Played "Minecraft" for 1 hour and earned 1 BTC?
When he opened "Minecraft" on Saturday as usual, the wheels of fate had already begun to turn...
Author: Cookie, BlockBeats
When you clicked into this article, you might have had two reactions—did the editor return from UC studies? Did the editor make a typo? However, the story I want to tell you this time is completely in line with the title, and this magical story happened last Sunday.
Last Sunday, November 3rd, at 5 AM, the founder of Ordinals & the Rune Protocol, @rodarmor, posted a tweet consisting of only three short sentences.
Before he provided further hints, many players in the comments section had already realized that this was a limited-time 8-hour puzzle game, which is also the last sentence of the tweet. And the prize is exactly what the first sentence of the tweet states: "cactusseeds."
Let’s first introduce the prize. "cactusseeds" is one of the sub-collections of the 0th inscription (the first inscription since the birth of the Ordinals protocol) called "Dia De Pixales," personally engraved by Casey. "Dia De Pixales" is an original art series by Casey, which can be seen displayed on Casey's personal webpage.
It can also be said that "cactusseeds" is a sub-sub inscription of the 0th inscription, which means it is a grandchild inscription. From the image below, we can clearly see how the "parent-child inscription" mechanism establishes an NFT collection entirely on-chain in a decentralized manner without smart contracts on Bitcoin.
The top inscription here is the 0th inscription, which can also be a TXT text inscription representing the name of the collection for other projects. The second-level inscription can be the logo of the collection; here, the second-level inscription is actually a GIF that rotates to display the 9 "skulls" of the "Dia De Pixales" collection, while the final layer of inscriptions consists of the specific content images of each NFT. Through this hierarchical connection, even without a trading market for the collection, an NFT collection can be intuitively organized and presented to users on-chain.
As for why this grandchild inscription is called "cactusseeds"? You would have to ask Casey. However, we can also see how to name specific individual NFTs in the collection, which is to intentionally find corresponding names for the inscriptions.
Back to the point. The question arises, what does the second sentence of the riddle, "25138 / 29746," mean? Six hours later, at 10 AM, Casey provided the answer:
At this point, the answer was revealed—"25138 / 29746" is a set of Minecraft coordinates to find Casey in the 2b2t server! Immediately, Casey himself clarified this point:
The first person to find me, "cactusseeds" is yours.
This was not a simple task. 2b2t is known as "the oldest anarchic Minecraft server." Established in December 2010, this server is famous for its lack of rules and highly destructive subculture, where the extreme destruction brought by total freedom has made 2b2t a "beautiful hell."
For new players entering 2b2t for the first time, just leaving the "spawn area" is quite difficult, let alone heading to the coordinates specified by Casey. These difficulties include but are not limited to—
- The "spawn area" is severely damaged, filled with traps left by old players.
- Reaching the coordinates specified by Casey requires gathering enough resources; otherwise, players might "starve to death" long before they reach halfway.
- The "spawn area" may have old players constantly ravaging new players.
Take a look at the rendering of the "spawn area" below. This image is already four years old, and the "spawn area" is filled with lava, with resources extremely scarce, making it akin to "hell"…
Almost an hour later, a winner emerged; @Rhynohowl1 became the first person to find Casey in the 2b2t server, and Casey immediately transferred "cactusseeds" to him.
In fact, this player may have spent even less time finding Casey, as it can be confirmed that he did not know what Ordinals were before this, and he might not even be a Crypto player. This conclusion and inference come from the content of his tweets, as after he referred to the "cactusseeds" he received as "NFT," Ordinals players corrected him in the comments—this is not an NFT, it's an inscription! Additionally, his past tweets are very few and contain no content related to Crypto.
He even specifically tweeted in response to the comments from Ordinals players—sorry, not an NFT, it's Ordinals.
How did such a person know that Casey was giving away such an important inscription? Was it "insider trading"? No, because the information reached a streamer named riths, who broadcasts on the 2b2t server.
So why did this information reach a streamer who only broadcasts on Saturdays and has a relatively small fan base? Because @Brunno_UTXO, the co-founder of the Bitcoin NFT project INK, went to this livestream to convey the information, and he even expressed to @Rhynohowl1 in the stream that he was willing to spend 1 BTC immediately to buy "cactusseeds."
(Image source: @blockspacepod)
This is also the direct source of the general belief after the event that @Rhynohowl1 directly earned 1 BTC. In fact, @Rhynohowl1 listed the inscription on Magic Eden for 10 BTC, and the highest offer he has received so far is 0.33 BTC. He is likely listing it for 10 BTC because Casey mentioned in a reply:
“10 BTC, or broken.”
Another KOL of Ordinals, @cbspears, also stated in his video that he was willing to pay 5 bitcoins for "cactusseeds."
Life is always full of surprises and unexpected events. For @Rhynohowl1, before this happened, it might have just been an ordinary Saturday (in our timezone, it was Sunday). He opened his computer, launched Minecraft, entered the 2b2t server to play, while watching and chatting in riths' Twitch livestream. Suddenly receiving a message, he began searching for the founder of Ordinals & the Rune Protocol in the virtual world of Minecraft. When this prominent figure from another virtual world appeared before him in what might seem like an unremarkable Minecraft avatar, he earned 1 BTC.
(This is not a screenshot of @Rhynohowl1 discovering Casey, but "subdiffusion" is Casey. Image source: @onion_btc)
Since the release of the inscription "MEMENTO•MORI," Casey has become more active, making some attempts to promote the inscription ecosystem. After this puzzle game ended, early yesterday morning, Casey posted a long tweet expressing that he did not want to shout out one specific coin after another like the "chief salesmen" of other ecosystems, and he hoped to hear everyone's opinions on some good ways to help promote the Rune and Ordinals ecosystem.
After Casey's statement, "MEMENTO•MORI" saw a maximum increase of 45%. As an inscription personally released by Casey, it once dropped below a market value of 10 million dollars after minting, which led players to even jokingly say—Casey is too weak, "not as good as" Vitalik's dog. After Casey's statement, players' views on "MEMENTO•MORI" also warmed up significantly along with the price recovery.
Will inscriptions become better? Time will tell. And this story of "earning 1 BTC by playing Minecraft for 1 hour" has not reached a conclusion. Similarly, time will show us how much "cactusseeds" will sell for as the ecosystem and Bitcoin develop.
But for now, this story is already quite wonderful.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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