GEOCACHE AFRICA 2018 UPDATE: Cache found!!!!!!

[RodeoX]

...
LOL yep exactly 

even if there would be really consistent reasons to get in Namibia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgTYKH4x_cg

enjoy the video

Sweet pipe surfing!
I tried surfing once. What I did could not really be called surfing though. 

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[buwaytress]

Just discovered this thread and want to congratulate with RodeoX for setting all this up for the only purpose of raising bitcoin awareness all over the world ( merit deserved).

Btw I just "googlemapped" the location and it's just a 11K kilometers drive from here : as soon as I'll have some free time it might be a go   .

That's awesome!
Remember, if you take a picture of the location and send it to me it is worth an additional .001BTC ! I really fell in love with Namibia last year and I am definitely going to return sometime.

EDIT:
OMG, I'm an idiot.
I read "11K Kilometers" as 11 Kilometers. I thought you were a days walk from the cache. Now I see that you are even further from it than I am, lol.

Following this thread for a while and just catching up. Also fooled by my initial reading, thinking we were finally about to see someone cash in on this Namibian treasure hunt 11 thousand kilometres. I have actually driven half that distance in a week but I never want to repeat it again unless it's for some holiday!

Merited OP too, not sure why I didn't before... been itching to contribute something of the sort myself. Did a pizza day thing this year but wasn't half as exciting as I thought it'd be.

But plans are to go to some exotic location in 2020 so I'll maybe piggy back this thread to hopefully garner some attention;)

[CerealKing]

Hey Rodeo! It's February 2019 now :S almost a full year since I've even done anything on these forums. Has the bitcoin ever been found or was it finally moved? any news or updates? So sad that there's no story on how it was found or anything, I was definitely hoping to come back here and read something cool.

Hope all is well!

[RodeoX]

Hi CerealKing. Sorry for the delay, I have been traveling again. In fact I was going to claw back the BTC in Africa and start again with a cache in the rocky mountains. When I went to scan the private key I found the cache empty.  i have not been contacted by anyone and so I have no idea who has it. But whoever it is they have figured out how to move it to a new address.

Congratulations to whoever found it. They must have physically found the box to use the private key.  The only other copy was in a bank vault. I really hope the finder contacts me. I'm sure it would be a good story.

I'll be in Denver looking at the Cannabis industry in coming weeks. When I get back I guess I'll start thinking about a new location, somewhere on this beautiful wet rock in space.

[BitcoinFani]

did someone really find this?   this is very exciting, congratulations to her. how did they find it  privatekey in africa? and not in deformed  It's a good story coming out of this contest   I hope 1 btc winner will write here.

[hopenotlate]

Wow awesome ... really curious to hear the story of the person who found the case. Hope they will hit you up.

Again congrats for what you did RodeoX

[bitart]

...
I'll be in Denver looking at the Cannabis industry in coming weeks. When I get back I guess I'll start thinking about a new location, somewhere on this beautiful wet rock in space.

Thanks for keeping this 'game' alive, RodeoX
But, please don't put the cache on a desert island somewhere in the middle of the ocean, if possible

[RodeoX]

did someone really find this?   this is very exciting, congratulations to her. how did they find it  privatekey in africa? and not in deformed  It's a good story coming out of this contest  I hope 1 btc winner will write here.

Yes. They absolutely must have. Whoever it is must know that they can get another reward for telling me what happened. I really hope they do.  

Wow awesome ... really curious to hear the story of the person who found the case. Hope they will hit you up.

Again congrats for what you did RodeoX

Thanks for your supportive post! It is a little less dramatic to not know exactly what happened. The offer of bitcoin for the story will still stand. I can verify if it is the real finder or not because of some things in the cache that I have never revealed.

...
I'll be in Denver looking at the Cannabis industry in coming weeks. When I get back I guess I'll start thinking about a new location, somewhere on this beautiful wet rock in space.

Thanks for keeping this 'game' alive, RodeoX
But, please don't put the cache on a desert island somewhere in the middle of the ocean, if possible

Glad you enjoyed it!
But I am so evil that it even occurred to me to put it UNDER the ocean somewhere.  
 I'll post here when I have a new location.

[nc50lc]

I'm pretty sure that whoever found the cache will not share his story for privacy reasons.
Or by "other" means:

Cropped image from post#2:

I got a hunch that it was never found but the fund was moved because the private key is (barely) visible in the 2nd post's image (It is surprisingly high resolution in full size).
By looking at the original image, anyone (with 20/20 vision) can guess the possible characters of the private key (just like the "5" first character).
It will take time using manual trial and error and it does took over a year before the fund was spent.

[RodeoX]

I'm pretty sure that whoever found the cache will not share his story for privacy reasons.
Or by "other" means:

Cropped image from post#2:

I got a hunch that it was never found but the fund was moved because the private key is (barely) visible in the 2nd post's image (It is surprisingly high resolution in full size).
By looking at the original image, anyone (with 20/20 vision) can guess the possible characters of the private key (just like the "5" first character).
It will take time using manual trial and error and it does took over a year before the fund was spent.

I did a double take when I read your post, lol. But it is the public key that you see in the photo. The private key is folded inside. If I had screwed up and exposed the key then more power to the winner. I like a contest with few rules and if the finder of the cache wants to remain anonymous then that's okay also.

[Kakmakr]

I'm pretty sure that whoever found the cache will not share his story for privacy reasons.
Or by "other" means:

Cropped image from post#2:

I got a hunch that it was never found but the fund was moved because the private key is (barely) visible in the 2nd post's image (It is surprisingly high resolution in full size).
By looking at the original image, anyone (with 20/20 vision) can guess the possible characters of the private key (just like the "5" first character).
It will take time using manual trial and error and it does took over a year before the fund was spent.

