Bitcoin puzzle transaction ~32 BTC prize to who solves it

[3dmlib]

Bots are fast

Bots are different. They use different endpoints, APIs and algorithms.
This is interesting for me now. Even more interesting than just plain solving puzzle, which I already did a lot.
If nothing changes in puzzle then this bots will be actual many-many years from now.

[HABJo12]

I can solve your pubKey (or any other 75-bit public key for that matter) in at most 10 seconds from the moment it's grabbed from the mempool initial TX.

And the Philosopher, Alberto and Nomachine, they just remain quiet on the topic of bots. Even though they were the first here to discuss it.

There's the semi-ethical issue that some adhere to. In my view, equal to hiding the shit under the carpet and pretending no one smells it. Maybe that works in fiat economy (everyone pretends they're fine though public debt only goes up exponentially), but not with math.

The basis of Bitcoin having any value is properly managing the security of the keys. If one is dumb enough to not grasp this concept, they well deserve their TX to be replaced, because they failed to understand the fundamentals: your key = your money. Not your key, not your money. And it's not your key if you basically spread it to everyone, everywhere.

There's a simple fix for that: don't do it at all. Don't trust Mara? Then don't attempt to solve weak puzzles, just to later complain your investment went down the drain.

   

Dear Sir what us your opinion on using slipstream usage ? Not on the concept but on the website crediibility ? Can you beleive them ?

[mcdouglasx]

There's the semi-ethical issue that some adhere to.

I don't see any ethical issue at all in bot puzzle competition.
I think it even bring more interest to just plain puzzle solving.
All resources about this puzzle have information about this mempool issue.
If solver is just stupid or lazy to read more info, this is his problem.

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

[kTimesG]

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.

Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.

What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.

[mcdouglasx]

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.

Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.

What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

[3dmlib]

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

Online casino is "very ethical" business Playing on poor people souls weaknesses.

[analyticnomad]

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.

Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.

What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

It's clearly unethical/immoral to take anything that belongs to someone else. 'Math' doesn't make it any less of an ethical issue, however, it IS easier to diminish the ethical argument. Most people would quickly return a purse with the money in it if they found it on the ground but have zero issue finding a random key or using a bot to take funds. It seems pretty black and white with blurred lines, which is difficult for me to navigate. If I found some random key with funds in it I would be conflicted. I don't want to be a bad person. There's always someone on the receiving end who would be devastated. For sure it would keep me up at night.

[analyticnomad]

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

Online casino is "very ethical" business Playing on poor people souls weaknesses.

I have to disagree on this one. People don't HAVE to gamble. If you insert the "people are weak" argument, you would have to get rid of almost everything people genuinely enjoy doing. We need to take accountability for our own actions/choices.

[mcdouglasx]

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

Online casino is "very ethical" business Playing on poor people souls weaknesses.

Lol, this is typical kindergarten debate stuff: having no arguments to counter a topic and proceeding with attacks. This is called the ad hominem fallacy.

As for casinos, you're free to open a thread in the Gambling section, or in Meta if you want to complain, but here the discussion is strictly about the thread itself; otherwise, all threads would become a fruit salad.

[Wanderingaran]

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.

Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.

What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.

Take the coins from someone you know and let them know it was you. See if the law says the coins belong to the person with the key. You'll probably be arrested, as is normal for a crime.

What Satoshi said is a philosophical and technical approach to the idea that anyone with your keys can spend them, because that's actually the case. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have ethical and legal implications.

Does anyone really think the creator of this puzzle didn’t anticipate what would happen with any puzzle under 100 bits? I’m still convinced this was a pre-planned scam. Unless the puzzle’s creator personally convinces me here otherwise.

[Akito S. M. Hosana]

Unless the puzzle’s creator personally convinces me here otherwise.

Look at him, he nearly didn’t even come. 

[Benjade]

This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"

Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.

Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.

Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.

Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.

What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.

@kTimesG Having a valid signature may satisfy the Bitcoin protocol, but off-chain it’s still treated as theft. The English High Court froze ransomware BTC in AA v Persons Unknown (2019), holding that cryptoassets are property recoverable by injunction. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/AA-v-Persons-Unknown-summary-case-note-SB-amended-1.pdf

And only last week the U.S. Justice Department filed a $225 million civil-forfeiture case against funds drained from victims wallets, classifying the siphoning as wire-fraud and money-laundering proceeds. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-civil-forfeiture-complaint-against-225m-funds-involved-cryptocurrency

Satoshi’s “whoever has the key owns the coin” explains how the software recognises control, not a moral green light; he never said taking a live key is acceptable. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283061.0

The quantum-break headlines are lab demos of factoring toy 22-bit RSA keys, not a licence to empty real wallets. https://therecord.media/chinese-researchers-claim-to-have-broken-rsa-with-a-quantum-computer-experts-arent-so-sure

And the community still calls it theft when the “Blockchain Bandit” bot guesses weak keys and walks off with 45 000 ETH. https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-bandit-moves-172m-eth-after-2-years-of-dormancy

So on-chain math doesn’t override off-chain law or basic ethics when you knowingly move coins that aren’t yours.

