Three-year old DNA Bitcoin puzzle was set to expire, a PhD student cracked the code

The “DNA Storage Bitcoin Challenge” has been cracked after three years. A 26-year-old student from Belgium has earned a Bitcoin.

The competition was announced in 2015 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Bioinformatics expert Nick Goldman gave a lecture on DNA as a storage medium there. During his presentation, he handed out plastic tubes containing DNA that contained the key to a bitcoin wallet with a bitcoin. The value of the cryptopreisgeld at that time was around 200 US dollars. After three years, medical student Sander Wuyts has managed to crack the code, motherboard reports. He benefits from exchange rate gains and now enjoys more than $ 10,000 in exchanging his Bitcoin.

Wuyts arrived just in time. The Challenge was limited to three years and would have expired last Monday. Wuyts just learned about the task last December and requested a DNA sample from Goldman. He analyzed these with colleagues for a month and then found the solution five days before the deadline. He had the key to the Bitcoin wallet in his hand.

Wuyts announced that he would sell his Bitcoin at the right time and use some of the money for his research. With the rest, he would thank his colleagues who supported him and celebrate his Ph.D. Goldman is also pleased that his puzzle has been solved. He has thus achieved his goal of drawing attention to the potential of DNA as a long-term data store.