A puzzle infused in a painting in a street mural in Paris that included a 0.26 BTC reward (worth about $1,000) in it has recently been solved, and the funds have been collected, along with a few public donations.
As CryptoGlobe covered artist Pascal Boyart created a modern interpretation of the famous Eugène Delacroix painting, Liberty Leading the People (La Liberté guidant le peuple in French), painted in 1830 during the French Revolution which toppled France’s monarchy.
In it, a 0.26 BTC reward was infused. As the artist himself revealed via the microblogging platform Twitter, the puzzle was solved less than a week after it was created.
Someone have just solved the #Bitcoin puzzle! Congrats to him or her 🕵 Please contact me to tell everybody the way you solved it 👏 @alistairmilne #treasurehunt #Paris pic.twitter.com/jPHDthUavl
— Pascal Boyart (@pascalboyart) January 13, 2019
In the painting, Boyart replaced armed 19th century revolutionaries with today’s Yellow Vest protestors, who have been fighting against France’s government for over two months over economic justice issues.
The exact solution to Boyart’s painting is set to be revealed in the future. Referring to an online image of the painting at the time, the artist noted that while it’s possible to get some clues out of it, to solve the puzzle it was necessary to “be physicaly [sic] in front of the mural.”
A twitter user named Antoine revealed he was the one who managed to “win this race.” He noted that his organization will soon publish the story and the details of how they managed to solve the puzzle.
. @marabrito31 & I just found the @pascalboyart 's mural painting puzzle in Paris. We are very happy to win this race. We thank PBoy, @alistairmilne, and every people involved in this artwork for their creativity.
1/3— Antoine Giver of Etherium (@a_ferron) January 13, 2019
While the puzzle itself represents the Yellow Vest movement, some have likened the protests’ character with bitcoin’s own origins. CryptoGlobe has recently reported on Max Keiser’s call for the protestors to convert their euros to BTC, moving away from the French banking system.