BAYC Treasure Hunt: The Good, The Bad, and the FUDly
The Bored Ape Yacht Club team has been rightfully applauded for how they have built value for Ape holders since their May launch. They’ve done a fantastic job executing their roadmap, with one piece remaining a mystery.
For months, there’s been one outstanding item on the Bored Ape Yacht Club Roadmap 1.0: the Treasure Hunt.
The team’s recent roadmap update made it clear that it was coming soon, but no one knew exactly when. Suddenly, around 9:30 Eastern Monday evening, a tweet let us know that it was on.
Collectors quickly found the site where the puzzle was located and were faced with a 2D image of the Club, and an updated prize: 10 ETH, an Ape, a BAKC dog, and a “special surprise.”
Each room contained one or more puzzles, but there was little guidance as to what exactly we were looking for or how we would determine the answer. Some puzzles required wordplay, others complicated ciphers, and there was even an arcade game that needed to be completed.
Apes quickly started working together, both in the main BAYC Discord and in a newly launched Treasure Hunt Discord, with channels for each puzzle that allowed conversation to focus as needed. These puzzles proved to be a lot of fun, and while many of us were pulling our hair out, this experience was exactly what we so often talk about wanting from our NFTs: community, shared experience, and the potential for financial benefit.
Some puzzles proved to be red herrings (the answer to one challenge was “This isn’t a puzzle clue Suck on a banana bozo Love Jimmy”) while others were solved within the first couple of hours despite not knowing how they fit into the overall answer.
The search lasted through the night Monday and well into Tuesday, until Tuesday afternoon when word got out that it had been solved. As it turned out, the winners were a team of expert code breakers, who purchased an ape an hour after the beginning of the competition in order to be eligible for the prize, and earned the victory with some truly mind-bending solutions.
While the experience of going through the hunt was a lot of fun, the ending left me with a sour taste in my mouth for a couple of reasons.
First, while the puzzles were largely challenging but satisfying to complete, the hardest parts of the hunt were simply impossible for any non-professional team.
I’m sure the BAYC team wanted to meet a certain level of difficulty to ensure that the hunt didn’t end in an hour or two, but the level of difficulty left me feeling like no amateur had any shot in the first place.
The first 80% or so of the puzzle was plenty challenge enough, based on the level of discussions taking place in the Discord and elsewhere, that it might have still taken quite some time to solve without the near-impossible components.
More urgently though, I was disappointed that the winners were not members of the BAYC community. To be clear, I don’t put any blame on the winning team; they acted entirely within the rules putting their expertise to good use.
I hope the community welcomes the winners with open arms, and that they use this experience to become permanent ape holders.
However, it seems like a mistake that the BAYC team didn’t take a snapshot and require prior ape ownership to participate. This prize was meaningful enough that it was reasonable to expect some puzzle experts to buy apes just to have a shot at it. Instead, it would have been nice to see a longtime ape holder take the prize.
I’m not sure if this was an oversight by the team or an intentional decision, but it was a disappointment for some.
Overall, I’d say the experience was a positive one, even if the ending wasn’t what I might have hoped. I remain extremely positive on Apes and the BAYC team in general; they’ve earned plenty of credit with their moves to this point, and I’m sure Roadmap 2.0 will contain plenty of elements to create more excitement.
If this is the only bump in the road, we’re still on a straight shot to the moon.
