bitcoin puzzle unsolved since 2015Well, it should come as no surprise that a Bitcoin puzzle is unsolved since 2015 and enthusiasts take a crack at solving the puzzle till date in the hope to cash out the hefty prize money.
The Bitcoin puzzle that came out as a joke in 2005, yes, the one that offered cracking open a couple of loosely interconnected accounts, via their addresses, had about thirty-two (32) Bitcoin to spare for anyone willing enough time and commitment to the cause. The Bitcoins were to grow with the time stream as it kept flowing.
How did it all begin?
All the wallets containing the cryptocurrency have similar addresses. This is the hint to get people working on it. Otherwise, this wild goose chase wouldn’t have attracted much attention.
With a hint to work with and the SHA-256 encryption knowledge by their side, a developer should be ready to take a crack at it. Right? Wrong. Its takes long for our current computers to crack a single strand of an SHA-256 encrypted address, about 0.65 Billion years.
With the availability of the addresses, it becomes easier, but the road to success is still to be wandered over. An anonymous user on the BitcoinTalk forum, Bulista asked for help regarding these addresses for the possible linking.
Bulista has shown proof of the links, but his work of actually cracking them requires more work. However, he did this by employing brute-force using his bot (good thing the SHA-256 framework doesn’t work like the iPhone lock screen and handles brute-force attack just fine).
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has grown quite from that time and so have the Bitcoins in these accounts. As of now, about one hundred and two (102.66) Bitcoins reside in these accounts and account for the total Bitcoin count.
The Bitcoins amount to a price just short of a million ($1M) dollars with each account holding BTC in the range of 0.62 BTC to one (1.60) BTC.
This is not the only puzzle of its kind the cryptocurrency sphere; another puzzle hidden in painting was cracked last year. However, the puzzle was worth only one thousand dollars ($1000)
From Zero to Web3 Pro: Your 90-Day Career Launch Plan
