The Legend of Satoshi Nakamato, FINAL STEP PUBLISHED.... 4.87 BTC GRAND PRIZE!

[bug.lady]

jeez you guys are way too hung up on all that.  and all i said was it seems less likely they would do all that.  sure you could take the name of your pet gerbil and hash it a quintillion times and maybe end up with shakespeare, like a room full of monkeys given infinity to jerk around on a typewriter.  of course you would then need to encode instructions on all these irregularly sized things and the steps and number of times to hash them and all that in the painting.  again, it simply seems less likely.  not impossible

no, no additional instructions are necessary, at least when compared with a random private key setup.

You could, for instance,
1. have the following constraint for the private key: every second bit follows the pattern 011.
2. Then, you could have a constraint for the public address: it starts with 1FLAMEN6
3. (any other constraints we are not aware of at present too)

4. then, you generate matching pair of public address and private key.
5. then, you publicly disclose the address and encode the private key in the flames or generally in the picture

6. And you public the picture as a puzzle.

Observe, that this scheme needs no additional instructions over the scheme with a random private key.

EDIT: you see, the pattern in the flames discloses the order on how to read flames, so maybe it was important for the creators to have this constraint and beneficial over random private key. I mean, it is a random private key which would require additional instructions on how to order segments.

[neogabe]

I think if the flames holds the private key itself, will be impossible to decode it without the rest of the picture, because if it could be decoded only with operations over the flames, paiting the chess board and the other pieces will be a waste of time for the creator. I think that the chess board is too full of symbols to be only a distraction...

I'm saying this because over the whole thread the flames kept 80% of the attention, and I'm not talking about the 10000% zoom things, the jpeg glitches or the rabbit, simply the pieces and their meaning.

[hodld0r]

sure, i was thinking back to previous posts which contemplated all the various possibilities, such as an even shorter word or other fragment being hashed a bazillion times to create the key, which would require conveying the word, how many times to hash it, etc.  even in the case of a standard minikey, you still kind of have to figure out you are dealing with a minikey, which then needs to be hashed to get the actual key.  all of this is kind of moot anyway until you actually figure out some next steps and make some progress on the painting, as it also seems unlikely that the only part of the painting containing relevant information is the ribbons on the key and the flames.  in other words there is still probably plenty to figure out before you need to worry about actually finding the key  

[Pan Troglodytes]

I think if the flames holds the private key itself, will be impossible to decode it without the rest of the picture, because if it could be decoded only with operations over the flames, paiting the chess board and the other pieces will be a waste of time for the creator. I think that the chess board is too full of symbols to be only a distraction...

I'm saying this because over the whole thread the flames kept 80% of the attention, and I'm not talking about the 10000% zoom things, the jpeg glitches or the rabbit, simply the pieces and their meaning.

well for one thing the leaves seem to have been (at least partially) incorporated into the big picture. They seem to give the order on feature streams and they seem to tell which feature values should be decoded as 1 and 0. The same for the key ribbons, there are ideas around on how to use them. So it is not that everybody just idles with flames

[bug.lady]

sure, i was thinking back to previous posts which contemplated all the various possibilities, such as an even shorter word or other fragment being hashed a bazillion times to create the key, which would require conveying the word, how many times to hash it, etc.  even in the case of a standard minikey, you still kind of have to figure out you are dealing with a minikey, which then needs to be hashed to get the actual key.  all of this is kind of moot anyway until you actually figure out some next steps and make some progress on the painting, as it also seems unlikely that the only part of the painting containing relevant information is the ribbons on the key and the flames.  in other words there is still probably plenty to figure out before you need to worry about actually finding the key  

i agree with mostly all you are saying and definitely with the part that a lot of work needs to be done yet. My point was only that if you read a key in any of those formats having 32, 37, 38 bytes or a minikey too, especially the ones with built in sanity control (37, 38 byte, minikey), they are all universally recognized and ready AS IS to sweep the FLAMEN bitcoins. No NEXT steps are needed here.

[neogabe]

I think if the flames holds the private key itself, will be impossible to decode it without the rest of the picture, because if it could be decoded only with operations over the flames, paiting the chess board and the other pieces will be a waste of time for the creator. I think that the chess board is too full of symbols to be only a distraction...

I'm saying this because over the whole thread the flames kept 80% of the attention, and I'm not talking about the 10000% zoom things, the jpeg glitches or the rabbit, simply the pieces and their meaning.

well for one thing the leaves seem to have been (at least partially) incorporated to the big picture. They seem to give the order on feature streams and they seem to tell which feature values should be decoded as 1 and 0. The same for the key ribbons, there are ideas around on how to use them. So it is not that everybody just idles with flames

Agree with you, just saying because I'm seeing a lot of effort on flames, like the lines of code from @kn0w0n3. But for example, nobody talks about why that kind of creeper plant is holding the queen while it melts... Maybe applying maths, logic and counting is not the way for this one. Take this only as thoughts, I really admire all the work being done here. (And in previous puzzles that I followed too).

