The 10 ETH challenge

On February 12, 2020 Guntis Vitolins, who sells mining hardware at mineshop.eu, uploaded a market video, published a blog post, funded a fresh wallet with 10 ETH, and told everyone the seed phrase was hiding in those two pages. Six years later the wallet is still his.

How the 10 ETH challenge works

Six words in the video, six in the post

The rules live in the video description, and this is how they're written: "12 wallet seed words- 6 are hidden in this video (description, tags, title,video basically could be anywhere in this video) 6.words are hidden in original post."

So: twelve words, two sources, no passphrase mentioned, no path, no wordlist named. Put them in a wallet and the 8.6 ETH is yours. The video and the post are both still online, which is more than most six-year-old puzzles can say.

The sentences that don't belong

Both pages are about crypto markets, pullbacks and portfolio updates. Then, mid-paragraph, this shows up:

Round dutch cattle is living in the forest and eating wood. Only because there is a lot of healthy fiber. Hunter like the rib roast dinner fresh.

And in the video description, between the affiliate links:

Don't expect anything easy there will be dark fog on the lake. Also It is not impossible.

Do you think its more likely for parrot can sing a song then for a goat to whistle ?

Nobody writing about a 20% upswing stops to discuss cattle eating wood. The plants are obvious. Which of their words belong to the phrase, and in what order, is the entire puzzle, and six years of solvers have not agreed on it.

The hints that came later

Vitolins kept dropping more hints across his channel, a few written in descriptions, the rest spoken in the middle of unrelated market videos. That's why people trying this one end up transcribing his uploads. A puzzle where the clues arrive by YouTube upload is a strange place to keep 8.6 ETH, but here we are.

What the mineshop record carries

The address, the money, the rules

export const mineshopPuzzle = ethereumPuzzle({
  id: "mineshop",
  address: standard("0x9C2F44EFAd0c1E852a09dF9939e6DaF061140CaF"),
  sourceUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY",
  startedAt: "2020-02-12 13:17:25",
  prize: 8.612541554256945,
  hints: [
    official(
      "12 wallet seed words- 6 are hidden in this video (description, tags, title,video basically could be anywhere in this video) 6.words are hidden in original post. This task will unlock wallet to claim 10 eth.",
      "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY",
      confirmation(
        "https://mineshop.eu/blog/mineshop-blog-tutorials/crypto-pumping-hardcore-research-portfolio-update-how-are-we-doing",
        "The companion post states the same split: six words in the video, six in the post.",
      ),
      { date: "2020-02-12" },
    ),
  ],
  transactions: [/* twelve, funding first */],
});

The hint is the rules, quoted exactly, typos and all. Its confirmation is the post, because the post says the same thing in the author's other channel. started is the funding transaction at 13:17:25 UTC, five hours before the video went up, same afternoon.

Why there's no key material

No seed, no path, no public key. Vitolins never published a word of the phrase, only the promise that twelve of them exist and roughly where to look. Guessing that it's BIP39 English at MetaMask's default path is reasonable, and it's still a guess, so it stays out of the record. The library would rather say nothing than say something a source never did.

Why the 10 ETH prize is now 8.61 ETH

The author spends from the wallet himself

Everywhere else in this dataset a shrinking balance means somebody won. Not here. Vitolins holds the key and uses it like any other wallet: seven outgoing transactions between May 2021 and June 2024, about 1.377 ETH gone, plus four small deposits back in.

So the address dropping to zero tomorrow would prove nothing. He'd just have moved his money.

Do the math from the record

All twelve transactions are in there, decrease for his withdrawals and increase for the deposits. Take 10, subtract the withdrawals, subtract their gas, add the deposits, and you land on the prize. Each amount is the double nearest its wei value, which is as close as a JSON number gets to eighteen decimals. The txids carry the exact figure.

Is the mineshop puzzle solved?

No, and verify() answers unavailable, which is the honest response when there's nothing to derive from. A solved status in this library needs key material that reproduces the address. This record has an address, a date, some money and a riddle.

A singleton id, no name segment

mineshop is the whole identifier, like gsmg, bitaps and movie_enigma. One puzzle, one key, no slash.

