About

Here at /dev/zero Bitcoin, we post challenges (puzzles) where bitcoin private keys are the solution. We test software, encryption, and privacy methods by using them to protect bitcoin private keys and challenging you to solve them. Anyone can solve these challenges, take the reward without relying on us, and do so both anonymously and publicly. Both publicity and anonymity are important here because everyone will know the challenge has been solved, but the solver can choose to remain anonymous.

Some of our challenges are simple and fun, like piecing together a shredded paper wallet. Other challenges are considered impossible, such as retrieving data off a wiped hard disk drive. The harder the challenge, the bigger the reward.

Bitcoins are protected by private key encryption; anyone with the private key can transfer the bitcoins to another address. Private keys and Bitcoin wallets are data. Like any data we can upload, transmit, hide, or encrypt them through any method. The challenge is to then recover the private key from whatever method was used to obsuscate it in the first place. Anyone who recovers the private key can take the bitcoins in that wallet anonymously, without relying on anyone to verify they solved the challenge. Everyone knows when a challenge is solved because moving the coins occurs publicly on the blockchain.

Inspiration

Our purpose, as well as our name, are inspired by an idea on how to better implement the Great Zero Challenge. There, data recovery firms were challenged to find the name of a file or folder on to a hard drive after that hard drive had been wiped with zeroes from /dev/zero. We liked the challenge, but it had flaws: the reward was not large enough, you could not disassemble the hard drive, you had to share your recovery methods, you had to rely on the the organizers to acknowledge you completed the challenge and wait for them to pay the reward. We thought we could do better if we offered a reward as large we could manage, let people purchase the hard drives to destroy as they pleased, and allow anonymous compensation redeemable without our cooperation. These requirements are only possible through the use of a cryptocurrency and blockchain. We choose to challenge anyone to recover bitcoins off a wiped hard drive.

Why stop at hard drives? We can create challenges to recover bitcoins from anything we want to test. Encrypt a Bitcoin wallet file to test that encryption software. Email a Bitcoin wallet to check the privacy of an email provider.