the cases, where side channel attacks are not a concern and a large quantity of RAM is available. As a result, we are able to scan the Bitcoin blockchain for weak keys faster than any previous implementation. We also give some examples of passwords which we have cracked, showing that brain wallets are not secure in practice even for quite complex passwords.

Speed Optimizations in Bitcoin Key Recovery Attacks

Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT,

Department of Optimization, Satalia (NPComplete Ltd), 97 Tottenham Court Rd, London, W1T 4TP,

White Ops, 11 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10011,

Tatra Mountains Mathematical Publications

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Speed Optimizations in Bitcoin Key Recovery Attacks"}

In this paper, we study and give the first detailed benchmarks on existing implementations of the secp256k1 elliptic curve used by at least hundreds of...

Speed Optimizations in Bitcoin Key Recovery Attacks

Published Online: Feb 25, 2017

Page range: 55 - 68

Received: Dec 02, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/tmmp-2016-0030

Keywords
Bitcoin, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Crypto Currency, Brain Wallet

© 2016 Nicolas Courtois et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Speed Optimizations in Bitcoin Key Recovery Attacks

Published Online: Feb 25, 2017

Page range: 55 - 68

Received: Dec 02, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/tmmp-2016-0030

KeywordsBitcoin, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Crypto Currency, Brain Wallet

© 2016 Nicolas Courtois et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Bitcoin, Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Crypto Currency, Brain Wallet