So is it nothing or not?

The philosophy behind Notcoin's new fourth phase, Japanese-themed quests, strong community, detailed breakdown of the quest, and a possible answer to the question of what happens next and what it's all for

Preamble

Imagine: you're walking down the street in your city, your favorite autumn song is playing in your headphones, everything around is rich and bright, you feel good, and suddenly – darkness... cold and piercing through, there's not a single light source around, only the fading echo of the melody you just heard... or not just now? The concept of time also ceased to exist...

And then – light. You didn't understand what happened, but you're already sitting in an armchair in a dark room with no windows, with a locked door, in front of you a white-light-emitting "box" – a TV set from the early nineties of the last century.

There are many things you don't understand in the room: on the walls are strange paintings, some stickers with the inscription "NOT" and a neon sign with Japanese characters, to your right – a wooden chair; behind the nightstand on which the TV stands is a box resembling a parcel, and a white triangular object, the vertex of which is connected to the base. "In an equilateral triangle, the altitude is also a median, an angle bisector..." – flashed through your mind. You smiled, remembering geometry lessons at school.

Turning your head to the left, you saw a white rolled-up sheet, covered with a thin layer of dust. The only thing that came to mind was to find out what was written on it. With trembling hands, you picked up the piece of paper, brushed off the traces of time, unfolded it and saw a small text written in Japanese there. You had to feel for your smartphone in your pocket, open the camera, take a picture and read the text using a translator... no, not the text, but rather someone's thoughts about something deep and incomprehensible:

Below in small print was written something that greatly excited and interested you:

Find the answers. How to look for something that might simply not exist? Or it exists, but is hidden in chaos? However, you had no choice, and you began searching.

Did you feel it? No? – read it again. Yes? – now we can begin.

1. A familiar pattern of the beginning of a new stage

There is a strange, but very recognizable authenticity to Notcoin. They always choose a moment when everything seems to freeze – and that's exactly when they roll out something new. And now is the same: the middle of autumn, a transitional state, when there is a feeling of inner silence.

If you look at past phases, almost every significant move they made fell on periods when people were a little more attentive to details.

2. That specific "probably nothing" vibe

The phrase "probably nothing" has long become something like a wink within the community – oh come on, we understand that it's something. But this time everything was different – many truly didn't understand if there was even anything there where they were looking.

Such a start to the fourth phase is not an attempt to cash in on the hype, not a PR campaign, not a desire to get likes, but rather "here's a door, here's a sound, here's a set of letters – figure it out yourselves".

No one rushed anyone, no one explained – and this, it seems, is the main style of Notcoin – to give space for imagination and activity, while maintaining intrigue and a sense of unreality

3. Beginning of the phase – quest

The quest started quite quietly. The first posts, images, strange details, some hints appeared. People initially just created new memes or sent old ones, shared screenshots and just tried to understand what to do.

Gradually it became clear that this was the start. The beginning of a new story. Everyone understood that further on it would only be more interesting, more serious and more difficult.

5. Riddles and their logic

Despite the fact that we are in web3, there was no super complex cryptography and many lines of code in the riddles. There were no tasks that required three higher educations to solve.

But this was exactly the difficulty – when your brain starts working a little differently, trying, as it were, to become the creator of a lowkey quest that can not only solve existing riddles but also easily come up with new ones (by the way, we'll talk about this a little later).

6. The community is what makes the project what it is

If in normal quests people break up into small independent groups, here it was the opposite: everyone seemed to catch the same wave. In the main group "probably nothing" – which, by the way, was the first place everyone had to go to continue – and the closed chat "NOT-BUSTERS", solutions were born literally on the fly:

and much more... (more on that a little later).

It was really nice to watch people who don't even know each other act almost in sync – not for the sake of rating or winning, but, first of all, for the sake of the game itself.

7. How did the beginning of the phase feel

To be honest, the quest was perceived not as a game, but as a collective walk through a foggy Japanese forest, where everyone sees only a part of the path.

It felt like we were moving in the dark, but at the same time as if someone had very carefully trodden a narrow path between two cliffs, and we were walking along it, lighting the way for each other, so as not to fall.

8. Detailed solution to the riddles and how the answers were found

This part is more for those who didn't manage to take part, are interested in such events, participated but couldn't understand everything, or want to experience it all again. But, of course, everyone can read it.

