How it works
From a trade on pump.fun to a key checked on a GPU.
The whole project is one loop. Here is each step, what happens in it, and how you can check that it happened.
The loopFees in, keys out.
- 1
Fees collect
pump.fun pays the token creator a fee on every trade. Those fees land in the public treasury wallet listed on the token page.
- 2
Compute is rented
Treasury funds are spent on GPU rentals from cloud marketplaces. Each rental gets an entry in the readout.
- 3
Ranges are searched
Each rental is given its own slice of the keyspace, so no key is checked twice and progress adds up.
- 4
The budget burns down
Each batch runs until its dollars are used up. Its keys are then frozen into the total and the next batch picks up the next slice.
What the GPUs actually do
Puzzle #71's private key is a number between 0x400000000000000000 and 0x7fffffffffffffffff. That's 270 numbers, or about 1.18 sextillion.
For each candidate number, a GPU computes the matching Bitcoin public key, hashes it, and compares the result to the puzzle address's hash. A match means the number is the key. A modern GPU like the RTX 4090 runs a few billion of these checks per second using open-source tools such as VanitySearch or KeyHunt-Cuda forks.
There is no shortcut for this puzzle. The faster "kangaroo" method only works when a puzzle's public key has been revealed on-chain, and #71's never has. So it's straight counting: try every key in a range, move to the next range.
How ranges are assigned
The keyspace is cut into fixed slices. Each rental gets the next unused slice, and that slice is written into its entry in the readout. Because slices never overlap, the "keyspace searched" figure is real progress, not double counting. If a rental is cut short, the unfinished part of its slice is reassigned.
What happens if the key is found
- The sweep is sent privately. Spending from the puzzle address reveals its public key. With only 70 bits of secret, bots can recover the key from that public key within minutes and race the transaction. This is a known risk; puzzle #66's claim in 2024 was reportedly raced this way. So the sweep goes straight to a mining pool through a private submission service, never through the public mempool.
- The BTC lands in a published wallet. The receiving address is posted here and on X the moment the sweep confirms, so anyone can watch it.
- A holder snapshot is taken at a block announced at least 24 hours ahead.
- The prize is paid out to snapshot holders in proportion to their holdings, as wrapped BTC on Solana. Details are on the token page.
How to check our work
Every number on the readout comes from one public data file. Each compute purchase lists its budget, provider, GPU count, speed and start time, and the site calculates everything else from those. Compare the claimed spend with the treasury wallet's outgoing payments on Solscan. If the two ever drift apart, ask about it publicly.