[kTimesG]

@kTimesG Having a valid signature may satisfy the Bitcoin protocol, but off-chain it’s still treated as theft.

It's not theft if it never belonged to the one who claimed it theft.

I'd start there. By this logic, all the guys who solved puzzles so far are thieves.

By the same logic, if I add funds to private key 42, and I call it my assets, then I should sue whoever transfers the funds in the very next block. Correct?

Geez.

[Benjade]

@kTimesG Having a valid signature may satisfy the Bitcoin protocol, but off-chain it’s still treated as theft.

It's not theft if it never belonged to the one who claimed it theft.

I'd start there. By this logic, all the guys who solved puzzles so far are thieves.

By the same logic, if I add funds to private key 42, and I call it my assets, then I should sue whoever transfers the funds in the very next block. Correct?

Geez.

When someone solves the puzzle they broadcast a signed transaction; at that moment the prize is theirs. A bot that copies the same signature, adds a bigger fee, and slips ahead in the next block is hijacking value it didn’t earn. Regulators are already treating that pattern as theft, not “just being faster”:

U.S. v. Peraire-Bueno (SDNY, May 2024) – two brothers who rearranged pending Ethereum transactions to grab $25 M were charged with wire fraud and money-laundering. https://wp.nyu.edu/compliance_enforcement/2024/05/22/crypto-experts-react-to-recent-sdny-ethereum-fraud-indictment/

SafeMoon front-run (DoJ press release, Jun 2025) – a bot that intercepted another trader’s mempool transaction had its $680 K haul seized as stolen cryptocurrency. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/united-states-returns-over-680000-stolen-cryptocurrency-using-civil-asset-forfeiture

Even research papers call it what it is: “Front-Running-as-a-Service Is Theft.” https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/04/07/miners-front-running-as-a-service-is-theft

English law makes the same point: crypto is property, and taking it without consent is conversion (AA v Persons Unknown, 2019). https://blogs.orrick.com/blockchain/english-high-court-recognizes-cryptoassets-to-be-a-form-of-property-considerations-following-aa-v-persons-unknown/

So yes, if you fund key 42 with no conditions, whoever signs first owns it. In the puzzle, the first signer already exists; a bot that shoves their transaction aside is just pickpocketing at mempool speed.

[analyticnomad]

Does anyone really think the creator of this puzzle didn’t anticipate what would happen with any puzzle under 100 bits? I’m still convinced this was a pre-planned scam. Unless the puzzle’s creator personally convinces me here otherwise.
[/quote]


The creator was clear of his intentions and even came back to redistribute funds more equally.

Just curious though: What is this pre-planned scam you're convinced of?

[kTimesG]

So yes, if you fund key 42 with no conditions, whoever signs first owns it. In the puzzle, the first signer already exists; a bot that shoves their transaction aside is just pickpocketing at mempool speed.

I do not agree, simply because it wasn't their key, so the ownership does not exist in the first place.

Are you aware that all puzzles with exposed public keys were signed before they got solved, since they had outgoing TXs? The sweeping TXs therefore classify as theft, according to your criteria.

Again: not your key, not your coins. It is your key only when you actually create it yourself. Otherwise, it is not your key, it belongs to everyone and therefore anyone has the equal right to use it as they see fit.

[mcdouglasx]

@kTimesG Having a valid signature may satisfy the Bitcoin protocol, but off-chain it’s still treated as theft.

It's not theft if it never belonged to the one who claimed it theft.

I'd start there. By this logic, all the guys who solved puzzles so far are thieves.

By the same logic, if I add funds to private key 42, and I call it my assets, then I should sue whoever transfers the funds in the very next block. Correct?

Geez.

In the hypothetical case that you knew who stole your money, you could sue. Just because a door isn't locked doesn't mean you can break in.

The problem with this is that it's difficult to know who committed the crime. If someone discovers a vulnerability in secp256k1, then according to your logic, they could empty Binance wallets without legal repercussions, since you wouldn't be hacking them. It's just that you know how to add, and your math calculations easily give you the key. This is absurd.



Regarding bots, it doesn't have much to do with speed, whether it's who replaces the transaction last or with the most fees. It depends on the miner who includes the transaction and mines the block. You can send a tx and then replace it, and the first or second transaction could be mined, depending on which miner solves the block first.
It doesn't just matter who has the fastest bot, but who is the luckiest to have the transaction mined.

