Right. Either the 8 words are the privkey (which is possible if OP did some brute forcing - I've done something similar myself, several years ago now, for a puzzle), or it's a hash.
Either way, it's finding the right 32 chars. I have been assuming that they are from the question itself, like others have been.
Why would that require brute forcing? Either way, it's finding the right 32 chars. I have been assuming that they are from the question itself, like others have been.
You "simply" pick 8 words that total up to 32 chars as your answer: WeCreateAnAnswerThatIsEightWords
Then pick whatever method you like to use that as your private key:
char->hex method... which yields private key: 5765437265617465416e416e737765725468617449734569676874576f726473 (18LpdmS7UPHRPsNmD384LRRawHjVXprJy1)
or
brainwallet (sha256) method... which yields private key: 8EAFEFFE8CEE0E1E43A53314FFEC31BE09B378A4E733A516BBBAEB177CC151FD (15idakESXkA4N5Uyjts2xTFupBLD9Pibz2)
You can then send your XBTC prize to the address you just "created"
The problem we have is that there is no definitive answer as to whether we should be doing "char->hex" method or "brainwallet" method. I guess the solution to that problem is to simply check both!