To be clear, they can prove that they have access to the keys to a wallet that has the amount of bitcoin they say they have without giving any information out as to what the keys to the wallet actually are.
They haven't done that or even said what wallet the keys go to. I'd guess that this is a hoax.
Pardon me if my question is dumb, but why did OP share this methodology? Could he not have continued with this for the rest of the keys once they are accessible? Don't you need all of the keys to get a million dollars, or am I missing something?
The later keys are expected to be harder, so if someone is able to get 400 of them total, it would be very surprising if they were stuck on one of these first three.
I know John Cantrell is a common name, but someone by that name solving this strange puzzle and that person having such a recent twitter and github origination date just raises a few hmmmmmms in my head.
Ah yes when the Nakamoto Scheme (name courtesy of https://prestonbyrne.com/2017/12/08/bitcoin_ponzi/ ) begins to run out of steam, of course those with stakes need to do something to get the scam back on track. And HN fell for it, hook line and sinker.
The Washington Post had it right in 2015 even though they didn't even use the neologism "hodl":
> - Hey, do you want to hear about the future? It's a digital currency called Bitcoin that lets you spend or move your money online without paying any fees. - Sounds great. How does it do that? - Well, Bitcoin saves you money by making transactions irreversible. - So ... if I get scammed, I got scammed? There's nothing I can do about it? - Yes. - Okay, but is it at least easy to use? - The thing is, I don't actually use it. I just hoard it. I'm waiting for some greater fools to push up the price by using theirs. - Oh. - Yeah. So you should buy some Bitcoins and use yours.
I don't see HN falling for anything, unless you mean this submission appearing on the front page. In which case I see someone showing how a lame cryptocurrency treasure hunt used cryptography badly, making the challenge easy to solve without waiting for hints to be provided.
The most interesting part for me is actually that dictionary attacks are easy enough that you can use a Ruby script to get it done in a few seconds.
The flavor text provided by the organizers made it sound like they intended there to be an easier solution - that way you only need to visit a location in one of North America, Europe, or Asia to solve the first three keys.
Talking about irreversible transactions as if they're objectively bad is intellectually dishonest. Chargebacks are a real issue for many genuine sellers and crypto offers perfect protection for them. If you don't trust the seller then use alternative methods, but this type of transaction is for a niche that needs to be filled.
Yes, and cash is irreversible too. A large part of the world still runs on cash and it works just fine.
Chargeback rates vary a lot by country too so this is not as much of a problem everywhere. And with 3-D Secure authentication it's already much harder to get your money back.
> Is drumming up more interest in bitcoin enough of a goal?
If you have many millions of dollars in bitcoin, or are a consortium that does, how do you remove any sizable chunk of that money without tanking the market? One way might be to get people interested, and wanting to buy bitcoins, which allows bitcoins to be liquidated easier without affecting the market.
Does this accomplish that, and how large does the amount of money that needs to be moved need to be before wasting one million worth of it to manipulate the market with no guaranteed payout becomes worth it? I have no idea. It's a fun story though, and ultimately, that's what bitcoin is best at. Providing interesting stories.
How does a CEO of a company turn their stock into a bunch of cash without tanking their stock price? Selling after a bad quarter makes it look like things are dire. If you can't perform well, make everyone think you are going to perform well. Anyone that wants to make a profit off of bitcoin needs to hype it up as much as possible
Bitcoin has a $12 billion volume in just the last 24 hours. You will need to sell off quite a few million very quickly to have any significant impact on the market, even when considering the fact that much of it is being wash traded.
I wouldn't consider it a scam unless the puzzle is determined to be unsolvable or they fail to pay out the winner. Websites run contests all the time, and there are multiple ways to monetize a contest like this. For example, this will generate traffic and links to the domain which should increase resale value.
