"As it turned out, the real prize of the TLSN puzzle was the friends we made along the way..."  

Of course, I'm making a joke here, but I agree with RC 100%.  It's bittersweet that the puzzle is finally over after nearly three and a half years.  I sort of expected that it would go on for decades without being solved, like a Bitcoin version of the fourth Kryptos panel.  But as the prize value skyrocketed along with the price of bitcoin, it was only a matter of time before someone made a breakthrough.

For me personally, the puzzle came along just when I began to seriously get involved in Bitcoin, and it served as a catalyst for me to connect with others in the community and learn as much as I could.  I feel extremely fortunate that, as the puzzle progressed, I was invited to join a group of expert solvers who also happened to be wonderful people, and who became true friends.

It's disappointing that our team did not solve the puzzle. But at the risk of sounding trite, I can honestly say that if given a choice between the prize and the friendships that grew out of working on this puzzle together, without question, I would choose the friendships. For that reason, I want to offer my deep thanks to coin_artist and the rest of the puzzle team, not only for creating an engaging and historic experience, but for providing the venue that brought us together.

The SHA1 bounty has been claimed - currently 1 confirmation.

https://blockchain.info/tx/8d31992805518fd62daa3bdd2a5c4fd2cd3054c9b3dca1d78055e9528cff6adc

Very cool.  Token controlled access.  Listen to LTB episode 146.  Now I can understand why coin_artist said it was a team effort.

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-146-because-we-can

http://i.imgur.com/xGmKVtk.png?1

This is definitely from that Golly program...

http://i.imgur.com/ykdFCyg.jpg

http://sourceforge.net/projects/golly/

Did anyone else notice the face in Frame 10 of the gif?

http://i.imgur.com/HP5onhg.png

I played around with the Game of Life a couple of days ago using this tool to try various changes to the game rules:  http://sourceforge.net/projects/golly/.  My overall takeaway was that I could find no obviously "interesting" patterns that naturally emerge from the initial whiterabbit state using any combination of game rules that don't immediately explode into endless growth or immediately disappear.

Also, I think I have to discount the general idea that you can predictably identify a GoL input state that will lead to an "obvious" output state (like a QR code or other non-trivial design).  After doing some more reading, it appears that GoL is similar in many respects to a hash function in that it is computationally unfeasible to compute the input needed to produce a specific output, which is what you would have to do in order to create a puzzle where you were trying to generate a "designed" end state.  (See http://nbickford.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/reversing-the-game-of-life-for-fun-and-profit/ )

It seems clear that GoL is a key component of the puzzle.  I think that an alternate possibility is that "what lies beneath" the gif frames might reveal a key for encoding / decoding data into GoL cells, maybe using some form of coordinates.  Anyway that's my best guess for now.

I think we should leave interpretation aside for the moment and simply let her know she is in our thoughts.

https://twitter.com/coin_artist/status/514298659971018753

Please send warm thoughts coin_artist's way.  I figured if there is any group of people who can express how much she is appreciated, it's this one.

She is our whit3r4bbi7, and we have all been enriched by following her into wonderland.

Props to alphabetacanary and MAD PROPS to rock_collector for getting us through the last couple of puzzles in the last 24 hours.  We were definitely stuck on the warp text for quite a while.

Looking over the new poem, there is a possible interpretation that goes back to something mentioned earlier in the game by dpc123.  Specifically, the resemblance of the whiterabbit "grid" (as seen here: https://twitter.com/WHIT3R4BBI7) to a pattern from Conway's Game of Life.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life  


These lines from the poem seem relevant:

GAMES ARE FALSE.
RULES ARE BENT.
WHAT LIES BENEATH
IS H3AVEN SENT.
...
THAT W4S LIFE.
A GAME CREATED.
IF YOU LOSE YOURSELF,
GODSPEED TO THE BELA7ED.

Conway's Game of Life has the following "rules":

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

One possible interpretation of the poem is to modify the Game of Life rules in some way (CHARON reference = change the "death" rules?), apply it to an input pattern (H3AVEN SENT?) and run the Game for some number of generations to produce an output pattern (WHEN SHE ARRIVES, YOU WILL KNOW - perhaps a QR code?).  

Or this whole line of thought could could be WAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY off base.  Actually, I hope someone does comes up with a better idea because mine sounds like a lot of work.

Even better: cryptoqueen = coin_artist = Satoshi Hacker

Seeing as how this entire game could be interpreted as an elaborate and exquisitely crafted multimedia epic poem dedicated to Satoshi....it seems extremely farfetched that @coin_artist would be in any way connected to the Satoshi hacker. 

...then again, it would make a perfect alibi... 

Perfect, thank you.  I figured it had something to do with the serial number.

Right...that gets you this... http://i.imgur.com/aqPJDJB.png ...but how does that lead you to http://whit3r4bbi7.com/warp/ ?

A clarification...the bounty in 1TLSNYAx5P6Yjie3cF97fZh9U4B5UZ7PF is currently 4.34734734 BTC.


Also, I assume this was covered in the IRC channel last night, but can anyone explain how decoding the printer steganography dots led to finding http://www.whit3r4bbi7.com/warp?

And the 0.3.19 announcement was satoshi's last post on bitcointalk....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3;sa=showPosts

Fantastic work everyone! It was fun surreptitiously checking my phone tonight during my boring work dinner and see the new revelations roll in.

Has anyone noticed the capital letters in the poem?  Something seems to be going on there, but the pattern is strange.

This idea just popped into my head as I was walking down the street thinking about the PRINT clue.  Unfortunately I'm not near a computer ... but this definitely looks like the dots on the bank note image.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography

I don't think I saw a link to beta.mp4 posted anywhere on the thread, so here is a copy for folks who haven't seen it yet:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/84qene5knsmoaek/beta.mp4?dl=0

The general theme of the video seems to be quantum physics / quantum computers with images mixed in from human biology, astronomy, as well as what appear to be court transcripts, maps, and various technical readouts / diagrams.

The word "Vesuvius" appears several times, along with images of the D-Wave Two quantum computer (Code Name Vesuvius).  The last few seconds appear to contain content lifted from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VIAL8gQRTI#t=124

There are a lot of interesting frames in the video, but the one that struck me the most appears in a few frames near the end. 

http://i.imgur.com/n5VHF2h.jpg

I have to say, now that this is delving into quantum physics (including the equation for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), the text from the OP seems to take on new relevance.


"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be, it would. Take a W@@@lk with me. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? 1follow me"

Wow, amazing stuff.  I wish I had time to join in the effort, but unfortunately "R" is taking precedence over "ARG" for me right now.  I have to agree with rock_collector's earlier statement that it's worth appreciating the layers of artistry and technical expertise what went into creating this.

Just curious, does anyone recognize the music in the video?

[EDIT: Answered my own question - thanks Shazam]

http://www.amazon.com/Philip-Glass-Music-Changing-Parts/dp/B000UWZVC0/ref=tmm_msc_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

Maybe we need a break.... a change of pace.

Going back to the Ghostrider / Fantastic Four idea. I, ahem, "found" a copy of issue #347.  I haven't read it all yet...but it's maybe there are some clues inside.

You'll need a CBR reader.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n702i0j08j6od2m/Fantastic%20Four%20V1%20347.cbr?dl=0

@PO347 has a Top Gun quote in her/his twitter bio...I'm just wondering if the "airstrike" quote is pointing back to that.