
310 Bitcoin challenge has been solved - kwikiel
https://bitcoinchallenge.codes/
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modeless
I like how bitcoin enables people to set up puzzle bounties like this. Looks
like there's a subreddit for it:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinpuzzles/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinpuzzles/)

I might monitor that sub for more bounties, I had no idea there was one this
large floating around.

~~~
jliptzin
The problem with these puzzles is that you never know if it's actually
solvable until it's solved. The author of the puzzle could store any number of
bitcoins in some wallet, publish a difficult but unrelated puzzle with the
claim that the solution reveals the private keys to the wallet, then laugh
while the internet goes on a wild goose chase. It's even more likely since the
author is usually anonymous (obviously for good reason). They're fun to ponder
over a little, but I'd never invest more time (or money) than I could afford
to lose into any of these, no matter the prize.

~~~
pred_
Another problem is that even if the puzzle is legit, you can't claim your
prize without wrecking havoc on the environment in the process. At an
estimated 850 kWh [0] per transaction, you would need to have a pretty good
excuse for performing transactions at all.

[0]: [https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-
consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

~~~
ikt
Except that the overwhelming majority of mining is done in China and the power
is supplied by hydro.

~~~
twanvl
Over half the electricity in China is generated with coal
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China)).

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zawerf
Is there a discussion thread somewhere?

There are 18 three digit hexadecimals in the puzzle. If the answer is a
permutation of these, then that's just 18 factorial which is 6.4 * 10^15. That
is totally bruteforcable without even thinking about the puzzle (and totally
worth spinning up a cluster for).

I don't know anything about bitcoin though and 54 characters seems too short
to be a private key? You can also brute force 10 more interspersed characters
for a slowdown factor of 16^10 * (64 choose 10) = 9.9 * 10^15. So then it's a
total cost of 6.3*10^31. Still bruteforceable but more expensive if you're
wrong about it.

~~~
ytlty
From the reddit thread, there's some information on how the basic wallet was
solved.:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nUAhlC_n21ZLZcRAHpLw9G--...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nUAhlC_n21ZLZcRAHpLw9G
--gpk4NUVIJqVp9F68qp4/preview)

~~~
zawerf
Man I was totally off on how those hexes are used. Thanks for the link!

~~~
Kiro
Also, that's just for the basic wallet with 0.1 BTC in it.

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walrus01
At today's rate that is about $1.89 million of btc. Why would someone give
away nearly $2m of btc as a publicity stunt?

~~~
mrep
Maybe they didn't. They could have just drained it from their own wallet to
another wallet they own to troll people into working on their puzzle even
though they don't plan on giving it up.

~~~
walrus01
If that's what they did, seems like a very cheap way to collect the
names/social media profiles/email addresses of all the people discussing the
puzzle. Now somebody has a list of at least several thousand profiles who've
shared tweets regarding it, sent emails to the info@ address, and can collate
it against other lists of persons or pseudonyms interested in both
cryptocurrency and this sort of online puzzle.

~~~
swerveonem
You are devious. Then execute a massive spearfishing attack.

~~~
joncrane
Or use it as a hiring pool if you're an organization that is recruiting
excellent code breakers.

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quickthrower2
Worth more than a pre-shredded Banksy, and looks better too!

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savethefuture
Well that didn't last long. I see the btc has been drained but who solved it,
and where is the solution, will there be one?

~~~
InterestBazinga
According to the author, there will be one after someone solves the 0.31 BTC
puzzle.

"I will most certainly do so <provide a solution> but at this moment the 0.31
BTC wallet is still unsolved. I'm surprised because I thought the solution to
the 310 BTC wallet was the most complex one." \- author

~~~
rocqua
Fits with the conspiracy theory that the 310BTC key wasn't actually in the
picture, and the puzzle author just withdrew the money himself. This gives an
excuse for not telling a solution, which would hide the fact that there is no
solution.

~~~
HAL9000Ti
Or fits the obvious assumption that 99% of people and effort were focused on
the 310BTC challenge over the .3 one

~~~
rocqua
If I'd focus on the 310, I'd probably do the .3 one first as 'training'. Then
again, I hate puzzles so I am probably not representative.

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ttoinou
They should do this when a new Project Euler problems comes out :)

[https://projecteuler.net/recent](https://projecteuler.net/recent)

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nathan_f77
Wow, that's a huge prize. And that puzzle was insanely difficult, I'm very
impressed that someone was able to solve it.

I had a lot of fun making a Bitcoin "treasure hunt" last year [1], and I'm
going to do another one in the next few months. I think this time it will be
more of a coding challenge than a puzzle. And I'm only giving away $500, not
$2M! But if that sounds fun, you can sign up for the mailing list at the
bottom. I'll also be posting it on
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinpuzzles/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinpuzzles/)

[1] [https://formapi.io/blog/posts/bitcoin-treasure-
hunt/](https://formapi.io/blog/posts/bitcoin-treasure-hunt/)

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colemannugent
I love these kinds of puzzles. Can't wait for the write-up of the solution.

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mikorym
Does anyone know how long this puzzle had been up?

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blain
At the very bottom of the site it says:

> Puzzle start: October 2 2018

~~~
mikorym
Cool thanks. Seems like the puzzle was not difficult enough for the force of
the internet?

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nimmen
To take this idea further... Wonder if it would be possible to click/mine-bait
to alternative "branch" consensus :)

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vladislav
One can think of many better ways to harness human intelligence than work on
an arbitrary puzzle... unless this is an interview for something much bigger.

~~~
Alex3917
I mean pretty much the only math that didn't come from arbitrary puzzle
solving was that which was done for religious purposes, and that stuff powers
pretty much all of modern society.

~~~
Nuzzerino
Religious purposes? I'm curious to know what you meant specifically.
Metaphysics?

~~~
Alex3917
Geometry, calculus, set theory, etc.

~~~
gjm11
In what sense was all that done "for religious purposes"?

The ancient Greeks developed a ton of geometry. I'm not sure how we could ever
know for sure why they did it, but a clue might be in the name of the field:
geo-metria, earth-measurement. (And it's known that some of them made use of
geometry for practical purposes, or at least proposed doing so.)

Newton (so far as I can tell) developed calculus in order to do physics.
Neither arbitrary puzzle-solving nor religion (though I'm sure Newton enjoyed
solving puzzles and he was a religious believer).

Cantor certainly had some peculiar religious ideas that may have motivated his
work on the beginnings of set theory. On the other hand, his first publication
on the subject _looks_ as if its goal is to provide a beautiful short proof of
a theorem already proved by Liouville (on the existence of transcendental
numbers); I suppose you could call that a "puzzle" on the grounds that
everything in pure mathematics is puzzles, but I think Cantor would have
viewed it as a practical application -- in the sense that it's useful for
something else in mathematics. Puzzle-solving, perhaps, but not _arbitrary_
puzzle-solving.

