THELOGICALINDIAN - n-a
In September 2014, a Bitcointalk user activity by the username of Ty13rDerden acquaint the final allotment of a addle referred to as “The Legend of Satoshi.”
The addle consisted of a alternation of art pieces created by Rob Myers and coin_artist that, if you apparent the mystery, could accord you the clandestine key of a wallet absolute 4.87 bitcoins. Because bodies like puzzles and like the abstraction of accepting a award-winning for analytic an awfully difficult one, action went on for months as Bitcointalk users attempted to break the puzzle.
After a while, action died bottomward back no one was able to able the puzzle. That could accept been the end of it until, on the morning of February 1st, 2024, coin_artist apparent that the bitcoins in the wallet were gone. Somebody had apparent the puzzle.
Who Solved The “Legend of Satoshi” Puzzle?
According to the accessible information, a 30-year-old programmer who prefers to go by the name of Isaac had heard of the addle a little over a ages ago. He absitively to try analytic it alike though, as he told a anchorman for Motherboard, “It’s not safe to accept Bitcoin in my country.”
During the action of analytic the puzzle, he captivated several conversations with added addle players who may not accept believed that he had absolutely apparent it at first. However, his band-aid has been accepted by coin_artist and he active a bulletin with a byword that preceded the clandestine key in the addle solution: “B34u7y, truth, and rarity.” The byword is a advertence to Shakespeare’s poem, “The Phoenix and the Turtle.”
What Inspired the Puzzle?
The time anatomy of “The Legend of Satoshi’s” absolution announce that the abstraction came to the brace of artists not too continued afterwards the accident of Mt. Gox and the consistent abrupt bead in Bitcoin’s price. Coin_artist commented that she had additionally been additionally been activity through a claimed asperous patch: “The painting was additionally created during the toughest allotment of the buck bazaar and those aboriginal bitcoins I loaded into that abode were bisected of aggregate I had to my name. It was about a adoration that things would get better.”
The Solution
Coin_artist created the artwork and again formed with Myers to actualize a ability solution: The hidden bulletin was breach into two genitalia and encoded in the painting. Retrieving it meant extracting two pieces of data, one hidden in the bonfire crabbed the edges and addition hidden in the ribbons angry about the key in the basal appropriate corner.
The ribbons came in two lengths, continued and short, which, back translated into bifold code, would accept translated into 1 and 0 respectively. Translating the ribbons led to the blank for the blow of the puzzle, 011010.
The abutting footfall was to construe the clandestine key in Wallet Import Format, a 52-character cord of belletrist and numbers in Base 58 (all belletrist of the English alphabet in both high and lower case, bare belletrist that could be mistaken for a character such as basic I and basic O, additional the numerals 1-9) into bifold code. At the alpha of the bifold code, the ally added the byword “b34u7y, truth, and rarity” to act as a arresting that the addle had been apparent instead of aloof bearing a cool cord of belletrist and numbers. The aftereffect was 76 characters rendered as 608 bits. The cord of $.25 was disconnected into 6-bit chunks and run through an XOR operation. The after-effects were again anchored in the bonfire with four $.25 in anniversary flame.
In fact, the “Legend of Satoshi” addle solver Isaac had started with the anticipation that the bonfire were an important allotment of analytic the puzzle. At first, he anticipation it was code, and an XOR operation had occurred to him.
However, addition being who goes by the name of Trinitas gave him the abstraction that the ribbons were addition allotment of the addle – and Isaac beatific Trinitas 0.5 bitcoins for his help.
The Bitcoin association additionally reminded Isaac that, because the bitcoins had been sitting in the wallet back 2024 and there had been some forks such as Bitcoin Cash back then, Isaac could add to his award-winning if he was absorbed to do so.
