Highly disappointed by the actions of the team. All things which came out in regrads of final puzzle are so messy.
Had attended quiz and events like this in past on discord and telegram. Since i am more active on telegram and have participated in far more organised and planned quiz. And i think @KriptoRaptor and @Kv9990 along with other mods were also there when near quiz master had put out the puzzle or any quiz as such. What if in those event they announce time of 6.00 for event and start it 1 hour earlier without any announcement. But they are very transparent with their decisions.
And yes the puzzle is on chain and anyone who is online at that time would solve the puzzle. I had put an alarm of 5.55 so that i dont miss on final grand puzzle. But bingo even before that the puzzle was solved which raises tons of concern.
And honestly none of the proofs you are sending here or on twitter make any attempt to filter the doubts and shadows on the fear of insider winner.
So only thing here what the bare minimum can be done is sharing the twitter of winner. The community just want to check if that person has made any efforts to solve any of the 30 puzzles which also had prizes or the winner is someone who only wins the final puzzle.
Sadly even after the warning of bad actors given by you here, i highly suspect that is how the things have folded in the end.
Now its not even about the grand prize anymore and its more about principles now, i highly believe in transparency here as funding has been done on the forums and need clear cut answers which admins in the telegram chat have denied straight forward.
Expect the unexpected. Ok so what is unfolding in the community is on the same lines that is on discord, telegram english telegram russia and twitter. there is just one thing being said of the puzzle being rugged for grand prize.
I will reply one by one:
This assumption people not knowing about web2 and web3 landing page is not even a matter of concern, obviously there would be a link at the said time(6.00), let it be on web2 or web3 at a stated time. I was there with an alarm set on for solving the final puzzle at 6. but bingo when i open the page the puzzle is already solved. Tell me where the mistake lies from my side? I had solved all the 30 minor puzzles already and for many of them i had tweeted as they also had prizes associated with them. So creation of puzzle before the mentioned time affects the fairness in everyway and gives a strong evidence to insider work as the puzzle was solved even before it was supposed to be started.
Full unfairness imo, not a level playing field. Picked by not someone but instead planned by insider. And 1 hour gap doesnt really justify anything.
The details asked hasnt been provided on telegram. And i have been reading each and every message from the very beginning of this treasure hunt. Even after seeing the grand puzzle being already solved even before it should have been out the person with atocha protocol official annoucement page confirmed that no one solved all 30 puzzles yet while on the other hand the grand puzzle was solved already around half an hour ago.
Attaching the links:
At 6.00 i am on telegram as should have been asking about wallet needed: Telegram: Contact @atochacommunity
At 6.05 after realizing that puzzle is no more and asking the same in chat : Telegram: Contact @atochacommunity
At 6.08 reply from the page of atocha announcement: Telegram: Contact @atochacommunity
And then you can follow up as to what bloodbath has taken on the chats.
Discord doesnt prove anything. The winner is still anonymous. There were 30 prizes which could have been won only by tweeting from twitter, so discord for not being anonymous doesnt even really matter. So this winner doesnt want rewards for any of the 30 small puzzles which were spread for 3 days and only comes for the final grand puzzle rewards? Huh already looking fishy. Now i will make some assumptions from here on now:
The polkadot wallet is just a wallet of one of the member of team and so is the discord. And now none of the verification team has made clears the clouds of insider work. And i highly believe that this insider person didnt thought that things can go this bad and didnt made any tweets about solving those 30 minor puzzles (remember they had prizes but very miniscule when compared to grand puzzle).
On chain task theory: Asking an alternate account of team to do on chain task. It wasnt even needed and its just a waste to even ask the winner to send any amount from the solving wallet. I mean if team loves anonymous things so much they should have forwarded the reward to the person who first solved and signed the txn. Why even this drama in the first place. So my theory is that it is team member alternate account.
Why should anyone contact the team after submitting the answers on chain? This is beyond science to answer And since team has thing towards verification then why not verify and public the twitter account or even better to ask the winner himself use the same twitter account which he had used to solve at least some of those 30 puzzles. This way the community could ask verify and will be more than happy to accept that it was a mistake to release the puzzle 90 minutes earlier than it should as humans tend to make mistake. The community just wants to cross verify themselves in name of transparency.
