Mission Impossible: Can You Send One Satoshi to Every Bitcoin Address?

In 2020, the crypto community was thrilled when Ethereum successfully completed its transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model. However, one question lingered on many minds: Can you send one satoshi to every Bitcoin address ever used?

Ethereum’s new PoS consensus is an interesting development because it allows validators to secure the network by staking their own cryptocurrencies, rather than relying on an energy-intensive mining process. However, this change does not allow for the automatic sending of small amounts of cryptocurrency, such as one satoshi (0.0001 BTC), to any existing Bitcoin address.

Bitcoin Address Database

To answer this question, we need to understand how the Bitcoin network handles addresses. There are over 6 million unique addresses on the blockchain, each associated with a specific private key and public address. These addresses can be thought of as «used addresses».

In Bitcoin, new addresses are generated by hashing a user’s private key, which is then added to the end of the previous hash. This process continues until no new addresses can be created. But there is another layer of complexity: bitcoin-merkle trees.

Merkle tree

A Merkle tree is a data structure that allows for efficient storage and retrieval of hashes. Each address is hashed once, and then multiple hashes are generated using the hash name of each intermediate hash (known as a «leaf» hash). This process creates a tree structure in which each node represents a hash.

Bitcoin-merkle trees store the entire Bitcoin blockchain in a way that allows for fast retrieval and efficient storage. As new addresses are generated, the Merkle tree is updated by appending a new private key to its corresponding leaf hashes.

Sending one satoshi to each address

Assuming an infinite supply of satoshis, it is theoretically possible to send one satoshi to each existing Bitcoin address using Ethereum’s PoS model. However, there are several issues and complications that make this task impractical:

• Network Capacity: The Bitcoin network has a limited capacity for transactions and block creation. Sending one satoshi to each address would require enormous computing power and energy, well beyond current limits.

• Transaction Fees: As you mentioned, transaction fees can be extremely high due to the complexity of the Ethereum blockchain and the confirmation time required. Therefore, it is difficult to justify sending small amounts, such as one satoshi, to each address.

• Block Size Limits: The block size limit on the Bitcoin network (1 MB) limits the number of transactions that can fit into a single block. Sending one satoshi to each address would require thousands of blocks, each containing billions of transactions.

Expected Number of Addresses

To get an idea of ​​how many addresses exist, we need to consider the total number of unique addresses created since the first block was mined in 2009:

• Bitcoin has been around for over 13 years.

• Each new address is generated by hashing a private key.

• Since there are approximately 6 million unique addresses on the blockchain and a rough estimate that 10% of them are minted every year (a conservative assumption), we can extrapolate to:

6,000,000 addresses \* 0.1 new addresses per year = 600,000 new addresses per month

600,000 new addresses per month \* 12 months per year ≈ 7,200,000 unique addresses

Conclusion

While it is theoretically possible to send one satoshi to every existing Bitcoin address using Ethereum’s PoS model, the sheer scale of the task makes it impractical and would require an enormous amount of computing power and energy.

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