I was surprised to learn that the thread was started in 2018 and has only had 12 successful participants to date, and that compared to the other merits to Newbies/Jr.members threads, yours has the least amount of activity. I believe your rules killed the thread; why would any Newbies/Jr.members go through such rules for only 1 merit/post & 3 posts max. When they could create encryption and sign a message in the Ognasty thread in fewer than 24 hours, they would receive a total of 6 merits. Either the rules are not friendly enough, or the offer is too poor.
Yeah, it's the rules thing. Too many requirements, but also the fact that many didn't have anything good to share to begin with. But the rules are the reason it was allowed to remain. I think Ognasty's offers came later, and they weren't around at the time I started my thread.