Crypto Puzzles

July 25, 2018, 06:43 UTC. A YouTube channel called Crypto Puzzles uploads its first video. Twenty seconds long. The description says "Part 1 of the crypto puzzle. Good luck." and promises the rest in part 2.

Part 2 lands the next morning. "2 parts, 1 answer." Whoever's first wins 0.05 ETH. Less than seven hours later the Ether is gone.

So the channel made a second one, "decidely trickier". That one's still waiting.

One letter matters here. Crypto Puzzlers, with an r, is the Doge's Gambit channel. Different channel, different keys, and no source here ties the two together.

Crypto Puzzle 1, solved in hours

Two clips, twenty seconds each, and one answer: 64 hex characters. No seed, no passphrase, no derivation path. The answer is the private key itself. Read it right and the address follows.

Which address? The videos never say. The chain does. On July 19, six days before part 1, 0x0a937e…2e15 sent exactly 0.05 ETH to 0xc99A54…7a8f. That's the prize, and the key on the solution screen opens it.

How fast did it go?

Part 2 went up at 07:09 UTC on July 26. At 14:03 UTC 0.049682 ETH left 0xc99A54…7a8f. Under seven hours from the final clip, about 31 from the first. "The first puzzle was solved in hours", the author wrote later. Fair.

The generous solver who wasn't two people

The solution video from August 1 congratulates "at least 2 solvers". One took the 0.05 ETH and "kindly left 0.0001ETH so someone else could see they have solved it too". Then somebody else "quickly took that too".

Nice story. The chain tells it a bit differently. The leftover went at 20:03 UTC, six hours after the prize, to 0xc9089c…8171. The same address that got the 0.049682 ETH. One wallet, twice. One solver being polite to themselves? Two friends sharing a wallet? The chain can't say. The record keeps that address as the solver and doesn't count heads.

Is the key on screen right?

The solution video ends on "THE SOLUTION" and three lines of hex, 23, 23 and 18 characters. Glue them together:

4487FC620AD0C4C67E80BE342B2EA1F5A3DC482BE6FB9C2451007322EA8BE35F

puzzles verify crypto-puzzles/1 derives this from it:

0xc99A54EEA6036115f913A13D6606e935bcA47a8f

Same address the funder paid and the solver emptied. That frame ships in the repo too, so the key doesn't depend on YouTube staying up.

Crypto Puzzle 2, still unsolved

August 1, 2018, 04:14 UTC. The same 0x0a937e…2e15 sends another 0.05 ETH, this time to 0x1fa8Be…61ad. Twenty four minutes later the solution video for puzzle 1 goes up. The author was loading the next round before announcing the last one.

Part 1 of the second puzzle came on August 6. Part 2 took three weeks, August 27, with a warning: "The first puzzle was solved in hours, so our second is decidely trickier. Are you smart enough?"

Eight years later? Apparently not yet.

Where does the prize address come from?

Not from the author. Neither video names it, in the footage or the description. The address comes from the chain: same funder, same amount, five days before part 1. A commenter posted it under part 2 when somebody asked, and floflo777's open-crypto-puzzles catalog reads it the same way.

It's an inference. A strong one, though. If the key ever turns up, puzzles verify crypto-puzzles/2 settles it in a second.

Is Crypto Puzzle 2 solved?

No. On October 18, 2026 0x1fa8Be…61ad still holds 0.05 ETH from that one funding transaction. Nothing has ever left it. Under part 2 a viewer sums up the mood: "Video 1 was easy enough to solve in Puzzle 2, but part 2 has baffled me for years."

The hints are just the two video descriptions. That's all the author ever gave.

Check it yourself

npx @agntn/puzzles verify crypto-puzzles/1
npx @agntn/puzzles balance crypto-puzzles/2
npx @agntn/puzzles hints crypto-puzzles/2

The solution frame lives at assets/crypto-puzzles/1, its SHA-256 pinned in the record.

Browse the Crypto Puzzles records