Otherwise as far as theory is concerned there exists no such twitter account and the insider person didnt expected the things to blow out like that.
I am deeply saddened to see such thing happened to the NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt in which community members spent a lot of time putting time, efforts, read materials and sacrifice sleeps altogether. I do hope that the atocha team can stand by truth as the proof is not solid as rock & what team is doing is very amateur. Of course, community is frustratedthat you did not follow the time strictly to create the FINAL PUZZLE, and even after initially denying the same until given the proof on chat itself. I as a community member feel being cheated by the methods of team which is ultimate.
Attaching the denial on timer thing and what followed:
Succesfully wasted over 5 days in all this. Not going to do anymore on this, This is just unproductive as team is rigid and non transparent.
Anyways a huge shout to Near Foundation and all the community for making this Nearcon such a successful event.
Tagging @Dacha to kindly look in all this and be the guardian here. And take this forward from here as i have very limited knowledge on the near forums and how they work.
Wanting to tag illia too but that is for some other time as he must be busy in many other things to near greatest.
I am fond of blockchain.
I don’t know much about Atocha.
I came to know atocha via nearcon2022 event…
Now i checked and found such a dead project.
Nothing creative
Nothing logical
Nothing planned
Some of the puzzles are buggy. We have submitted it with verified unique codes still i am not selected.
Atocha team is cheating to the community and sponsors. #atochathecheater.
They were supposed to start the puzzle at 6 pm but they started this puzzle 90 min before scheduled time without any prior notification and someone submitted the solution before event start time.
Such a big event should be properly notified in telegram, Twitter and discord.
Because they have notified last set of puzzles notification just before 40 mins of final puzzle time. Most of the people were busy in solving that (22 to 30 numbers) such puzzles and someone solved inbetween and submitted before 6pm. Really distracted events with unrealistic rules.
We need re event because it seems one sided game only.
Not happy experience.
Unprofessional Atocha team.
Hope near team will look and justice to the community of near.
In response to all the above, Atocha Protocol team has published a post-mortem with Transparency Report and Action Plan that explicitly describe what happened and what will the team respond.
This is the official post mortem from Atocha Protocol team in regards NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt’s overall report for transparency, reward distribution and the following action plan. First of all, we would like to thank the community for actively participating and solving the 30 puzzles that we have prepared throughout the NEARCON 2022 period (10th September 2022 to 14th September 2022). The Treasure Hunt is intended to gather 30 crypto projects together to form a Puzzle Treasure Hunt during NEARCON2022 event, which ultimately leads to a Final Puzzle that unlocks the Grand Prize. The competition is tight and we are thrilled to see that 95% of the rewards are valid to be claimed.
This announcement will cover the following topic:
The Post Treasure Hunt Incident — What Happened?
The Timeline — Grand Prize Winner Verification
The Action — Atocha Team Next Move
The Review — How To Do Better?
The Post Treasure Hunt Incident — What Happened?
The incident happened due to a mistake that was made by the team which was an earlier creation of the Final Puzzle than the initially announced time. The team sincerely apologise for the mistake and will take note of future events. This mistake led to different levels of misunderstanding and ultimately to the point of different players disputing the Grand Prize winner.
Here are the important parts of the NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt before someone dives into the details:
NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt is carried out on a web2 interface (Near to Atocha Treasure Hunt). The 30 puzzles created on the website have a clear statement of the total winners’ allocation, total reward allocated, reward available to claim and creation time. Once each of the puzzles is solved by a player, a hidden message will be revealed with two main details: the clue piece to solve the grand puzzle and the method to claim this puzzle reward.
In order for the players to claim the puzzle reward, one needs to tweet a specific message generated by each of the puzzles. Players can choose not to tweet but just to collect the clue piece for the Grand Prize. Each of the 30 puzzles has a different reward pool size, Atocha Team uses Twitter API to do a sweep for all player’s reward claim tweets, filter out the incorrect message and determine who’s on the reward list depending on their tweet’s timestamp.
