🪙 Dormant Bitcoin Hunter

An educational, multi-process Bitcoin private key generator and dormant address hunter written in Python.

Dormant Bitcoin Hunter generates random 256-bit Bitcoin private keys, derives both their compressed and uncompressed public addresses (legacy P2PKH), and matches them in real time against a target dataset of ~42,400 high-value dormant Bitcoin addresses (derived from early Bitcoin blocks and the BitInfoCharts Dormant List). If a match is found, it queries the live blockchain balance, writes the key pair to disk, and can optionally dispatch an instant email alert via SMTP.

This project is inspired by Henshall/BitcoinPrivateKeyHunter and dodiitt/bitcoin_finder_python, with enhancements for correctness and multiprocessing throughput.

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Note

Cryptographic Feasibility & The Law of Large Numbers: The Bitcoin private keyspace is $2^{256}$ ($\approx 1.15 \times 10^{77}$ combinations). Even generating tens of thousands of keys per second across multiple machines, the probability of finding a collision with an existing address is astronomically close to zero. This project is created for educational and experimental purposes to explore cryptography, key derivation, and multiprocessing.

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✨ Features

• High-Performance C Engine: Powered by Bitcoin Core's native libsecp256k1 (via coincurve), chunked CSPRNG entropy buffering, and pre-compiled 20-byte binary hash160 lookups, delivering 850,000+ keys/sec and 1,700,000+ addr/sec across multi-core systems.
• Rich Terminal Dashboard (TUI): Real-time, sticky ANSI terminal interface featuring visual CPU utilization bars, per-core load sparklines, RAM usage, live keys/sec and addr/sec throughput, cycle progress bar, and a live rolling activity ticker.
• Dual Address Derivation: Derives both compressed and uncompressed public key addresses per generated private key, doubling search coverage against early Bitcoin wallets (2009–2012 era) with virtually zero performance penalty.
• Multi-Process Concurrency: Automatically detects and saturates all available CPU cores with minimal inter-process lock contention.
• Graceful Shutdown & Controls: Press q or Ctrl+C at any point to stop all parallel workers cleanly without tracebacks, restoring terminal state and displaying final metrics.
• Fast Lookups: Utilizes $O(1)$ set lookups against 42,000+ dormant addresses.
• Cryptographically Secure RNG: Uses Python's os.urandom(32) to generate unbiased 256-bit entropy.
• Balance Verification: Live balance queries on hits via bitcoinlib.
• Instant Alerts: Configurable SMTP email notifications with TLS.
• Continuous Execution: Included shell and batch scripts for 24/7 background operation.

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🖥️ Terminal Dashboard

When running hunt.py, the terminal provides a live, non-scrolling dashboard:

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                     🪙  DORMANT BITCOIN HUNTER                     ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

  Status:  ● HUNTING               Workers: 16 processes (libsecp256k1)
  Targets: 42,425 addresses loaded Matches: 0
  Cycle Progress: [███████████░░░░░░░░░░░░] 00:30 / 01:00 (50%)
  Controls: Press [q] or [Ctrl+C] to stop gracefully

  ┌─ SYSTEM UTILIZATION ──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  CPU Usage:  [███████████████████████░]  97.2%                    │
  │  Per-Core:   [████████████████] (16 Cores)                        │
  │  RAM Usage:  [███████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░]  44.8% (56.4G / 128.0G)   │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  ┌─ SEARCH THROUGHPUT ───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  Keys Rate:        867,360 keys/sec                               │
  │  Address Rate:   1,734,720 addr/sec (compressed + uncompressed)   │
  │  Total Keys:    26,020,800                                        │
  │  Total Addrs:   52,041,600                                        │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  ┌─ LIVE ACTIVITY SAMPLE ────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  Private Key:  ba67e0daa1...87e71700cc                            │
  │  Address (C):  1BLcP3j9Ug5Tf5NfuX1iQt6N6dygvBLCMq                 │
  │  Address (U):  1Kn8AeKFWQWYmqJ6xYyA3Q8bzQvnXwbVS5                 │
  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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🚀 Quick Start

1. Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+ (tested up to Python 3.13)
• pip

2. Installation

Clone the repository and set up a virtual environment:

git clone https://github.com/mkhaled87/DormantBitcoinHunter.git
cd DormantBitcoinHunter

# Create and activate virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Configuration

Copy the example configuration file:

cp env.example env.py

Edit env.py to match your preferences:

• MAX_SECONDS: Duration of each hunt cycle before reporting key generation rates.
• NUM_INSTANCES: Number of worker processes (0 = auto-detect all CPU cores).
• SEND_EMAILS: Set to True if you want email alerts on a match (requires SMTP credentials).

4. Running the Hunter

Single Timed Run:

python3 hunt.py

Continuous Mode:

• Linux / macOS:

  chmod +x run_forever.sh
  ./run_forever.sh

• Windows:

  run_forever.bat

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⚙️ Configuration Reference

All settings are configured inside env.py:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
NUM_INSTANCES	integer	0	Number of parallel worker processes (0 uses all detected CPU cores).
MAX_SECONDS	integer	60	Duration (in seconds) of each execution cycle before printing statistics.
OUT_FILE	string	"./keys-found.txt"	File destination where matched private keys and balances are saved.
SEND_EMAILS	boolean	True	Whether to send an email alert when a match is found.
SEND_TO	list	["email@email.com"]	Recipient email address(es).
SEND_FROM	string	"email@email.com"	Sender email address.
USER	string	"email@email.com"	SMTP username.
PASS	string	"password_goes_here"	SMTP password or app password.
SMTP_HOST	string	"my_smtp.host.com"	SMTP relay server host.
SMTP_PORT	integer	587	SMTP port (typically 587 for STARTTLS).

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📊 How It Works

flowchart TD
    A["os.urandom(32)"] --> B["256-bit Private Key"]
    B --> C1["Compressed P2PKH Address"]
    B --> C2["Uncompressed P2PKH Address"]
    C1 --> D{"In Dormant Addresses List?"}
    C2 --> D
    D -- No --> E["Increment Counter & Loop"]
    E --> A
    D -- Yes --> F["Query Live Balance (bitcoinlib)"]
    F --> G["Append to keys-found.txt"]
    G --> H{"SEND_EMAILS enabled?"}
    H -- Yes --> I["Send SMTP Email Alert"]
    H -- No --> J["Continue Searching"]
    I --> J

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☕ Donations

If you find this project interesting or educational, feel free to support:

• BTC: 1MKHALEDqXhBzqa86hj8FbDGW5HvDdA5Tq
• ETH: 0x14551935EDf4aF06909336084412dd805aE14b26

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⚖️ Disclaimer

This software is provided for educational, research, and entertainment purposes only. The author accepts no responsibility for any misuse, damage, or loss resulting from running or modifying this software.