AH White

IDah-white36 / 41person · 1 collection · 2024-09-05

Subject

AH White

AHWhitebitcoin

Neurobiologist and bitcoiner who wrote a Bitcoin murder mystery, gave the PDF away on Nostr and hid a real seed phrase in the story.

Puzzles: 2
Prize recorded: 0.008 BTC
Still unsolved: 2 · 0.008 BTC

closed 0 / 2

Channels: nostrnjump.me/npub1c2rvx6ue9uewl452kczcfxz9w242sfzn64ul8dv2afd3t5dpktzs0kmmvf; twittertwitter.com/_AHWhite

Techniques

hidden-seed-words2 of 2 puzzles

Log

2024-09-06

Posted the free PDF of Walking Banks on Nostr, hosted on nostr.build, for anyone to download and share.

njump.me/note1jvpc4m95fdr5hxqkhpyj5alcaeqj7hwtr6hdp4zk5n9uvewpzkyq2ldrlv

2025-05-15

Announced with the audiobook that the story holds the information for a real Bitcoin seed phrase to a wallet with 0.008 BTC, first finder takes it.

njump.me/note13jytkuegqd8tdlk0ewl9vyg4aeh6yxgcqe0zuatd379d8asnqd2sth0f3k

undated

The Find the Treasure section of walkingbanks.com links the treasure wallet's xpub on blockchain.com rather than an address.

web.archive.org/web/20250402113442/https://www.walkingbanks.com

2025-08-06

Answered a reader that no transaction showed up for the address, not even the deposits that loaded the wallet.

njump.me/note1l9kql0d2urf8n26zgls65mssq4r5wmp27w77uzeu33jn5j3z0pvsuafh3a

Who this is

A neurobiologist and bitcoiner, per the Nostr profile, and the author of Walking Banks. The novel is a murder mystery in Beijing with bitcoin as the motive. Agents chase a killer who harvests organs, because the victims carry a seed phrase in their DNA. Yes, really. A neurobiologist wrote it, so the genetics get a proper scene.

Why give the book away?

The free PDF post says it plainly. The book is meant to "orange pill" people. The ones who'd never pick up a bitcoin book but enjoy a good murder mystery. So the PDF went out free on Nostr in September 2024, and later the audiobook too.

And a real wallet went into the story. 800,000 sats, one day before the PDF. Then in May 2025 the author paid 28,000 sats in zaps to promote the book and the hunt. The follow-up counts two book sales from it. Honest numbers. How many authors post those?

Does the author know the hunt is stuck?

Yes, and the hints say so. "It's 24 words" in May 2025, repetitions allowed in November, the words in the right order in March 2026. The last two open by admitting nobody has cracked it. The collection page walks through them, and through the xpub that made the wallet look empty.

The record

tssrc/collections/walking-banks.ts

static readonly author = party("AH White", {
  key: "ah-white",
  kind: PartyKind.Person,
  aliases: ["AHWhite"],
  about: "Neurobiologist and bitcoiner who wrote a Bitcoin murder mystery, gave the PDF away on Nostr and hid a real seed phrase in the story.",
  profiles: [
    profile("nostr", "https://njump.me/npub1c2rvx6ue9uewl452kczcfxz9w242sfzn64ul8dv2afd3t5dpktzs0kmmvf"),
    profile("twitter", "https://twitter.com/_AHWhite"),
  ],
  facts: [
    fact("Posted the free PDF of Walking Banks on Nostr, hosted on nostr.build, …", BOOK_POST, { date: "2024-09-06" }),
    fact("Announced with the audiobook that the story holds the information for a real Bitcoin seed phrase …", "https://njump.me/note13jytk…", { date: "2025-05-15" }),
    fact("The Find the Treasure section of walkingbanks.com links the treasure wallet's xpub on blockchain.com rather than an address.", "https://web.archive.org/web/20250402113442/https://www.walkingbanks.com/"),
    fact("Answered a reader that no transaction showed up for the address, not even the deposits that loaded the wallet.", "https://njump.me/note1l9kql…", { date: "2025-08-06" }),
  ],
});