Suggestions to the organizers

An open letter to the organizers of Satoshi's Treasure.

I'm placing this here because the only contact information we have is on Twitter and it won’t fit there ! LOL.

I have very little experience with digital currency. I was one click away from buying 1,000 bitcoins in the very beginning, got distracted, and never completed the transaction. I could have been writing this from my own private island…. I understand the concepts of digital currency, but not much past that.

I do have lots of experience with treasure hunts – real world, “armchair”, and online.

I (and probably everybody else here) would like to see Satoshi’s Treasure hunt be a success. To that end I would encourage the organizers to do some research on past large treasure hunts (successful and unsuccessful) to gain learnings they can use to better mold this treasure hunt.

To that end, I would like to share my observations from my experiences.

Communication

• Consistent, Clear, Verified, and in one location
• Ron Shore of “The World’s Greatest Treasure Hunt” did this well through a website (https://web.archive.org/web/20160311003430/http://www.greathunt.com/) and Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/GreatHunt/)
• All clues were posted to the Facebook page and clearly noted as CLUE
• Suggestions

- If Twitter is going to be the primary communication channel, add a link on your website to it. That way people can easily find it and know it is verified communication

Only communicate hunt information through the @toshitreasure twitter account. No clues from personal accounts.

Tag any communication that contains hunt clues/information so it is clear. Maybe #toshitreasureclue ?

Be more specific on live events. “this week” or “next couple days” is not enough. This doesn’t give enough detail for those not in that exact location to participate. I understand the event this week in NYC was not for a key. At the same time, I don’t think you understand that any opportunity to learn more about how the organizer’s think is extremely useful… A “starts on 9AM ET on Tuesday and will end by 5PM ET on Friday” would be much better.

Clarify the Hunter Key. Did each Agent have a separate unique key? If you got all three would that be three separate keys counted towards the 400?

Interaction

• Michael Stadther of “A Treasure’s Trove” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treasure%27s_Trove) and “Secrets of the Alchemest Dar” had NO communications with hunters. This made it easy for him and the hunters – nobody heard information that others didn’t.
• Ron Shore had lots of communications with hunters – in person at events, email, phone, and Facebook. He was pretty good and not providing additional information when pressed. There were a couple times when he mistakenly said something to a hunter that he shouldn’t have. He would then post that information to Facebook so that everyone had it vs. just one person.
• Suggestions

- It what ways do the organizers want to/not want to interact with hunters?

- How do the organizers make sure they are not providing more information than they should via hunter interaction?

- Clarify the business cards from earlier this week. What was their purpose? Did they have clues? How could they affect the main hunt?

Trust

• There is an implicit trust that goes along with a treasure hunt.
• The hunters trust the treasure is real.
• The hunters trust the treasure will be awarded should hunt be solved.
• The hunters trust the organizers will provide enough solvable clues to complete the hunt.
• The hunters trust that this can be done in a reasonable time, i.e. not 5-10 years.
• All of the above points are important because a hunter has to invest time.
• That is a decision.
• If you can achieve the above trusts, you get lots of hunters.
• If you break that trust, you lose lots of hunters.

Website

• Having an interactive website as part of the hunt is a vulnerability.
• Double, Triple check everything before it goes up there.
• Make sure nobody can hack it to achieve an advantage.
• Make sure nobody can scan it to find things they shouldn’t.
• This goes to the Trust factors above.

Tools

• Providing the following tools to hunters would be very useful.
• A way to verify that a key you have in your possession is valid.
• A way to verify that a key that someone else has is valid.
• Neither of these tools can be used to find keys through hacking or brute force.
• Communication – when will they be available?

The Long Game

• The prize is $1M in Bitcoin.
• You need 400 keys to win.
• 1,000 keys will be released to help achieve that If you released a clue a day, that would be just over a year to get 400 keys and 3+ years for 1,000 keys.
• A clue a week would be 7 years to get 400 keys and 20 years for 1,000 keys.
• Suggestions

- Commit to some timeframes for release of keys. E.g. 64 before the end of 2019 (two a week)

- Add some shorter term prizes

• - Ron Shore did a great job with this. A solid silver eagle for each chapter solved leading up to the solid gold eagle for the entire hunt.
• It helped build trust with the hunters.
• Gave them a smaller task to start with that was more believable they could achieve.
• Provided LOTS of press when each chapter was solved.

- E.g. $5,000 for the first person to get 100, 200, and then, 300 keys.

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Please don’t take any of the above as criticism. I understand the treasure hunt just started its not your full time job.

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At the same time, I encourage you to take the learnings from past large treasure hunts to make this one a success !