So, I did a thing recently! I’ve been diving deep into a fascinating corner of the Bitcoin world and ended up building something pretty cool: a bitcoin-lottery server and client. You can actually check it out yourself right here: [https://scratchoff.chaoscorestorm.com/](https://scratchoff.chaoscorestorm.com/)
The concept behind this project comes from a real-world puzzle game. There are a bunch of bitcoin wallets out there that were seeded with increasing amounts of BTC, each one progressively harder to find. The lowest wallet currently holds a whopping 7.1 BTC, which is about $450,000 USD at current rates! The challenge is simple: be the first to find the private key, and the prize is yours. My project is an attempt to make finding that needle in a haystack a little more accessible (though still incredibly difficult, as you’ll see).
My solution is a GPU-based miner paired with a server. Here’s how it works: the client requests a ‘ticket’ from my server, which is randomly generated. Each of these tickets holds a massive 36 billion possible keys for your GPU to scan through. To give you a sense of scale, my personal GPU churns through keys at about 300 million keys per second. I’ve configured the system so that if your GPU is hitting around 200 million keys per second, it’ll take you roughly 3 minutes to ‘scratch off’ a single ticket completely. Once a ticket is scanned, your client checks if any keys matched, and then it requests a new ticket to continue the hunt.
Now, here’s the kicker on the scale of this whole endeavor: there are over 32 *billion* tickets in total, each containing those 36 billion keys. So, yes, the chances of you finding the correct key are astronomically close to zero. But, and this is the exciting part, the key *is* in there. Someone, eventually, will find it.
It’s a really fun project and a neat way to put your GPU to work, especially if you want to warm your room up a bit and, you know, maybe win half a million dollars? Seriously, it’s a long shot but a technically possible one. I also put together a browser-based version for those who just want to peek in. This version doesn’t use the ticket logic but still checks random keys. Just a heads-up: if you try it on your phone, it will absolutely eat your battery! So, if this sounds like a fun long-shot to you, definitely take a look!
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