The Final Puzzle is created on-chain which is on Atocha Webapp (https://play.atocha.io). The Puzzle creation TXID can be referred here: Octopus explorer and the on-chain puzzle can be viewed here: Atocha Puzzles.
There are two ways for players to access the Final Puzzle. One is directly viewed from Atocha Webapp (https://play.atocha.io) and two are from the NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt website. Due to the mistake made by the team, the puzzle was created earlier than the mentioned time on the website.
The dispute arose as players complained that when they saw the Final Puzzle, it was already solved by another player. The Final Puzzle’s rule is simple and clear: Whoever solved the puzzle created on-chain (on Atocha Webapp), the solver will be the rightful winner. In this case, the wallet owner that solved the Final Puzzle is deemed as the winner of the Grand Prize by Atocha Team.
Another dispute was from a player named Mr.Liquid who claim cracked the Final Puzzle by activating a NEAR wallet (the Final Puzzle’s answer is the passphrase of this wallet). Even though Mr.Liquid is the first one to activate this wallet since its creation, the Grand Prize is only eligible for the one that solved the puzzle on-chain (on Atocha Webapp).
There is another dispute that the Final Puzzle has an allocation of more than 1 winner by DM the answer to Atocha Protocol. All of these are not valid and as per the rule stated on the Final Puzzle created on-chain, the winner can only be 1 and it will be the one solving the Final Puzzle on Atocha Webapp.
Once the winner is identified, there needs to be a verification process as the Grand Prize will be transferred to the winner’s NEAR wallet and not Polkadot JS wallet (the wallet used to interact with Atocha Webapp). The verification can be through the linking of Twitter account to the Polkadot JS wallet account which solved the puzzle or by doing a specific on-chain task which can be verified by the team.
This process was further disputed by some players as insider dealing. Atocha Team is strongly against such accusation without any evidence. The integrity of the team to deliver a transparent and fair game is always the priority for Atocha Protocol. Hence, the decision was made by Atocha Team to not accept any Grand Prize Sponsor from the Partners of NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt. Instead, Atocha Team will take responsibility and pay for the Grand Prize.
The 30 puzzles’ rewards will still remain and the list will be announced within 1 week. The reward claim method will be shared through the winner list announcement and eligible winners can follow the instructions to claim the rewards.
The Timeline — Grand Prize Winner Verification
Atocha Team has gathered the timeline for the Grand Prize Winner Verification. Note that the time stated is UTC timezone.
17:46 2022–09–10: Atocha Protocol team tweet to announce NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt Event begin and launch NEAR2ATO website;
11:54 2022–09–14: team finished the last batch of 9 puzzles and release them on NEAR2ATO website, team also planned to release the Final Puzzle online at 16:00 but wrongly put “6:00 PM” as the final puzzle’s release time on webpage;
14:59 2022–09–14: team send tweet, announcing the last batch of puzzles are online;
16:25 2022–09–14: 25 minutes later than planned, Atocha Team finished the Final Puzzle and released it to Atocha Protocol’s webapp, all online webapp users can see and solve this puzzle from that moment(but in order to crack it, people needs to solve all 30 puzzles on NEAR2ATO website to get clues);
17:25 2022–09–14: webapp user(5EkUNqgj8jBijAHScd78QSVy1LcpUw3U75chNi34ygh2yRdf) solved this puzzle, since that moment, the puzzle answer(a NEAR wallet’s passphrase) has revealed to the public;
12:33 2022–09–15: discord user @Khong contact Atocha Team claim he/she is the final puzzle’s solver;
21:27 2022–09–15: team send tweet to announce got the winner of the final grand puzzle;
10:53 2022–09–16: team contacted discord user @Khong, ask he/she connect webapp user account to twitter account to complete verification process, @Khong stated prefer stay anonymous on social media, later that day, @Khong verified to team that he/she owns the webapp user (5EkUNqgj8jBijAHScd78QSVy1LcpUw3U75chNi34ygh2yRdf) account by transfer a specific amount of ATOs from that account.
