Authors

Authors

Eighteen people and companies behind the eighteen collections. Each page keeps what public sources say about the author and where they said it.

A puzzle has an author, and the author is half the puzzle. Who funded it says something about how it was built. What they wrote elsewhere says more. Peter Todd's bounties read differently once you know he wrote the RBF articles. A casino affiliate's Vault reads differently once you know the hints point at its own reviews.

So every collection's author is a record now, not a name and a link. It carries a key, a kind, aliases, the profiles they publish through, the addresses they fund from, and a list of facts. A fact is one sentence a public page states, with that page as its source and a date where the page has one. The library doesn't decide what's true about a person. It writes down who said what, the same way a hint works.

import { authors, requireAuthor } from "@agntn/puzzles";

const zden = await requireAuthor("zden"); // getAuthor() answers undefined instead of throwing
zden.author.kind; // "person"
zden.author.aliases; // ["Zden Hlinka", "zd3n"]
zden.author.facts?.[1]?.source; // "https://steemit.com/cryptopuzzle/@zden/codex-puzzle-1-codexokryphodron"
zden.collections; // ["zden"]
(await authors()).length; // 18

Pseudonyms stay pseudonyms. Where an author publishes under a handle, the record keeps the handle and the pages they signed with it. It doesn't go looking for the person behind it. Where an author uses a real name in public, the name is on the record with the page that shows it.

authors()18 subjects · every name is a page
  1. TiamattiamatPseudonymous programmer behind the Arweave Puzzle Weave series and the Chronobot.io node monitor. Self-described as based in France. No other name known.arweave · 12
  2. saatoshi_risingsaatoshi-risingA bitcointalk account that spoke for the puzzle transaction once, in 2017, and never said who was behind it. The rest is on the chain.b1000 · 256
  3. Bobby Leebobby-leeFounder and CEO of Ballet, the physical wallet company, and before that co-founder and CEO of BTCC, the first Bitcoin exchange in China.ballet · 3
  4. BitapsbitapsThe team behind the bitaps.com block explorer and the pybtc and jsbtc libraries whose Shamir secret sharing the challenge dares you to break.bitaps · 1
  5. Corey Phillipscorey-phillipsBitcoin mobile developer who turned photographs into BIP39 seeds with BitImage and funded two of them.bitimage · 2
  6. coin_artistcoin-artistCrypto artist and game designer who painted TORCHED H34R7S with a wallet key inside, and later founded Blockade Games.coin_artist · 1
  7. DugdugHides a BIP39 word in each lecture slide and funds a wallet for whoever collects them all. Publishes the public clues on Nostr.dug · 3
  8. Anonymousgenesis-authorWhoever funded the Genesis Block Wallet Puzzle and answers questions in OP_RETURN. No name, no profile, just transactions and one X account that spoke first.genesis · 1
  9. GSMG.iogsmgA crypto trading bot platform that ran from 2017 to 2026 and left a multi phase puzzle behind. The site now shows the lights off and one mystery left.gsmg · 1
  10. Peter Toddpeter-toddBitcoin Core contributor and applied cryptography consultant, creator of OpenTimestamps, who paid for hash collisions with Bitcoin script in 2013.hash_collision · 6
  11. Ledger Donjonledger-donjonLedger's security research team, which ran the Capture the Fortress CTF in 2020.ledger_donjon · 1
  12. Paul Jonespaul-jonesByline on luckylurker.com, a casino review site, where the Bitcoin Vaults run as promotions between the reviews.luckylurker · 2
  13. Guntis Vitolinsguntis-vitolinsFounder and managing director of Mineshop.eu, an ASIC miner shop in Ireland, and the YouTuber who buried a 10 ETH seed in a video.mineshop · 1
  14. klemsklemsPseudonymous puzzle maker who signs the movie frames as @cryptop1r4t3 and keeps a Nostr key as the only contact.movie_enigma · 1
  15. Dmitri Kryptokovdmitri-kryptokovThe office worker from the RushWallet contest video, reused as the author persona of the puzzle by KryptoKit, the Toronto company behind the wallet.rushwallet · 30
  16. AoiNakamotoaoi-nakamotoPseudonymous author of the 2019 Quizchain puzzle series on Reddit, who shut it all down in August 2019 and called it a failed experiment.satoshi_birthday_quiz · 1
  17. KeybasekeybaseThe identity and encryption company that published WarpWallet in 2013 and paid to have its own brainwallets cracked. Part of Zoom since 2020.warp · 6
  18. ZdenzdenSlovak digital artist and demoscener from the Satori group who hides private keys in generative images.zden · 16
local dataset / no networkgetAuthor(key) opens one

What every page says

  • The facts strip is read off the library when the page builds. Counts and prize sums are the collections' own.
  • Profiles and addresses come from the author record. A profile is a page the author controls. An address is one they funded a puzzle from or named as theirs.
  • The facts list what a public source says, one line each, with the source. A fact isn't a verdict. Two sources can disagree and both stay on the record.
  • The prose says what kind of author this is, what they built, and where the record stops.

@agntn/puzzles·MIT license· Public data about public puzzles. Balances come from the chains' explorers through the worker, cached for five minutes. Every key here was public before it landed in a record.