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 = puzzle({
  id: "mineshop",
  chain: "ethereum",
  address: "0x9C2F44EFAd0c1E852a09dF9939e6DaF061140CaF",
  sourceUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4mpiuBP_aY",
  startedAt: "2020-02-12 13:17:25",
  pubkey: uncompressed("04e1a30f…4f9d"),
  prize: 8.61254155426562,
  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: [/* thirteen, 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.

A public key, and nothing behind it

No seed, no path, no wordlist. Vitolins never published a word of the phrase, only the promise that twelve of them exist. BIP39 English at MetaMask's default path is a fair guess. It's still a guess, so it stays out of the record.

The public key is another story. He signed every withdrawal himself, and each signature gives the key back. Hash it and you land on this exact address, so the record carries it now. Closer to the 8.6 ETH? Not one bit. It's the lock, not the key.

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 five 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 thirteen 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, its public key, 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

puzzle({
  chain: "ethereum",
  address: "0x9C2F44EFAd…61140CaF",
})