Automated Bots Sweep Weak Ethereum Private Key Within Twelve Seconds, Experiment Shows

Automated sweeper bots can detect and drain Ethereum wallets secured by weak private keys within 12 seconds, according to an experiment by Ethereum Foundation developer Austin Griffith. Griffith deposited 0.0004 Ether, worth about $1, into a wallet generated from the private key 6969 on October 21. Three competing pending transactions immediately flooded the mempool, and the funds were swept in the very next block while consuming most of the value in gas fees. The test demonstrated that keys up to 10 digits face immediate drainage, while all keys from 1 through 255 have mainnet transaction history.