Mystery Bitcoin Challenge: $500 at Stake

I’ve stashed away $500 in bitcoin using a legacy address. The private key? It's the SHA-256 hash of a random file from a Windows XP installation disc. Sounds wild, right? It shouldn’t take forever to crack it.

Check this out, it might help: If it’s Service Pack 3, then it’s got a ton more files than SP2 or the original RTM version. Also, different editions like Home, Pro, Media Center, and Tablet have some unique files too.

So basically, we gotta sift through all the XP versions, huh?

The search is pretty quick, just a hash and a binary search. The real hitch is writing the script for it without being sure there's a reward waiting.

Once I get my custom bitcoin client synced up (made it all with AI), I’ll get into this puzzle.

Updates: 155k blocks synced 200k blocks synced, db size is 4.78GB 225k blocks synced, my wallet’s sluggish, switching to bitcoin core... 230k blocks synced 400k blocks synced 416k blocks synced hit the sack, will pick back up tomorrow 516k blocks synced back to bed again, tomorrow it is.

Got the address for this?

Here’s my sha256 to WIF code: I think OP meant to use uncompressed WIF since it's a legacy address.

I’m calling hoax. I’ve tried 100k compressed/uncompressed legacy addresses overnight, nothing found. Each ISO has about 7000 files. Didn’t even dedupe the hashes, some files are unchanged.

So where do we grab that file?

Address?

When I see threads like this, I’m like damn, why did I give up on CSS and Python? Most coders probably won’t tackle this unless they whip up a script for fun. But, a few might doubt it’s legit ‘cause it’s from a newbie. It’d help if he dropped an address to show there’s actually some funds in play. Kudos to whoever wants to take this on.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone, but I’m skeptical about OP’s claims. It’s pretty rare for a newbie to set up such a puzzle with real money on the line. Happy to be proven wrong though, especially since there’s no address given.