Trithemius

Who this is

A Medium account with three names so far and one essay that matters here. Medium's user id, 89cc82722605, is the thread that ties them together.

February 11, 2019. As OneSourGrape, handle @onesourgrape, the account publishes Securing Wealth in Poetry in Coinmonks. It's an essay about hiding seed phrases in stories, told through the author's grandfather, who fled China with gold sewn into his shirt. It ends by saying the essay itself hides a wallet with .03 BTC, prints the address and promises the coins to GiveDirectly's refugee fund if nobody takes them by the end of 2020.

By September 2020 the account is called Sharon & Philippe, bio "Designer, Miner, Grape.". Two replies to readers sit under the essay from that name. One explains that you'd burn the hardware wallet before the journey and restore from the story on arrival. The other points a skeptic back to the phone numbers. Neither says anything about the puzzle.

Then the handle itself changes. By 2025 the profile lives at @Trithemius, named after the abbot the method is named after, and the bio has lost its "Grape". Old links to @onesourgrape lead nowhere. The coins haven't moved.

What the record says

Four facts. The essay and what it claims to hide. The donation promise, in the essay's own words. The 2020 name and bio, from a Wayback capture of the account's responses page. And the rename, from a 2025 capture of the profile, where Medium's own data shows the same user id that published the essay. The "we" in the donation promise is the essay's word. Whether that's one person or two, the record doesn't guess, so it has no kind.

The record

static readonly author = party("Trithemius", {
  key: "trithemius",
  aliases: ["OneSourGrape", "Sharon & Philippe"],
  about: "Medium account, first @onesourgrape, that published one essay on hiding seed phrases in stories in February 2019, …",
  profiles: [profile("medium", "https://medium.com/@Trithemius")],
  facts: [
    fact("Published Securing Wealth in Poetry in Coinmonks as OneSourGrape, handle @onesourgrape, …", ARTICLE, { date: "2019-02-11" }),
    fact("Promised in the article to donate the contents of the wallet to GiveDirectly.org/refugees …", ARTICLE, { date: "2019-02-11" }),
    fact("Went by Sharon & Philippe in 2020, with the bio \"Designer, Miner, Grape.\", …", RESPONSES),
    fact("Renamed the account to Trithemius, handle @Trithemius, bio \"Designer, Miner\". …", PROFILE),
  ],
});