The mineshop puzzle record

mineshop	unsolved	8.612541554256945 ETH	0x9C2F44EFAd0c1E852a09dF9939e6DaF061140CaF
chain: ethereum  address kind: standard
public key: unknown
private key: unknown
started: 2020-02-12 13:17:25
transactions: 12
	funding	2020-02-12 13:17:25	10 ETH	0xa0c970e0eacc199d3d8a617af84182861b886958fd4416399e9a7191f9dcfb70
	decrease	2021-05-05 10:10:38	0.1 ETH	0xcf21ccdc94b490435909056531d165ad26eb78b8a2c7ad585376cc5febca0d1a
	decrease	2021-05-10 11:14:31	0.1 ETH	0xd5fa39886433eed6bb2d18f3670ef881a9c7437768070ec3fc1749e5e89f8d7d
	decrease	2021-05-30 08:24:54	0.066 ETH	0x751a87f5a2434a8a359e806fa446cf9873956a73e8c13e2de947fe0cd586c368
	increase	2021-12-10 10:04:34	0.00005 ETH	0x16e05bf1d527b82e1a08b100c7255d9512ac2f989a05a6aec43112fb3bb34adb
	decrease	2024-01-08 12:38:59	0.2218436091293082 ETH	0x459acd3020f1b6ba8b3123a44aa62df802c31641ad5424ecb3a34b2db0482c2b
	decrease	2024-01-08 12:39:23	0.22170392770678327 ETH	0xd53379648d1eadcd779d4546dd877bce6c0ce976777ebe6feaa372df3b9d841e
	decrease	2024-02-09 15:57:23	0.4006859743881525 ETH	0x5ecca9595fa278b7cc348ceecd6bd784be3c13540ece7be9bde4cd611cd243de
	increase	2024-02-16 13:51:59	0.000505 ETH	0xe5e71ab1a3c08c3936926c8b64bff40d4c5db41f228057a1dabab56eb258553c
	decrease	2024-06-04 09:53:47	0.2669856254939234 ETH	0x3131dd70cd075e62d2d790e920f2049b7bb25d2640c8ecf534257aed01aa3134
	increase	2024-06-04 09:58:11	0.000026698 ETH	0xf2debb3bcfd55e1af49593c5ee2e4e88c9f9f48ea6176618361d98b0a6617a7e
	increase	2026-07-30 09:09:47	0.000011 ETH	0xe84fa359e4a901ed3555faf749c27710101ab124bc4395cbbeffe077d953f816
hints: 1
	official	2020-02-12	12 wallet seed words- 6 are hidden in this video (description, tags, title,video basically could be anywhere in this video) 6.words are hidden in original post. This task will unlock wallet to claim 10 eth.	source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY	confirmation: https://mineshop.eu/blog/mineshop-blog-tutorials/crypto-pumping-hardcore-research-portfolio-update-how-are-we-doing (The companion post states the same split: six words in the video, six in the post.)
explorer: https://etherscan.io/address/0x9C2F44EFAd0c1E852a09dF9939e6DaF061140CaF
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY

{
  "id": "mineshop",
  "chain": "ethereum",
  "address": {
    "value": "0x9C2F44EFAd0c1E852a09dF9939e6DaF061140CaF",
    "kind": "standard"
  },
  "status": "unsolved",
  "prize": 8.612541554256945,
  "start_date": "2020-02-12 13:17:25",
  "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY",
  "transactions": [
    {
      "tx_type": "funding",
      "txid": "0xa0c970e0eacc199d3d8a617af84182861b886958fd4416399e9a7191f9dcfb70",
      "date": "2020-02-12 13:17:25",
      "amount": 10
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0xcf21ccdc94b490435909056531d165ad26eb78b8a2c7ad585376cc5febca0d1a",
      "date": "2021-05-05 10:10:38",
      "amount": 0.1
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0xd5fa39886433eed6bb2d18f3670ef881a9c7437768070ec3fc1749e5e89f8d7d",
      "date": "2021-05-10 11:14:31",
      "amount": 0.1
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0x751a87f5a2434a8a359e806fa446cf9873956a73e8c13e2de947fe0cd586c368",
      "date": "2021-05-30 08:24:54",
      "amount": 0.066
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "increase",
      "txid": "0x16e05bf1d527b82e1a08b100c7255d9512ac2f989a05a6aec43112fb3bb34adb",
      "date": "2021-12-10 10:04:34",
      "amount": 0.00005
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0x459acd3020f1b6ba8b3123a44aa62df802c31641ad5424ecb3a34b2db0482c2b",
      "date": "2024-01-08 12:38:59",
      "amount": 0.2218436091293082
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0xd53379648d1eadcd779d4546dd877bce6c0ce976777ebe6feaa372df3b9d841e",
      "date": "2024-01-08 12:39:23",
      "amount": 0.22170392770678327
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0x5ecca9595fa278b7cc348ceecd6bd784be3c13540ece7be9bde4cd611cd243de",
      "date": "2024-02-09 15:57:23",
      "amount": 0.4006859743881525
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "increase",
      "txid": "0xe5e71ab1a3c08c3936926c8b64bff40d4c5db41f228057a1dabab56eb258553c",
      "date": "2024-02-16 13:51:59",
      "amount": 0.000505
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "decrease",
      "txid": "0x3131dd70cd075e62d2d790e920f2049b7bb25d2640c8ecf534257aed01aa3134",
      "date": "2024-06-04 09:53:47",
      "amount": 0.2669856254939234
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "increase",
      "txid": "0xf2debb3bcfd55e1af49593c5ee2e4e88c9f9f48ea6176618361d98b0a6617a7e",
      "date": "2024-06-04 09:58:11",
      "amount": 0.000026698
    },
    {
      "tx_type": "increase",
      "txid": "0xe84fa359e4a901ed3555faf749c27710101ab124bc4395cbbeffe077d953f816",
      "date": "2026-07-30 09:09:47",
      "amount": 0.000011
    }
  ],
  "hints": [
    {
      "kind": "official",
      "text": "12 wallet seed words- 6 are hidden in this video (description, tags, title,video basically could be anywhere in this video) 6.words are hidden in original post. This task will unlock wallet to claim 10 eth.",
      "source": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY",
      "confirmation": {
        "url": "https://mineshop.eu/blog/mineshop-blog-tutorials/crypto-pumping-hardcore-research-portfolio-update-how-are-we-doing",
        "description": "The companion post states the same split: six words in the video, six in the post."
      },
      "date": "2020-02-12"
    }
  ]
}