<p>It's so unlikely to succeed that it is not being offered. One could be tempted to say it's not possible:</p>

<p>Your chances are along the lines of <strong>1 to 2^160</strong>. That is 1 to 4.666587*10^172, or very roughly rounded, <strong>1 to 5 followed by 172 zeroes</strong>.</p>

<p>To put that in perspective, if you could create a billion addresses per second, the expected time to find a collision would still be <strong>longer than the age of the universe</strong>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-02T01:15:35.313Z
2014-02-02T09:31:01.420Z
2014-02-02T09:31:01.420Z
Murch
<p>Well this website has a list of all Bitcoin addresses and their private keys:</p>

<p><a href="http://directory.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://directory.io/</a></p>

<p>Of course this is a joke, and it doesn't really have them, it just generates them on request.</p>

<p>If you want it to match the exact address - it's far better to just edit the .cl kernel file so that it will verify the public key directly instead of converting it to an address and then comparing it. This would also increase the rate with which it is finding keys.</p>

<p>That said - this exercise is futile, as it is virtually impossible to stumble on the same private key as someone else.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-18T17:15:56.070Z
2017-10-18T17:15:56.070Z
asenski
<p>The basic answer is: "It's not impossible" but "It's improbable" to do so. You'll make more BTC's on average mining, rather than trying to crack a public address with a vanity generator.</p>

<p>Like Murch said, the possibility of finding the same address is: <strong>1 to 4.6 x 10^172</strong></p>

<p>While getting struck by lightning twice is: <strong>1 to 3.6 x 10^11</strong></p>

<p>Statistically talking, you'll probably die before you can even come close finding the same public address.</p>

<p>Kudos,</p>

<p>-Beşir</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-02T09:05:30.127Z
2014-02-02T09:05:30.127Z
Besir Kurtulmus
<p>I see everyone's answers are more about how it's unlikely to be done and not about exactly how to enter an address to match without an error since the prefix cannot be an entire address I've noticed. I have been looking for the same thing to make sure I'm doing it right but I believe you use -r (space) (address you want to match) hit enter. It doesn't give you a time or how long only how many keys per second it's going through, which is a lot, and how many total have been covered. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-17T05:39:44.480Z
2017-10-10T03:38:12.253Z
2017-10-10T03:38:12.253Z
David J
<p>FAQ says it's possible to use vanitygen to search for a match to a complete address yet when I input a complete address I get an "is too long" error message. Is there a way to run vanitygen using a complete public address?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-02T01:16:26.223Z
related: [Is it possible to brute force bitcoin address creation in order to steal money?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22/5406) --- [Is Each Bitcoin Address Unique?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/8804/5406)
Murch
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-02T13:19:25.617Z
I assume you are the person that created this question. If you still are logged in from another computer, perhaps you could edit your question to clarify your intent. Concerning your "test", I don't see how you would be able to proof anything, except that your personal computer isn't sufficient to find a hash collision in "X" tries, where "X" will get larger over time, but remain magnitudes of magnitudes away from proofing something. IMHO it is not an expedient approach, rather it's a complete waste of energy.
Murch
<address><vanitygen>
Is it possible to generate a complete public address with vanitygen?
user12988
# Is it possible to generate a complete public address with vanitygen?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-02)

FAQ says it's possible to use vanitygen to search for a match to a complete address yet when I input a complete address I get an "is too long" error message. Is there a way to run vanitygen using a complete public address?

**Tags:** address, vanitygen

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: related: [Is it possible to brute force bitcoin address creation in order to steal money?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22/5406) --- [Is Each Bitcoin Address Unique?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/8804/5406)  
> **username_1**: I assume you are the person that created this question. If you still are logged in from another computer, perhaps you could edit your question to clarify your intent. Concerning your "test", I don't see how you would be able to proof anything, except that your personal computer isn't sufficient to find a hash collision in "X" tries, where "X" will get larger over time, but remain magnitudes of magnitudes away from proofing something. IMHO it is not an expedient approach, rather it's a complete waste of energy.  

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## 4 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-02-02. Score: 3

It's so unlikely to succeed that it is not being offered. One could be tempted to say it's not possible:

Your chances are along the lines of **1 to 2^160**. That is 1 to 4.666587\*10^172, or very roughly rounded, **1 to 5 followed by 172 zeroes**.

To put that in perspective, if you could create a billion addresses per second, the expected time to find a collision would still be **longer than the age of the universe**.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2017-10-18. Score: 1

Well this website has a list of all Bitcoin addresses and their private keys:

<http://directory.io/>

Of course this is a joke, and it doesn't really have them, it just generates them on request.

If you want it to match the exact address - it's far better to just edit the .cl kernel file so that it will verify the public key directly instead of converting it to an address and then comparing it. This would also increase the rate with which it is finding keys.

That said - this exercise is futile, as it is virtually impossible to stumble on the same private key as someone else.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2014-02-02. Score: 1

The basic answer is: "It's not impossible" but "It's improbable" to do so. You'll make more BTC's on average mining, rather than trying to crack a public address with a vanity generator.

Like username_1 said, the possibility of finding the same address is: **1 to 4.6 x 10^172**

While getting struck by lightning twice is: **1 to 3.6 x 10^11**

Statistically talking, you'll probably die before you can even come close finding the same public address.

Kudos,

-Beşir


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### Answer by username_4 on 2017-08-17. Score: 0

I see everyone's answers are more about how it's unlikely to be done and not about exactly how to enter an address to match without an error since the prefix cannot be an entire address I've noticed. I have been looking for the same thing to make sure I'm doing it right but I believe you use -r (space) (address you want to match) hit enter. It doesn't give you a time or how long only how many keys per second it's going through, which is a lot, and how many total have been covered.


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