Ethereum Wallet Keyed to 6969 Drew Three Pending Transactions

A wallet on Ethereum associated with private key number 6969 received about $1 in Ether on Oct. 21, drawing three pending transactions that Austin Griffith described as attempts to steal the funds.

The 0.0004 Ether (ETH) deposit arrived at 4:35 p.m. ET (20:35 UTC). Twelve seconds later, in the next block, a transaction signed with the same key moved the funds out. Most of the deposit went to network fees. Transactions from three other addresses followed, and two failed.

“As soon as the dollar landed, there were three transactions in the mempool pending trying to steal it,” Griffith of the Ethereum Foundation said on Oct. 21. A private key is the secret that authorizes transactions from a wallet.

Addresses associated with every integer private key from 1 through 255 had already sent transactions on Ethereum mainnet. Griffith said wallets with 10-digit keys were drained “right away,” while a 12-digit test had not been drained during the discussion.

Griffith also said he had seeded keys with 14 and 16 digits but did not identify their values. The podcast hosts planned to check those tests the following week.