More details to share and support the above timeline:
Proof of timestamp of the winner solving on-chain and the complaining community member that he/she claimed the wallet. The winner solved the puzzle on chain first which will result in the answer being PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. Therefore, the complaining community member has no RIGHT to claim that he/she is the winner as the answer is already there: https://twitter.com/AtochaProtocol/status/1570897720289931265?s=20&t=gwlaZ4o8d9OmnqK25VzbrA
The Action — Atocha Team Next Move
Here is the summary of the next moves of Atocha Team after this announcement:
Atocha Team admitted that the mistake of releasing the Final Puzzle earlier than the time updated on NEAR2ATO website, but believes that it will not affect the fairness of the game as no players are exclusively more informed than others.
For the Grand Prize of NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt, Atocha Team will not take any Sponsor Fund from the Partners including the main Sponsors (Near Marketing DAO and Octopus Network). The Grand Prize will be funded by Atocha team.
The Grand Prize winner — webapp user (5EkUNqgj8jBijAHScd78QSVy1LcpUw3U75chNi34ygh2yRdf) will have the prize transferred accordingly to the verified NEAR wallet.
Atocha team will provide compensation to players who missed the chance to win the Grand Prize due to the mistake. All players who are listed in the 30 Puzzles’ Winner List can get 10,000 ATO/Player compensation.
The 30 puzzles’ winner list will be published on Twitter within 1 week time and the reward claiming method will be made available to all eligible winners.
Atocha Team will open up for any enquiries for the Item 5 winner list. Once the winner list is announced, within 3 days, if anyone found that their account was missed out, please reply to that winner list announcement tweet, with your proof of puzzle reward claim message tweet URL. Atocha team will verify it and make amends to that list if necessary.
Atocha team will notify the winner through Twitter DM and ask for the winner’s NEAR wallet, the puzzle reward and compensation will be transferred to that wallet. The TXID of the reward transfer will also be shared with the winner.
The Review — How To Do Better?
After this incident, Atocha Team has gone through a post-mortem whereby a list of improvement action plans has been drafted and implemented in the next Treasure Hunt.
A clear rule book will be ready 1 week before the game start and to be published for the viewing of the public. Any inquiries can be made before the game starts and that will minimise the probability of dispute.
Reduce the number of Partners in one single campaign. Due to the limitation of resources, we think that it will be optimal to have a maximum of 10 Partners in one campaign so that each project can get more exposure and attention.
Automate the reward claiming method (through on-chain and Twitter API verification, which need time to explore and develop).
Increase marketing budget for more players to get on board. The budget will be applied through NEAR Marketing DAO. The budget will not solely be for prizes.
Improve the game experience by reducing the text on the screen and making more suitable graphics. Budget will be applied through NEAR Creative DAO. The budget will be solely for rewarding creative community members to contribute and get remunerated.
Open communication channels will be created for the game (exploring different channels like comment box, Discord ticket chat, Telegram, Twitter, etc.).
One of the main goals of the team to launch this NEAR2ATO Treasure Hunt Event is to attract more users to experience the fun of solving puzzles in the form of a simple webpage that does not require a crypto wallet. During this event, the team learned more about users’ needs for puzzle games and found many defects in our project. In the future, the team will continue to work hard on improving user experience and bring ticket-based gameplay mechanisms and Puzzle2NFT toolkit in the next big update, stay tuned.
We have distributed all the rewards (ATO rewards) with TXID attached in the list:
Also, another highlight is that we have returned all the rewards/sponsor received (for Grand Prize) to all the relevant parties. Thank you again for the support and we are in the midst of planning for the next Treasure Hunt which will be happening before Christmas! Looking forward to surprise everyone again!
And since team has thing towards verification then why not verify and public the twitter account or even better to ask the winner himself use the same twitter account which he had used to solve at least some of those 30 puzzles. This way the community could ask verify and will be more than happy to accept that it was a mistake to release the puzzle 90 minutes earlier than it should as humans tend to make mistake. The community just wants to cross verify themselves in name of transparency.