I did a double take when I read your post, lol. But it is the public key that you see in the photo. The private key is folded inside. If I had screwed up and exposed the key then more power to the winner. I like a contest with few rules and if the finder of the cache wants to remain anonymous then that's okay also.

Why not include a URL link with the box that points to this kind of thread to incentivize the person to share his or her story. You can also tell them that you will double the prize, if they share their story on this forum. <Put something in the paper work that they must mention to claim the prize.>

I just want to congratulate and thank you for doing this for Bitcoin adoption and I would encourage more people to do this or to crowdfund similar projects like this. <OP should give us a Bitcoin address to send donations to for the next GEOCACHE prize, he should not have to fund this on his own>   

[RodeoX]

Why not include a URL link with the box that points to this kind of thread to incentivize the person to share his or her story. You can also tell them that you will double the prize, if they share their story on this forum. <Put something in the paper work that they must mention to claim the prize.>

I just want to congratulate and thank you for doing this for Bitcoin adoption and I would encourage more people to do this or to crowdfund similar projects like this. <OP should give us a Bitcoin address to send donations to for the next GEOCACHE prize, he should not have to fund this on his own>   

Thanks for your kind post and suggestions. I have done some of those things already so that I will know if the person claiming to have found the cache actually has. I also toyed with the idea of having people fund the account in some kind of crowdfunding way. However I thought this would raise some red flags, and that I might be accused of scamming. If I am the only one giving away money then nobody can say this is some kind of elaborate con. I do post a public address whenever I place a cache and I can't stop people from sending money to it. But handling and accounting for other peoples money is not something I want to get into.

My next one may be a very different model as I am experimenting with multiple copies of the same private key. This would mean more caches, but a tighter race to be the first to find and block out the other participants.

[LoyceV]

My next one may be a very different model as I am experimenting with multiple copies of the same private key. This would mean more caches, but a tighter race to be the first to find and block out the other participants.

I like the race-idea! But that's going to be a big disappointment if someone finds the second or third copy.

[bitart]

Or, you can try another type of game, e.g. divide the private key into 2 or 3 segments and hide it in different places and point the lucky ones to this forum to somehow manage to put the private key together and move the bitcoin to their wallets...
Or, if you want to teach the people who find your cache about the beauties of the system, use a multisig address and hide the private keys in different places In this case they can agree on the transaction details before both of the parties signes the transaction (so it will not be possible for one of the people to grab all the bitcoins and run away like in my first suggestion)

[RodeoX]

Good ideas guys! (or girls, whatever)

I may indeed incorporate some of those suggestions. I think later this year the game will take place in North America then South America next year. My goal is to have offered bitcoin on every continent. Then maybe oceans, space, who knows?

[nc50lc]

@RodeoX, Any news about this year's GeoCache?
We are way past the first quarter of the year and we haven't heard anything from you since March.

For this year's round, don't left it floating in the ocean since the chances that it will be taken by the coastguards or get mistaken as a floating package by drug syndicates is high.

I may indeed incorporate some of those suggestions. -snip-

If anything, do not use the idea of splitting the private key into two/three and place them in different locations, this will complicate things a lot.

-A 2/3 miltisig will do, 1 private key in the main thread for all participants, 1 prv key in the Cache and 1 for you (in case of the package being lost/destroyed).
-Or the first seven characters of the private key in the thread and the rest written in the cache.
Both will require a procedure written as a note included in the package.

This way, the winner will definitely visit this thread and may consider sharing his "treasure hunting" story.

[RodeoX]

@RodeoX, Any news about this year's GeoCache? ...

I still haven't heard from whoever found it and I'm starting to think I never will. That is within the rules and maybe this person wants to keep their money completely anonymous?

This year  have a tentative plan for a game model that involves releasing many copies (100?) of the same private key.  I believe it will happen about mid-summer. It will be a race to find and transfer the bitcoin to a key that the winner controls.  I think it will be North America this year then South America next year.

I will definitely use BitcoinTalk as the place to run the game from. Stay tuned!

[LoyceV]

This year  have a tentative plan for a game model that involves releasing many copies (100?) of the same private key.

How do you plan to hide them all within a reasonable amount of time? If it takes you too long, it might have been found before you're done. Unless that's part of the plan, say you hide one copy per day.

[bitart]

This year  have a tentative plan for a game model that involves releasing many copies (100?) of the same private key.

How do you plan to hide them all within a reasonable amount of time? If it takes you too long, it might have been found before you're done. Unless that's part of the plan, say you hide one copy per day.

Maybe he can hide all the caches and only top up the bitcoin address when all the copies are already hidden.
But also it will need a proper database to store the locations and the clues for each place...
I won't play in the following two years, because America is really far away... both North and South

[RodeoX]

This year  have a tentative plan for a game model that involves releasing many copies (100?) of the same private key.

How do you plan to hide them all within a reasonable amount of time? If it takes you too long, it might have been found before you're done. Unless that's part of the plan, say you hide one copy per day.

Maybe he can hide all the caches and only top up the bitcoin address when all the copies are already hidden.
But also it will need a proper database to store the locations and the clues for each place...
I won't play in the following two years, because America is really far away... both North and South

Those are good suggestions. I do have a more evil plan though, a way of addressing the problems you have identified. However if I got into it it could lead to an unfair advantage for someone.