[hodld0r]

they are all universally recognized and ready AS IS

oh right, because programs and things.  its easy to forget when thinking of the lower level tedium in these puzzles 

[chubbychew]

Off flame ramblings follow:

It's time well spent going back through this thread a couple times (long though it may be) and seeing for example that:

1) The Phoenix and the Turtle poem was referenced in post #338 on April 5th, 2015

Based on what I have read regarding previous challenges, ytcoin_artist doesn't give hints but does let people know if they are on the right track and confirmed found clues to previous ARG challenges. The fact that she tweeted a section of the poem might be to say "you found this clue but didn't think it was the next step, look again" I couldn't find her giving any hints or clues aside from this one...

2) The skinny inner flame data channel was detailed in post #404 possibly before that as well, then re-discovered recently by smracer. This game has gone on so long that people have forgotten what was tried, abandoned, rediscovered etc.


BitcoinArbiter in post #400 posted a link to some of Rob Myers work https://robmyers.org/blockchain-aesthetics/

It would seem that coin_artist and Rob Myers are tight collaborators

His blockchain-aesthetics code was done around the time this painting was created

some of the code has instructions to "draw" blockchain transactions using "turtle graphics"

I am not a programmer, perhaps someone with better skills can use the code here: https://github.com/robmyers/blockchain-aesthetics/

and make the turtle graphics code examine and draw the transactions done on the 1FLAME address like this one?


Just delving back into the crazy...

[bachus]

Agree with you, just saying because I'm seeing a lot of effort on flames, like the lines of code from @kn0w0n3. But for example, nobody talks about why that kind of creeper plant is holding the queen while it melts... Maybe applying maths, logic and counting is not the way for this one. Take this only as thoughts, I really admire all the work being done here. (And in previous puzzles that I followed too).

I don't think it's been mentioned before, but the vine seems to originate from a single white square on the bottom row.

[feedo]

Agree with you, just saying because I'm seeing a lot of effort on flames, like the lines of code from @kn0w0n3. But for example, nobody talks about why that kind of creeper plant is holding the queen while it melts... Maybe applying maths, logic and counting is not the way for this one. Take this only as thoughts, I really admire all the work being done here. (And in previous puzzles that I followed too).

I don't think it's been mentioned before, but the vine seems to originate from a single white square on the bottom row.

2 squares not one (look at B9 white square in third row)

[Pan Troglodytes]

Agree with you, just saying because I'm seeing a lot of effort on flames, like the lines of code from @kn0w0n3. But for example, nobody talks about why that kind of creeper plant is holding the queen while it melts... Maybe applying maths, logic and counting is not the way for this one. Take this only as thoughts, I really admire all the work being done here. (And in previous puzzles that I followed too).

I don't think it's been mentioned before, but the vine seems to originate from a single white square on the bottom row.

yes it has been mentioned before (I can't find who mentioned it though, you would need to read through the thread to find it) that the vines grow NOT from tiles but from the cracks between tiles, the same about the key hole - it is between the actual tiles. I have this idea that didn't bring fruit yet, that it is not tiles that count but the so-called (in mathematics) lattice points. Lattice points are points where the cracks ("grid lines", as wikipedia puts it) intersect. In that case we would be dealing not with 7x9 chessboard, but rather with a 6x8 lattice, but the key hole and the growing vines could be expressed by integer coordinates in the lattice.

[white_[x]_rabbit]

Do you still count the flame? They carry information to look at the image where the details matter.

You still do not follow me, you do not trust the rabbit, still many of you can not see me in the picture.

Why?

In your world it is hard to understand that nothing is the same?

Because in the picture it is not an ordinary world.

WONDERLAND

[massl]

I follow you Mr. Rabbit.
You like Dr. Mabuse? It's a good movie, Mr. Rabbit?

[neogabe]

Off flame ramblings follow:

It's time well spent going back through this thread a couple times (long though it may be) and seeing for example that:

1) The Phoenix and the Turtle poem was referenced in post #338 on April 5th, 2015

Based on what I have read regarding previous challenges, ytcoin_artist doesn't give hints but does let people know if they are on the right track and confirmed found clues to previous ARG challenges. The fact that she tweeted a section of the poem might be to say "you found this clue but didn't think it was the next step, look again" I couldn't find her giving any hints or clues aside from this one...

2) The skinny inner flame data channel was detailed in post #404 possibly before that as well, then re-discovered recently by smracer. This game has gone on so long that people have forgotten what was tried, abandoned, rediscovered etc.


BitcoinArbiter in post #400 posted a link to some of Rob Myers work https://robmyers.org/blockchain-aesthetics/

It would seem that coin_artist and Rob Myers are tight collaborators

His blockchain-aesthetics code was done around the time this painting was created

some of the code has instructions to "draw" blockchain transactions using "turtle graphics"

I am not a programmer, perhaps someone with better skills can use the code here: https://github.com/robmyers/blockchain-aesthetics/

and make the turtle graphics code examine and draw the transactions done on the 1FLAME address like this one?


Just delving back into the crazy...

