A place to collect and compile official clues, proposed solutions and relevant information in one place. Feel free to contribute.
PS: Send BTC donations at 33SBrHNRc6cWREvL9K34T999iEGtRDAWnd or ETH at 0x6ed8e1bdaf753df9a699edaea8e9c2acc194dd0b to support my beer fund.
-
Address is 1h8BNZkhsPiu6EKazP19WkGxDw3jHf9aT
-
The compressed public key is
02b4a72e4aaa69ba04b80c6891df01f50d191a65eccc61e4e9862d1e421ce815b3. -
21 digit prime is
957496696762772407663. -
Some words from the image need to be converted into a 27-digit decimal number.
-
The solution consists in 3 steps:
- Finding the 21-digit prime
- Converting some words from the image into a 27-digit decimal number.
- This step is not known yet but is probably a function of the numbers found in steps 1 and 2 to generate a private key.
-
The 27-digit number does not start with and probably doesn't contain the 21-digit number (since Max claimed he could only recognize the 2-leading digits easily).
-
List of wrong 27-digit numbers: all numbers that start with
3,11,27,21or22, plus all following numbers:292369552859534997735785456,110671209768548944980739847,102334351591489987809745256,148305288324511300566909296,102334351593652704433055345,148305288328731020224972481.109315479387323682257496938732214536553841474496141447,961414474147445365538732214,536553896141447732214414744,414744536553896141447732214,773307574967642777994775797,947757974277795749676773307,574967694775797773307427779,427779574967694775797773307,452561023343515914899878097,452561023341489987809735159,452563515910233414899878097,452563515914899878097102334,452561489987809710233435159,452561489987809735159102334,140715953831866323726367136,523682311121192242318221112,140715953831866323726367136,102334452563515914899878097,212426137135032177995282192. Since Max claimed to not have seen the right first 2-digits at that point, we can probably exclude all numbers whose first 2-digits match one of the listed previous numbers. -
Puzzle is solvable without hints.
-
Capitalization of words in puzzle matters.
-
27-digit number is not necessarily a prime.
-
27-digit number doesn't involve consecutive digits of
e. -
Max's birthday, username, etc. are not relevant.
-
Only Max knows the private key but both Jack and Cecilia (chief marketing) know the method.
-
- Possible clue that private key is derived using bip32 scheme: "Through this game we want to educate users on the importance of private key custody and safety. We have built our own, innovative Hierarchical Deterministic Cold Wallet System, which assigns an independent deposit address to each user so that all assets are kept in cold wallets."
- The Bitcoin address is 1h8BNZkhsPiu6EKazP19WkGxDw3jHf9aT (note: it is incorrectly referred to as a public key in the article).
-
A letter from Max (27 digit clue)
- "The first 21-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e is: 957496696762772407663
- Already known
- "The private key you derive from Satoshi’s portrait is a big integer, not Wallet Import Format (WIF)"
- Seems self-evident since WIF is just a copy/paste friendly encoding of a private key.
- "The filename of the picture is irrelevant"
- "The next step involves converting some words from the portrait, without I/O, into a 27-digit number"
- 27-digit decimal number is too small to be the output of a hash function so we can probalby exclude their use for generating the number.
- I/O possibly refers to Input/Output which could be a synonym for communication with the outside world (e.g. the puzzle is solvable without additional information found on the web).
- I/O possibly refers to the fact that base58 encoding excludes the letters
I,O,l, and0.
- "The first 21-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e is: 957496696762772407663
-
The Last Hint of Phemex 2.1BTC Puzzle
- "After meeting the Phemex team, the Goddess Pheme repeated the words “little is big”, twice within three days."
- "We believe this hint is the best way to reward those of you that have continued to work hard on the Puzzle."
In chronological order:
- Max told Cr0wn_Gh0ul he was in the right direction after saying he
tried all permutations of
['957496696762772407663', 'BTC', 'ETH', 'XRP', 'Phemex']with caps, no-caps, abbreviated, etc. - Max said Paul was in the right direction after he said "we should find a way to convert BTC, XRP, ETH and Phemex to numbers. This was later confirmed in official hint article.
- Jack (Phemex co-founder) said that Max promised him the puzzle would take at least one year to solve, so it might not be as easy as Max is insinuating.
- Max said to "get inspiration from Google hiring ads". He later acknowledged that this just referred to step 1 of the puzzle (finding the 21 digit prime).
- Max re-iterated "some of you are in the right direction" to which Jack (Phemex co-founder) replied "some of you are in the wrong direction. come on Max, they need more hints!".
