A new alternate reality game called Satoshi’s Treasure promises $1 million in bitcoin to the first player to locate 400 hidden keys to a wallet containing that sum. One of the game’s co-creators, Eric Meltzer, announced the game to Coindesk yesterday. The first clue of the game was also released yesterday on Twitter, instructing players to travel to locations spanning four continents.
The production is a team effort by 20 developers, with the aim being to ensure no individual knows all the clues. The secret key consists of 1,000 parts, although only 400 will be needed to reconstruct the whole key and access the wallet. The system uses an algorithm called Shamir’s Secret Sharing, which allows a secret to be accessed by someone possessing a certain “threshold” number of its parts.
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More than 6,000 people have already signed up to the game’s mailing list in the hope of receiving helpful updates. So far, its players are predominantly younger than expected. “It skews very young so far. I don’t think it will stay that way,” Meltzer tells Coindesk’s Leigh Cuen.
"Forget about the rules, just go goddamn play."
The game will run without supervision from its creators. There are no rules and players can collaborate in any way they see fit. They can form teams and make deals with other teams, but their integrity will be entirely unregulated.
The game’s Wild West atmosphere may be its strongest appeal. “When the winning team wins they do so by taking the bitcoin and we have nothing to do with this,” says Meltzer. “Forget about the rules, just go goddamn play.”