Quizchain2

The first Quizchain ended at block 77. The plan was a 777 mBTC grand finale and a quiet exit. Didn't happen. AoiNakamoto explains why in the block 1 post, and it's two very honest reasons. One, too many mistakes to trust a big final block. Two: "I found it way too much fun doing this experiment and want to continue a bit more."

Can't argue with that. So on May 11, 2019 the count starts over at 1. Same subreddit, same author, same love for upside down letters. Block 1 even takes the old block 76 key as its link, so the two runs are literally stitched together.

The second run, block by block

Every block has its own page. Question, answer, mistakes, and what the chain says about all of it. Here's the map.

Blocks 1 to 10: single blocks and a bot fight

It opens loud. Every failed block of the first run made the next one 77 mBTC, so block 1 and block 2 pay 77 each. Block 1 reads naMe upside down and lands on U2. Yes, the band. Block 2 has no question at all, just a password manager from the author's Wattpad story.

Then a Twitter poll changes the game. Players want single blocks, not chains, so most blocks drop the link. Block 3 hides CZ behind Atbash. Block 4 finds MasK sitting inside the block 3 key. Block 5 runs through the vowels, then its funding gets stuck in the mempool for nine hours.

And then the fight. Under block 6 a throwaway account says scripts solve 90% of the blocks. True? Nobody can prove it either way. Block 7 names the author's altcoin, Grycoin, and a human gets there first. Block 8 is xkcd's most famous password, twice. Block 9 gets funded twice by accident, so 14 mBTC sit on one address. And block 10? The worst received block of the whole experiment, by the author's own count. That takes some doing.

What the Quizchain2 records carry

MD5 from day one

The first run switched to MD5 at block 15 by accident and just kept it. The second run doesn't even pretend. Every block hashes its string with MD5, feeds the 16 bytes to Ian Coleman's BIP39 tool as entropy and takes m/44'/0'/0'/0/0. Twelve words, one address, done.

The string usually looks like [solution] TOMI [TOMI] [link]. TOMI is Thinking Only Method: a short field that only clicks once you know the answer. The link is a whole earlier key, when there is one. The post also gives the first digits of the MD5, sometimes for each part on its own. That's the only checksum you get. Use it.

Printed or derived?

A few keys got printed. Block 2's sits in a player's walkthrough. Block 3's shows up in the block 4 thread, because block 4's answer hides inside it. Sneaky. And the author printed block 6's key as the link for block 8.

The rest end in .derived(). Nobody printed them, so the record runs the published recipe on the published answer. The chain keeps it honest. The WIF has to give the funded address, and its public key has to match the one the claim revealed. Nobody can fake that, the author included.

Block 6 is the fun one. Its key is printed, its six words never are. So the record takes the first six words of the block 5 mnemonic, hashes them and lands exactly on the printed key. Method confirmed. Love it when that happens.

Where the answers come from

Mostly from the author's updates to the posts. When a player posted the full string, the record cites that comment too. Block 7 breaks the pattern: the author never edited the answer in, just replied "Good job" under the winning comment.

Who claimed it?

The chain doesn't name anybody, so no record does either. Block 5 comes close, though. The claim pays 1Thanksg9t4MRoCH2CM3cArWq26JiNvMY, and u/BrainForceOne says in the thread it's their address. A vanity address that says thanks. Polite.

The threads, archived

Every thread lives in the repo as a reading copy with a screenshot, in assets/sources/quizchain2. Each one comes from a 2023 capture of old.reddit.com, checked comment by comment against the Arctic Shift Reddit archive.

Why not blocks 78 and up?

Because the author started counting again. "Quizchain2 Block 1" is right there in the title. So it's a collection of its own, and quizchain2/1, 1, "1" and "quizchain2/1" all resolve inside it. Ask the whole dataset for a bare 1 and the miss suggests both runs.

The Quizchain2 puzzle records