Hey everyone, hope you're all doing well...
I'm looking into the origins of the Bitcoin address `1GBkEEtpPebeA3VfFLiCFeRTDuXsdFBBpF`. It doesn't have any transaction history and was created as a time-locked address. If anyone has ideas or tips on figuring out which platform might have generated this address, I would really appreciate it. Feel free to share your thoughts and any extra info in the comments.
Thanks!
An address is derived from a private key. And a private key is obtained (in the same way, always) from a random number from an immense interval of possibilities.
So what you are asking for is basically to find out which device have obtained, randomly, a certain big number.
Nope, you cannot find that out. Sorry.
In addition to what NeuroticFish posted already, the address has not be used before. If you meant the platform that generated the address like the centralized exchanges, there is possibility that it can be known if the address as been used before, but the address has not been used before.
If it is a noncustodial wallet address and it has been used before or not, you can not know the wallet that generated the address.
Also, exchange addresses can't even be used for timelock, if it was with the seed phrase, I think it might be possible to guess which wallet possibly generate it, especially since electrum seed phrase is often unique.
So if the wallet address is for Op, I think he/she may be able to try this method, and this is if the private key or seed phrase is available.
Ps: you don't share your seed phrase or private key online or with anyone.
Well like others have mentioned you can't tell which exchange owns an address just by having the address. Addresses that are tagged to some exchanges are as a result of them being used multiple times for things the relate a lot to that exchange or they publicly make it known. What you can easily tell main looking at an address is if it's legacy or any of the SEGWIT versions.
Also knowing how the address was generated is difficult if you don't have the seed phrase or private key because it's when the wallet software runs the checksum data and verifies it as a Valid checksum that you can tell if it's a custom ELECTRUM address or you regular BIP39 HD wallet as the case may be.
You can't just identify any BTC address which wallet was this address generated.
If you own this address and want to recover it, why not open all the wallets you listed above? You just need to check them one by one in the addresses tab and look for similar address.
However, if you do not own this address, you cannot simply find where it was generated, as others have stated above.
There is no way to tell which wallet was used to create an address. It could even has been created manually without the use of any automated tool. What really matters if you have its private key.
Besides and afaik, a timelocked address must be a scripthash (p2sh) address. It cant start with "1" (p2pkh).
The public key of the address you shared might have been used to create a timelocked address, though.
The legacy address couldve been created with any wallet but the tool used to generate the timelocked address is most likely coinb.in. Its just a guess, though.
Where did you create the time-locked address? If it was Coinb.in, then you might have used their suggestion to generate a public key on their website that can be used to unlock the time locked funds.
This is the only clue that you left in your post.
To create the redeem script of a "Time-Locked Address", the owner should be able to export that unused address' public key.
Given that, it can't be a custodial wallet or exchange where pubKeys cannot be exported.
But that's where your search ends since there's no available data that can identify the origin of the wallet that generated its private key.
Services that do that are using "educated guesswork" at best, based from heuristics that could link addresses together that may point to a known address of a platform.
That method can't be used without any transaction history.
Bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger but it only has record of a Bitcoin address if it has transactions. An addresss was generated but was not used for any Bitcoin transaction, has no information for the public ledger or Bitcoin block explorer to check.
For example, you can open your wallet, and get many new address.
In Bitcoin Core, click on Receive, Receive New Receiving Address, you can do it many times.
In Electrum wallet, click on Receive tab, you will see a long list of Bitcoin addresses.
If a Bitcoin address has past transactions, you can check originality of these coins with
https://walletexplorer.com/
https://intel.arkm.com/
No, those tools don't work in that way. As already said by others, there is no way to know which address has been generated by each software.
All walletexplorer does is that it links addresses that are co-spent in a transaction.
It's only partially true. You could set nLockTime on TX, to determine when the UTXO can be spend. And these days, you also can use P2WSH and P2TR to generate timelocked adddress.