Bitcoin Puzzle transaction (2015)

5°

this address's ancestry traces 5 degrees to the earliest coins

On 15 January 2015 a single transaction, 08389f34c98c606322740c0be6a7125d9860bb8d5cb182c02f98461e5fa6cd15, funded 256 outputs with amounts scaling from 0.001 BTC to 0.256 BTC — one output per puzzle index, where the private key for puzzle N is known to lie inside an N-bit range. Low-numbered tranches fell quickly to brute force; higher ones remain open, and the anonymous creator has since topped up unsolved outputs. The author has described the series as a crude measuring instrument for the community's key-search capability rather than a giveaway.

What is and is not established. Addresses were read directly from the funding transaction's outputs on mempool.space and mapped to puzzle number by output value (0.001 BTC x N); puzzle #66 is additionally corroborated by a public puzzle-tracking repository. Solved/unsolved status is time-sensitive: when checked, #71 and #72 had no spends while #66 and #67 were fully swept. Re-check spend status at render time rather than treating these labels as permanent. The puzzle creator is anonymous and their stated motive is self-reported. Fifth-index puzzles have had public keys exposed by small outgoing spends, which changes the attack surface for those specific tranches.

Address

1PWo3JeB9jrGwfHDNpdGK54CRas7fsVzXU

Era

2015-present

Sources

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