Pinmapple Treasure Hunt at Hivefest Amsterdam

If you've been following the Hive news in the past week you'd know that the biggest event of the year, Hivefest was held in Amsterdam on 15th to 19th September. Some of the Pinmapple team was there, here's @lizanomadsoul, @martibis - the brains behind Pinmapple and myself @livinguktaiwan. Hi everyone from Team Pinmapple from Hivefest!!

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PINMAPPLE TREASURE HUNT

During this year's Hivefest, Pinmapple hosted a treasure hunt with 1000 Hive prize courtesy of @martibis. We deliberately didn't announce it before hand as treasure hunts are supposed to be hush hush. The treasure has been found now, and the whole process has been nothing short of ups and downs, highs and lows, excitement and teamwork. Let me share the whole process so you can join in the fun.

The objective of the treasure hunt is to find the account on Hive that holds the treasure. Then you need to find the encrypted message, and the password to decrypt the message. Once you've decrypted the message you will get the master key to access the account and the treasure. Easy right?

THE CLUES

First of all martibis created an account anonymously so people couldn't search for accounts created by him or Pinmapple. Then he transferred 1018.573 Hive into the account. It's a random amount instead of exactly 1000 Hive, not intentional but it worked out well and made it a little more difficult for people to search for the account.

Next he prepared the clues. The encrypted message was hidden somewhere and the card was placed in some of the goodie bags given to each participant.

The second clue was an anagram telling people where they had to go to get the password. The idea was to add another level of difficulty. I thought the anagram looks a bit Dutch, perfect for the location. This was also placed in the goodie bag, so people had one or the other. The purpose was for people to talk to one another to get all the clues. I don't know how many people worked out this anagram but in the end it's role was not as important. Let me know if you can work out the anagram. 10 Hive to the first person with the correct answer.

The final clue is the password to decrypt the message. This can be found in the QR code at the location in the anagram. It was also placed at the reception along with the other clue cards.

And finally, the most important thing, you need to know the Hive account name that holds the treasure. If you're reading up till now, you should have seen/found all the clues.

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THE SOLUTION

The first clue, the co-ordinates will take you to one of my post on Pinmapple, a trip to a market in Amsterdam a few months ago. Hivefest was in Amsterdam so it was the perfect way to merge Amsterdam and Pinmapple. Here's the encrypted message.

Then you need to find the QR code on the left.

The scan message from the QR code is this, it's the key to solve the AES encrypted message.

You need to decrypt this using any AES decryption application and you will get the wallet key.

And finally the Hive account.... it's @treasurefinder and you were looking at it all the time!!!

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THE TREASURE HUNTERS

On the first day it seems no one knew much about the treasure hunt and things were pretty quiet. On the second day, I did my presentation in the morning and spent a few minutes talking about it to create awareness. Later on martibis mentioned it again as some people found my market post and thought they had to physically go there!!

In the afternoon some people had made good progress. @mynewlife had found both the encrypted message and the key to decrypt it but he couldn't decrypt the message. Then later on I happened to pass by when @jeffjagoe said he had cracked the code and got the wallet key, but he didn't know the account. I think, but can't be 100% sure that @mynewlife spoke to him about his earlier findings. Then @lecharles was nearby and said he had found the account! Now things were getting interesting. After a bit of testing out each other's finding, and a proposal to split the treasure, @lecharles disappeared and reappeared with @minigunner. Turns out he had worked out the account name but was stuck on finding the key. The guys struck a deal and a few moments later they finally got into the account. That moment was
absolutely crazy. I was watching from the side and took a video of when it happened.

And this is @minigunner's video.

Now the treasure has been found and taken, and in true Hive family spirit, it's been split accordingly. The winners goes home a happy bunny.

From @treasurefinder wallet

From @minigunner aka @coldbeetrootsoup wallet

From @jeffjagoe wallet

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OTHER TREASURE HUNTERS

Another team @louis88 and @rivalzzz also tried to find the treasure, and they even went to the market in my post to find the clues! Full marks guys for your effort and commiserations for losing out. I look forward to you posting about your treasure hunting adventure at the market.

I'm not sure how many other people attempted to find the treasure hunt and how far they got. Drop us a comment to let us know. And thanks to everyone who took part, hope you all had a blast!

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PINMAPPLE UPDATE

Last and not the least, with @martibis away at Hivefest, the work on Pinmapple was put on hold for a few days. We're still manually curating the travel content pinned onto Pinmapple, and the daily Travel Digest will resume when @martibis gets back to work. Everything will be back to normal very soon...