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How 6 BTC looks for the key

No search server. No sign-up. The curve, the hash, and the compare happen on this device.

Where this came from

Puzzle 71 is a public challenge: someone locked bitcoin inside a known range of 2⁷⁰ keys and left the world to try. The same machine that cracks a four-letter password in seconds does not scratch a real key. This page exists to make that visible — and, as a side effect, to hand out a free ticket to Bitcoin's worst lottery.

The math first

Range: 2⁷⁰, about 1.18 sextillion. Starts at 0x400000000000000000 and runs to 0x7fffffffffffffffff. A gaming GPU, on the right software, measures tens of millions of keys per second and still takes hundreds of thousands of years at the median. In a browser the rate drops. We do not sell miracles.

The chain

1. Private key: a 256-bit integer, drawn inside the 71 range.
2. Public key: point k·G on secp256k1, compressed (prefix 02/03 + X).
3. SHA-256 of those 33 bytes.
4. RIPEMD-160 of the digest. Twenty bytes left — HASH160.
5. Compare with the HASH160 of 1PWo3JeB9jrGwfHDNpdGK54CRas7fsVzXU. A match is the key.

Why this is not a full WebGPU solver

A complete secp256k1 in a shader, with 256-bit carries, batched inversion, and the OS watchdog, is dedicated solver work. Here the auditable math runs in JavaScript workers (@noble/secp256k1 + hashes). If the browser exposes WebGPU, the adapter name shows up in telemetry. The rate you see is real Bitcoin addresses computed — not a marketing number.

A pool, not a lone guess

Open-source GPU clients work with ranges the server hands out. Same idea here, no third-party account: nickname + wallet, a token in this browser, aligned 4,096-key slices. Two workers do not get the same start at the same time. CUDA still wins by a mile; the upgrade is coordination and this house's board, not a copy of someone else's site.

The test that stops a bad search

Before scanning, the worker runs the classic vector: key 1 must produce 1BgGZ9tcN4rm9KBzDn7KprQz87SZ26SAMH. If a bit is off, the search looks busy and tests the wrong universe forever. The test is a brake, not decoration.

If it ever hits

The key stays in the browser. This build shows the hex and stops. It does not push to the public mempool. Spending a puzzle address reveals the public key; in a tight range, kangaroo recovers the private key in minutes and a bot rebroadcasts with a higher fee. That already happened. If it is your day, treat the hex like uranium and use a private channel.

Puzzle address, checkable now: 1PWo3JeB9jrGwfHDNpdGK54CRas7fsVzXU