RBF is intended to replace stuck tx due to low fees, when these do not want to be taken into account by miners, but if the person sending the original transaction does so with enough fees and many miners include it in their proof of work, their transaction could be mined with the same chances as its replacement.

[Benjade]

So yes, if you fund key 42 with no conditions, whoever signs first owns it. In the puzzle, the first signer already exists; a bot that shoves their transaction aside is just pickpocketing at mempool speed.

I do not agree, simply because it wasn't their key, so the ownership does not exist in the first place.

Are you aware that all puzzles with exposed public keys were signed before they got solved, since they had outgoing TXs? The sweeping TXs therefore classify as theft, according to your criteria.

Again: not your key, not your coins. It is your key only when you actually create it yourself. Otherwise, it is not your key, it belongs to everyone and therefore anyone has the equal right to use it as they see fit.

“Not your key, not your coins” cuts both ways.

Until someone derives the private key, the puzzle coins are ownerless data on-chain, yes.
The moment A solves the puzzle and signs a spend, A is the key-holder ownership springs into existence at that instant, because control is proven by the valid signature.

A front-runner doesn’t discover a second key; he simply copies A’s work, rebroadcasts it with a higher fee, and pockets the reward. That’s no different from watching me unlock a safe, grabbing the cash before I can close the door, and claiming “the safe was public property.” The effort that created the new control was mine, not yours.

Outgoing test transactions by the puzzle creator don’t change that: they pre-dated any solver, and the creator explicitly offered the balance to whoever computes the key first. Once that computation is done, the solver holds the key. Copy-paste latency attacks don’t create equal rights they free-ride on another person’s cryptographic proof of ownership, that's all.

[kTimesG]

“Not your key, not your coins” cuts both ways.

Until someone derives the private key, the puzzle coins are ownerless data on-chain, yes.

"Derives the private key"?

That's basically saying "I never owned this key".

None of these arguments will ever hold in any court on this planet, simply because it is impossible to ever prove that you were the first to "derive the key", craft a TX, and having it reach a P2P node, before someone else. That shit is dealt with only after a block is mined and issue gets settled, not before.

It's one thing to hack someone's rightful assets, and a totally different thing to have 100 dudes competing over who ECDLPs first a minuscule weak key, in a mempool, over some assets that don't really belong to ANY of them until the block gets mined and the conflict is solved.

Ownership, in a legal manner, involves proving that the private key was OWNED by you, not that it was "derived". This is done by showing that the private key was indeed a full entropy 256-bits random blob, not a lame-ass zero-filled empty blob with a few bytes at the end.

At best, it can only incriminate yourself, since "deriving" pretty much means "I cracked it, because I didn't own it".

[Benjade]

“Not your key, not your coins” cuts both ways.

Until someone derives the private key, the puzzle coins are ownerless data on-chain, yes.

"Derives the private key"?

That's basically saying "I never owned this key".

None of these arguments will ever hold in any court on this planet, simply because it is impossible to ever prove that you were the first to "derive the key", craft a TX, and having it reach a P2P node, before someone else. That shit is dealt with only after a block is mined and issue gets settled, not before.

It's one thing to hack someone's rightful assets, and a totally different thing to have 100 dudes competing over who ECDLPs first a minuscule weak key, in a mempool, over some assets that don't really belong to ANY of them until the block gets mined and the conflict is solved.

Ownership, in a legal manner, involves proving that the private key was OWNED by you, not that it was "derived". This is done by showing that the private key was indeed a full entropy 256-bits random blob, not a lame-ass zero-filled empty blob with a few bytes at the end.

At best, it can only incriminate yourself, since "deriving" pretty much means "I cracked it, because I didn't own it".

You’re mixing up “can’t be proved” with “I don’t know how to prove it.” 

Every Bitcoin Core node stores when it first saw a tx (getrawmempool true). Mempool.observer, forkmonitor.info, etc. archive those feeds. If my tx hit the network at 17:12:03 and yours appears at 17:12:27, the gap is public and cryptographically tied to the txid.

Deterministic ECDSA RFC 6979 forces each signer to use a different nonce r. Two people who really derived the key produce two distinct signatures; a copy-paste front-runner re-broadcasts the identical sig. Comparing scriptSig bytes is enough to show who computed and who plagiarised.

I can sign an arbitrary message (“Block 850 000, puzzle X, I own this key”) and timestamp that hash with OpenTimestamps or even into the blockchain days before broadcasting the spend. When the puzzle falls, I reveal the signature; the hash already on-chain nails the timeline.

Courts deal with timestamped digital evidence every day e-mails, server logs, CCTV metadata so spare us the “no court on the planet” flourish. In practice the front-runner’s best hope is anonymity, not legal theory, because the maths makes the order of discovery trivially auditable.

Since you're acting in bad faith, I certainly wouldn't want to be your friend IRL, you might steal things from me...