AoiNakamoto

Who this is

A Reddit account, plus the Twitter account it named as its own. That's the whole verified identity, and the record keeps it that way. AoiNakamoto posted on r/Bitcoin, r/bitcoinpuzzles and r/Grycoin between April and August 2019, ran a series of small text puzzles called Quizchain, and then wrote one last post titled Shutting Down. Satoshi without the consonants, if you were wondering about the name.

The dataset holds 159 of their puzzles, posted between April 5 and August 3, 2019. The birthday quiz went up on April 5, seven questions about Bitcoin history, each answer hashed, the hashes turned into a seed, and the wallet was swept the same evening. The book quiz ran the same recipe the next day in a campaign subreddit, this time with an hour on the clock, and nobody beat it: the money went back out and the author wrote a post-mortem on their own questions. On April 7 Quizchain block 1 cut it down to one question with the answer given away, and hid the real work in the author's favorite address. Block 2 came the same morning and needed block 1's key to solve, block 3 needed block 2's key plus a lucky three digit number, block 4 hid two words inside the Kanji for "know", block 5 wanted a Satoshi quote down to the full stop, block 6 asked for two words that held out overnight, block 7, worth 77 mBTC, asked about the name itself, block 8 needed a piece of the block 6 key, block 9 broke on a line break the author copied into the hash, and block 10 broke on the same one. The chain ran on to block 77, a 77 mBTC puzzle the author credits to Satoshi, and every prize was claimed by July 23. On May 11 the second run started over at block 1. Mostly single blocks now, and block 7 named the author's altcoin, Grycoin. From block 13 on, the blocks went up on r/Grycoin. On July 22 came the last big one, the Real Big Block: Stage Two of block 77, 777 mBTC for a Wattpad chapter, and still unclaimed. Then on July 28 the experiment got a new name, the Grycoin chain. Block 1 was claimed before its post went up. Block 2 was claimed with a solution the author admits not knowing. A week later came the shutdown. All six collections point at this one author record, which is why the page counts all of them.

What the record says and what it doesn't

The four facts on the record are all Reddit posts and comments by this account: the request for permission to run a giveaway, a reply that names the Twitter feed, one of the numbered Quizchain blocks, and the shutdown. That's enough to date the activity and to show the quizzes weren't a one off.

The Twitter account NakamotoAoi is on the record because of that reply. Same name in a different order, so for a while it only looked like the same person. Then on April 10, 2019, under Quizchain block 18, AoiNakamoto repeated a hint for a player and wrote "As I mentioned in my Twitter feed @NakamotoAoi". That's the Reddit account saying it, not a guess from the name. The comment is the source of the fact, and the profile sits next to the Reddit one.

The Wattpad account with the same name stays off. The puzzles link to its story, but a link to a story doesn't say who runs the account. If the Reddit account ever claims it the way it claimed the Twitter feed, it goes in the same way.

The record

static readonly author = party("AoiNakamoto", {
  key: "aoi-nakamoto",
  kind: PartyKind.Person,
  about: "Pseudonymous author of the 2019 Quizchain puzzle series on Reddit, …",
  profiles: [
    profile("reddit", "https://www.reddit.com/user/AoiNakamoto/"),
    profile("twitter", "https://x.com/NakamotoAoi"),
  ],
  facts: [
    fact("Asked r/Bitcoin on 2019-04-05 whether a quiz giveaway would be welcome, …", "https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/b9l37o/", { date: "2019-04-05" }),
    fact("Called @NakamotoAoi their Twitter feed in a reply under Quizchain block 18.", "https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinpuzzles/comments/bbij0e/meidum_7_mbtc_quizchain_block_18/ekjcc1k/", { date: "2019-04-10" }),
    fact("Ran the Quizchain blocks on r/bitcoinpuzzles and r/Grycoin from April to August 2019, …", "https://www.reddit.com/r/Grycoin/comments/c012gd/", { date: "2019-06-13" }),
    fact("Announced the shutdown on 2019-08-04 as time to reflect on the whole failed experiment.", "https://www.reddit.com/r/Grycoin/comments/clpqlv/", { date: "2019-08-04" }),
  ],
});