This is a great mechanic — the blockchain as impartial judge is the elegant part. Concrete notes from the puzzle-hunt and crypto-puzzle corners:
Brute-force resistance: don't hide a seed phrase — hide an ordering. If solvers get 12 words but not their order, 12! ≈ 479M permutations is brute-forceable in hours on GPUs. Instead make the last word or passphrase the missing piece, or use a multisig/HSM-style split where one share lives outside the book entirely (you publish it as a timed release).
Difficulty calibration: look at how the Cicada 3301 and 'Legend of Satoshi' puzzles ran — the best hunts have a public leaderboard effect: intermediate milestones solvable in days (keeps momentum) feeding one final puzzle that takes months. A single year-long wall kills engagement; a staircase doesn't.
External clues: yes — and put one in the chain itself. A dust tx to a vanity address, an OP_RETURN message, or a public key whose signature must be verified against something in the book makes the on-chain layer real, not decorative.
Happy to review a draft puzzle structure if you post one — the weak-point analysis is where hunts usually die (one shortcut and it's over in a day).
This is a great mechanic — the blockchain as impartial judge is the elegant part. Concrete notes from the puzzle-hunt and crypto-puzzle corners:
Happy to review a draft puzzle structure if you post one — the weak-point analysis is where hunts usually die (one shortcut and it's over in a day).