- Max said "Paul is good, you are in correct direction" after Paul
proposed a new approach based on Google's hiring ad
WWWDOT - GOOGLE = DOTCOM. For example, he proposed to solveETH + XRP + BTC = Phemex. That being said, Max later said that the Google inspiration hint was only related to step 1. - Max said: "3 step, Prime is first step"
- Max said: "Don't kill me when I announce solution". This might hint to the fact that the solution might be considered either "dumb" or "impossible to guess" by some, or maybe Max was just teasing.
- Max confirmed that the number 21 (21 digits, 2.1 BTC prize) was chosen to pay respect to Bitcoin's 21M supply limit.
- Jack said "Max and I knew nothing about crypto 3 years ago".
- Max said that Jean and Noxvn impressed him after they discussed sha256 and brainwallet.
- Max confirmed that the puzzle was not solvable with "pen and paper" only.
- "A letter from max" was published, which confirms that words need to be converted into a 27 digit number.
- Max said the following 27-digit numbers are wrong:
292369552859534997735785456,110671209768548944980739847. - Max confirmed the 27 digit refers to decimal digits.
- Max confirmed that the private key can't be found from transaction data.
- Max said the following 27-digit numbers are wrong:
102334351591489987809745256,148305288324511300566909296,102334351593652704433055345,148305288328731020224972481. - Max said whether the 27-digit number is a prime "doesn't matter".
- Max said the 27-digit number does not start with
3. - Max said he only remembers the leading 2 digits of the number.
- Max confirmed that "capital letters matter". Therefore, the solution probably doesn't involve transforming the case of the words.
- Max said the following 27-digit number is wrong:
109315479387323682257496938 - Max said the following 27-digit numbers are wrong:
732214536553841474496141447,961414474147445365538732214,536553896141447732214414744,414744536553896141447732214,773307574967642777994775797,947757974277795749676773307,574967694775797773307427779,427779574967694775797773307,452561023343515914899878097,452561023341489987809735159,452563515910233414899878097,452563515914899878097102334,452561489987809710233435159,452561489987809735159102334,140715953831866323726367136. - Max said the following 27-digit number is wrong:
523682311121192242318221112. - Max claimed that lot of people "tried in the right direction, but didnt try hard enough" and that "the correct solution has been discussed again and again".
- Max said that "Oli, Paul and Cr0wn" are good candidates for leading puzzle solving efforts. This possibly means that at least one of them was working in the right direction.
- Max confirmed that there is no intermediary step in this puzzle that confirms you are progressing in the right direction. You either solve it entirely and win or don't.
- Max said "What if the clue is self-proven? When you get it, you will understand.". I believe he was just re-iterating what he said previously.
- Max asked "You guys can think about why i can easily remember the first 2 digits?". This possibly means that the first 2 digits are easy to remember for some reason (repeated digits, digits have some meaning to him, etc.).
- Max said that in the beginning he thought the puzzle would be solved rapidly but now doubts that it will ever get solved. This possibly means that earlier approaches were more in the "right direction" or it could just mean that he may have underestimated the difficulty of the puzzle.
- Max said the following 27-digit number is wrong:
140715953831866323726367136. - Max claimed he remembers the first 2 digits but can only verify the 27-digit number on an offline server. Since the typical reason for having an "offline server" is to host a cold wallet, it's possible that the solution to the puzzle uses the same HD wallet system that they use (with different seed of course).
- Max said the following 27-digit numbers are wrong
102334452563515914899878097,212426137135032177995282192. - Max said first 2 digits are not
11. - Max said first 2 digits are not
21. - Max said first 2 digits are not
27. - Max replied affirmatively to "Will we know we have the correct 27digit number if we find it?".
- Max confirmed that the puzzle is solvable without hints (e.g. without Max's telegram username).
- Max confirmed his date of birth is not relevant.
- Max claimed none of the 27-digit numbers he has seen so far start with the correct 2 digits.
- Max confirmed that the 27-digit number doesn't start with
0. - Max said that the 27-digit number doesn't still involve consecutive
digits of
e. - Max claims that after solution is revealed, he will be able to prove some people were really close through screenshots of Telegram discussions.
Possible clues from Jack Tao (co-founder):
- Claimed only Max knows the private key but both Cecilia (chief marketing) and himself know the method.
- Confirmed they don't post misleading information.
- Said the maze was designed by an artist (this was revealed as part of a joke so maybe not true).
- Said programming skills is required to solve, also said that programmers have a bit of an advantage.
Possible clues from Cecilia (admin):
- Answer to what is required to solve this puzzle: Cecilia, [17 Jan 2020 at 11:41:27]: "You need to be familiar with cryptography, advanced mathematics and programming, hahaha not easy to get 2.1btc..."
