Ravencoin — You’re So Vain
I bet you think this post is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?
Have you ever wanted to make a special address with your name or handle to store your Ravencoin? Now you can with Vanity Addresses.
How do vanity addresses work? Addresses are generated from your private key which is just a very very large random number. So to make a special address with your name we make up a random number and turn it into an address, and check if it starts with the letters of your name. Most of the time it won't. Repeat millions or billions of times until you find your personalized vanity address.
Here’s a vanity address for RVN Guy:
RVNGuyEE9nBUt6aQbwVAhvEjcw7D3c6p2K
And here is the corresponding private key to spend from it.
5HsFQuZLDY3CzdU4zErupH3DccxTaRnRPfbN9FaTp63FzbzrZcs
This was made using vanitygen-plus. This program will let you specify the special letters you want. Of course, there are some limits, you can only choose about 5 to 7 letters.
Here’s the program on my github. It has the binary for Mac in the binaries/mac folder.
https://github.com/TronBlack/vanitygen-plusHere’s how you make an address similar to the one above on the Mac:
./vanitygen -C RVN RVNGuyThe -C RVN tells the program to generate a Ravencoin address. The RVNGuy says what to look for at the beginning of the address. The first letter must be an R to be a valid Ravencoin address, and the second letter has some limitations also like it can be a 9, or A-Z.
Running this command will start checking addresses at over 1 million times per second. For the command above, it will only take a couple of minutes to find one.
If you add one more letter, like RVNGuyM, then it will take about two hours instead of two minutes. For every letter you add, it will take 58 times longer. The first R is free (no time), but each letter you add after that will take 58 times longer. Why 58? Because the addresses are encoded in Base58, so there are possible 58 letters. It is making addresses really fast and checking if they match your requirements.
You can’t add the address to your mobile wallet, but you can import it into the core wallet.
You can make a paper wallet with your special new address. Go to a safe paper wallet generator and paste in the private key (starts with 5) and it automatically calculates the address with your special characters. (Note: I had a paper wallet generator linked here, but it is gone and the domain was available. I’ve removed the link, as that was a very dangerous situation.)
Now you can safely store your RVN until you need them. Someday when you need to transfer your RVN, you can import into the core wallet, or sweep them into your mobile wallet.
Update
After publishing, I got some questions. I’m making this update to answer those questions.
Couldn’t I run this program to find the private key for someone’s address that had RVN funds in it?
Yes, you can. The problem isn’t whether it would work. The problem is that unless you’re super lucky, you won’t be alive to steal the RVN with the private key. Why? Because your average lifespan is around 82 years give or take. And finding a private key with a pretty fast CPU checking keys at over a million per second, it will take approximately 2.8015*10³³ years. For the “I hate math” people, that’s 2,801,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. That’s long enough that even if you eat healthy and exercise regularly, it’s not going to make that much difference.
What about faster computers and GPUs?
Yes, those will make some difference. But let’s say you can get a million times faster, and you can buy a million of those rigs and let’s assume that doesn’t cost you more than what you’re trying to steal. That’ll knock off 12 zeros. You’re all the way down to 2,801,500,000,000,000,000,000 years. Odds are that you’ll still be dead.
Couldn’t I get lucky?
Yes, you can. You could find it on the first try and then live in the lap of luxury for the remainder of your 82 years.
Plus, if you’re that lucky, you and I should go to Las Vegas.
Your local lottery, which is really a tax on people who are bad at math, has far better odds and often generates revenue for education.