Today we are excited to announce that the Puzzle part of our Dungeons & Data crypto-data challenge has been launched following the successful conclusion of the first Puzzle round.
The Puzzle Paladin challenge is a sequence of brainteasers, designed to help participants exercise their logic and puzzle-solving skills. And of course, have fun!
How to Play
The challenge is divided into two steps. Step one is an open question the participants are to answer in the Covalent Telegram chat. We try to think of the questions that are interesting to answer and can initiate a discussion. We then reward the best answers! 50 USDT reward per round is dedicated to that.
Step two is a series of unique and original brainteasers. It can be a code to break or a hint for a hidden clue to find. The first person to unravel the enigma wins 300 USDT. Everyone else who solves the whole puzzle before the deadline has a chance to win 50 USDT.
There are seven Puzzle rounds. Round one finished yesterday while there are six more still to come! Here is a short overview of the first Puzzle round.
Puzzle Paladin Round One
During step one Puzzle Paladins were offered three questions to choose from:
- How did you first learn about the cryptocurrency and what was your first impression?
- What aspect about cryptocurrency amuses you most?
- What issue does crypto have at this moment?
We received a lot of amazing and insightful answers during the three hours which the Paladins had for answering the questions. Thank you!
Then, step two began: the Paladins had to use the /quiz command in the Covalent official bot to receive the brainteasers. The first puzzle was:
According to Coingecko, BTC All-Time High occurred on December 16th, 2017. By checking the events of this day, one was able to see that “The existence of a U.S. government Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program that investigated reports of UFOs” was revealed. This was the correct answer, which lead to the second puzzle:
Here one had to decipher the message. “16” refers to the Hexadecimal numeral system - the system used to encode the question. Puzzle Paladins then had to convert it into text (plenty of online decoders to save us time and effort) and upon doing so, found that it translated to: “This DeFi platform has the highest TVL among derivatives platforms”. One can easily find the answer to this question on DeFi Pulse and see that the answer is Synthetix. This lead the Paladins to the final piece of the puzzle:
While investigating the address on Etherscan, one was able to see that it has an NFT token from Rarible:
For such challenges, it can be worthwhile to examine clues further. As seen below, one was able to do so here. The easiest way to do so was to visit Rarible and search the token by the owner ETH address.
A few more clues can be seen upon taking a closer look:
- For some reason, we are called Nihilist. Can this be a hint?
- There are some odd numbers in the description and the initial task mentioned “decoded word”, so this should be the code.
- The word “Candlekeep” is hidden in the image itself. Perhaps one needs it?
A google search for Code + Nihilist landed the Paladins on an article about Nihilist Cypher. It appears that numbers in the description are indeed the code - and the word on the image is likely the cypher key. Using an automated or manual solutionm our Paladins were able to decipher the key:
This lead them to the answer: nonce!
Become a Puzzle Paladin
Do you enjoy playing logic games? You are most welcome to join our Puzzle Paladins ranks! Register here! The next Puzzle rounds are scheduled for the following dates: October 22, October 26, October 29, November 2, November 5, November 9.