As posted in a blog post by Pascal Boyart, a French graffiti artist, he has hidden $1000 in the form of Bitcoin in his latest project. He termed it as the “treasure hunt” approach and stated that he was doing it to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block
Boyart is one among the various personalities from the art world who have used their art to promote cryptocurrency and is often called as the French Banksy (a famous anonymous England-based street artist.). This is not the first time when Boyart is doing something like this. In the last year, he had embedded a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet QR code in one of his work to earn passive income.
The Bitcoin is hidden somewhere in the wall mural “La liberté Guidant le Peuple 2019,”. The mural is actually a play on the iconic Eugène Delacroix work Liberty Leading the People and shows Lady Liberty leading a group of Gilets Jaunes protesters into confrontation as she holds the French flag in the air. The painting is a symbol of the French Revolution.
The revolution was knowns as the yellow vests movement or yellow jackets movement which began in France in 2018 and is a populist, grassroots political movement for economic justice. The movement has been against the extremely high tax rates, rising living costs, and high fuel prices.
The mural hides a reward in the form of Bitcoin and will be awarded to the one who is savvy enough to solve the visual puzzle. Entrepreneur Alistair Milne encouraged the Bitcoin users to donate to the bounty in order to increase the size of the treasure. The wallet address of the prize is public to support any donations. The reward started as BTC 0.26 is now worth BTC 0.2849, thanks to donations from the community.
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Not everyone can participate in the hunt, but anyone is open to donating to increase the bounty. The private key to the prize is hidden inside the mural. Boyart told his Twitter followers that in order to participate one would need to be physically present in Paris and in fact actually needs to be in front of the mural in order to take part in the hunt and those who cannot be there physically can still solve only a part of the puzzle through their computers
He tweeted “#StreetArt treasure hunt in Paris with a #Bitcoin puzzle. For the 10th birthday of the genesis block, I painted this frescoe in Paris with a 0,26btc ($1000) puzzle in it.
Here’s the public key: 1NqPwPp7hEXZ3Atj77Ue11xAEMmXqAXwrQ Thanks to @alistairmilne for sponsoring this “
He further added “…it’s up to you to find the wall and the solution to the puzzle,”
#StreetArt treasure hunt in Paris with a #Bitcoin puzzle
For the 10th birthday of the genesis block, I painted this frescoe in Paris with a 0,26btc ($1000) puzzle in it.
Here's the public key: 1NqPwPp7hEXZ3Atj77Ue11xAEMmXqAXwrQ Thanks to @alistairmilne for sponsoring this 🙏 pic.twitter.com/F7aIkxmp6t— Pascal Boyart 🎨 (@pascalboyart) January 7, 2019
The location was a secret until it was cracked and discovered by a Twitter user @TZTaughtMe, who also claimed to be the first person to be physically present there.
Boyart tweeted and posted his artwork to Reddit around 12 hours ago post which the hunt began officially. In the comments to his official Reddit post, he revealed that people.
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One major difference between Boyart’s art and the mural was the fact that Boyart decided to let-go displaying Lady Liberty’s breasts and instead painted a sort of bra over them. This change made some to assume that the puzzle’s solution could be hidden there and would be gained by removing part of the painting with acetone or similar chemicals.
Apparently, nobody was able to solve the puzzle yet as the address still holds the 0.28 BTC inside.
