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THIS PAINTING IS worth $50,000 – or at least it was until today.
Created three years ago, it contains a secret code that gives access to an online wallet of Bitcoins worth $50,000 (or over €40,000).
Today that wallet was emptied, but the winner said they didn’t want their identity revealed.
According to the BBC, here’s where the magic code was hidden in the painting:
The puzzle encoded a string of binary – a series of zeroes and ones – in complicated rows of flames painted around the edge of the canvas.
The colour and shape of each flame determined a four-character chunk of the binary series, with a further part of the code represented by six ribbons of different lengths in the bottom right-hand corner.
After all of these codes had been worked out and linked together, the successful puzzle-solver was able to translate the full string of zeros and ones into a Bitcoin private key with the help of a simple computer programme.
The person behind the @coin_artist account on Twitter told Motherboard that the painting was partly inspired by a personal event, and partly in reference to William Shakespeare’s famous poem The Phoenix and the Turtle.
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This painting is worth over forty thousand Euro… no wait thirty thousa…oh hang on it’s worth ten… ah forget it.
Prob worth 10p now
Cool. Its a pity though bitcoin has become sh*tcoin! If u bought one just before Christmas for 18500 dollars its now worth 7800 dollars.
@raymond grehan: And if you bought a year ago you’d be up 600%…. One month doesn’t make or break a coin
@Barry O’Carroll: Just keep on HODLing punks!
@Barry O’Carroll: True Barry …but all ponzi schemes go to zero over time. The blockchain is a great idea. A workable and usable coin is a ‘bit’ down the line )
@raymond grehan: Sorry ..worth 6765.01 just now (
@Sean: #HODL
Whoosh…..
If the whole point if crypto currencies is to brake away from a central banking system then why is it still so linked to the main stock market. As soon as the stick market nose dived today so did all the crypto currencies. Sure sign if I ever needed one that crypto currencies are a bluff
Lets face it – we are all hodling as there is fvck all we can do now :/
@CryptoSteve: I’d be buying if people were selling. Sad state of affairs atm.
@James Wond: buy bit coin at around 2000. Wait till then
@CryptoSteve: ripple is dropping everyday, I’ve bought 3 times over the past 2 weeks. Not a huge amount but if it hits 25% of what Bitcoin did at its height, I’d be a very happy camper. It’s worth the gamble if you’ve a bit spare.
@Hardly Normal: ripple will never be close to 5000 dollars (1/4 of bit coin high). It has 2500 times more coins issued that Bitcoin! 39,000 million coins vs 16 million coins. It will be under 50 c by the end of today.
have your say