This could be a good one, there is no need of programming skills for running the code, download the zip from github and launch "transactions-<something>.html" you will see the results on your browser. The javaScript functions takes data from a live web-socket in JSON format, from here 'wss://ws.blockchain.info/inv', later parses data and takes the "hash", in our case should be "9c6d9a78bb8a7ee9f78af0944edce9abbe67f835355ba872da618abb6b841f47" as you said.

I could try to modify the code later, for using only that hash, but my coding habilities are limited on Js, perhaps someone with better skills could lend us a hand.

[680cfbb909]

https://imgur.com/a/uYdmJ

This is what you get if you use the turtle.js code to draw the transaction hashes.

Code:

  appendHash("74e037e5b7cea4512625a4af5a1223dbaf5ae3fb629c47263086091c0ba5328b");
  appendHash("1469167e08a116438943319880f415bb8afe279df68aeaaa32186cf4b7d297da");
  appendHash("ed07c5a6c63313f9b6828d3cb8f1d2ead3a4e8eb92ddbf12297c912e9ade3e60");
  appendHash("4879431128d7dc5a8e0e6e7d739bb2246f8537db1cd6f5971fdff6c4d4d301c2");
  appendHash("9c6d9a78bb8a7ee9f78af0944edce9abbe67f835355ba872da618abb6b841f47");
  appendHash("1f49d498f476cf87a62dce43ebf655051b193971a2b8e8e6df71e2aaa329b42f");
  appendHash("458727dbd63f48c833c3d29ea2013281f8bbb0ca8b17a00600972350c273d98e");

Are the hashes I used in the picture. Worth a try, but I don't think this will lead to anything. At least not with the transaction hashes.

[neogabe]

https://imgur.com/a/uYdmJ

This is what you get if you use the turtle.js code to draw the transaction hashes.

Code:

  appendHash("74e037e5b7cea4512625a4af5a1223dbaf5ae3fb629c47263086091c0ba5328b");
  appendHash("1469167e08a116438943319880f415bb8afe279df68aeaaa32186cf4b7d297da");
  appendHash("ed07c5a6c63313f9b6828d3cb8f1d2ead3a4e8eb92ddbf12297c912e9ade3e60");
  appendHash("4879431128d7dc5a8e0e6e7d739bb2246f8537db1cd6f5971fdff6c4d4d301c2");
  appendHash("9c6d9a78bb8a7ee9f78af0944edce9abbe67f835355ba872da618abb6b841f47");
  appendHash("1f49d498f476cf87a62dce43ebf655051b193971a2b8e8e6df71e2aaa329b42f");
  appendHash("458727dbd63f48c833c3d29ea2013281f8bbb0ca8b17a00600972350c273d98e");

Are the hashes I used in the picture. Worth a try, but I don't think this will lead to anything. At least not with the transaction hashes.

Thanks @680cfbb909, maybe the life-game js? or the bitmaps? Perhaps the seven bitmaps could be arranged (4 of them) to create a QR code...

[680cfbb909]

https://imgur.com/a/OcVDr

This is what you get with the same hashes and the game of life simulation.
First picture is the end result after 100 turns. Second picture is the first turn you get.

If you want to try some other visualizations yourself, you don't have to change much code.
You only need to change the initConnection block to:

Code:

var initConnection = function (spec) {
  appendHash("74e037e5b7cea4512625a4af5a1223dbaf5ae3fb629c47263086091c0ba5328b");
  appendHash("1469167e08a116438943319880f415bb8afe279df68aeaaa32186cf4b7d297da");
  appendHash("ed07c5a6c63313f9b6828d3cb8f1d2ead3a4e8eb92ddbf12297c912e9ade3e60");
  appendHash("4879431128d7dc5a8e0e6e7d739bb2246f8537db1cd6f5971fdff6c4d4d301c2");
  appendHash("9c6d9a78bb8a7ee9f78af0944edce9abbe67f835355ba872da618abb6b841f47");
  appendHash("1f49d498f476cf87a62dce43ebf655051b193971a2b8e8e6df71e2aaa329b42f");
  appendHash("458727dbd63f48c833c3d29ea2013281f8bbb0ca8b17a00600972350c273d98e");
};

Save the file and open the responding transactions-*.html file in your browser.

[neogabe]

Thanks again, I didn't get nothing useful, but it was worth trying, another searched path. If someone else wants to check it, now it's clear with your explanations.

[itod]

...
Are the hashes I used in the picture. Worth a try, but I don't think this will lead to anything. At least not with the transaction hashes.

I think it's the other way around. You would get nothing by finding the transactions in the picture, transactions are already known. The idea would be to get hash in this manner from something that is drawn in the picture, and since the WIF private key format is basically a hash use it to collect the reward. Since his visualizations and hashes are mapped 1:1, and he generates them from hashes, one should in theory reverse his code and get the hash from visualizations. Lot's of work, but interesting possibility. I wounder what is the source of the info the author of the puzzle thank'd Rob Myers for his work and said "He’s one of the ones who 'Made this possible'". Is this true? Link somewhere?

[neogabe]

First link of the thread: https://twitter.com/coin_artist/status/583979278238359552

https://imgur.com/a/Tqk9B

EDIT: Could be worth checking the other names? I don't remember if it was done earlier in the thread...