The journey begins with a post in the official X account (link)

It says "header + dot + xyz". After a little thought, we realize that we need to take the account header, i.e. "probably nothing", the dot is "." and "xyz" is the website domain. We get the website

probablynothing.xyz

We open it and see a room (now it's not the same as it was at the very beginning). We double-click on the TV and get into a private group where the riddles are actually posted.

The first two answers are obtained like this: we go to the site again and, after scanning the qr-code on the box, we get to another site

probablynothing.xyz/otherside/

By translating the text on the wall, a code "In the silence of Tokyo" is obtained, which have to be entered into the console, after which we see the phrase on japanese language, which translates as "Listen, hear the code in the silence" and above it there is a word "LISTEN"

This is not an answer, but an indirect reference to the action we have to perform.

Next, we return to the first site, where we hear audio (different parts of it are played with each turn of the TV).

It is easier to extract the full audio and, using an equalizer and other programs for creating/modifying audio, you can clearly hear two words – evolve and shape, which are the first two answers.

Next, by changing the orientation of your device's screen while on the first site, we find a new site:

probablynothing.xyz/kyoto/

By opening the site we received, you can get to pastebin.com/Sn8kGWHH by double-clicking on the image of the TV.

We go there, and a rather voluminous text opens up to our view:

From it, we only need an incomprehensible set of letters – erwaiv. To understand what they are for, we read into the text and see this fragment: "The archive notes that Caesar spoke of destiny as if it were syntax".

After thinking a little and comparing the information about Caesar and the strange letters, we understand that we are being hinted at the Caesar cipher method – a method in which each letter of the open text is replaced by a letter shifted by a fixed number of positions in the alphabet. Now take a shift of -4 (bc the fourth phase) and decrypt:

e –> a, r –> n, w –> s, a –> w, i –> e, v –> r

The word is "answer". We attach it to probablynothing.xyz and get a new address probablynothing.xyz/answer/

After opening it, we click on the letter "O" in the phrase "Out there". We are redirected to the Notcoin bot (@notcoin_bot)

Now a section where you need to enter answers is available there (the /quest command opens this section, /exit closes it, everything is intuitively clear).

Answers have two classifications:

• Main (four in total);

• Extra (eleven in total).

The words we have already found are classified like this:

1) evolve – main

2) shape – extra

3) kyoto – extra

From now, I will indicate which class each of the answers belongs to.

The next word was again hidden in the audio, which was on the first site, same as last time.

After thoughtfully listening to the audio, we get one word – memory – this is the fourth answer (the second of the main ones).

The coordinate riddle turned out to be one of the most difficult, as the participants could not understand for a long time what exactly they should use.

So, how to solve it?

First, an image of a clock and a key hanging nearby was posted in the group chat:

Below on the wall, we notice "x-y" (keep in mind). The time on the clock is 12:47 or 00:47. To understand how to use it, read the hints:

From the messages, we extract the most valuable information: z=time (time on the clock). It immediately becomes clear that some calculations need to be made.

The most difficult part is to think of opening the information about the image (with the clock) and taking its scales as x and y:

Now by the selection method we use the formula (x-y)*time. We get

(1280-853)*12.47 = 5324.69 or (1280-853)*0.47 = 200.69

Both numbers – 5324.69 and 200.69 – are correct answers (extra). Send any of them to the bot. Solved.

The next riddle was authentic and pleasant – you had to "walk" around the center of Tokyo. Probably one of the most atmospheric riddles, it as if transports you to the noisy streets of one of the largest cities in the world.

First step – find this image (it was on one of the sites):

Second step – save it to your files (specifically from there). In the file manager we rename the file from jpg to txt format, open it and you will see this text (translated in English):

Go to maps, look for Nakagin Capsule Tower. It's already demolished, but looked like this:

We turn on street view mode. Find a cyclist (he will be the only one in the area). Follow him to the first "Stop" road sign, which looks like this:

If you write the pronunciation of these three characters in English letters, you get "tomare".

Returning to the text inside the image. Two key details are romaji and QTIUPTD WTY.

Romaji (Rōmaji) is the writing of Japanese words in Latin letters. It is a way to convey Japanese speech using the English alphabet (a, b, c, d...). By the way, "tomare" is also Romaji.

Since QTIUPTD WTY means nothing, we assume it is a cipher.

Many well-known encryption methods use a key – secret information, usually a sequence of characters (for example, a set of numbers and letters), which controls the process of converting plain text into an encrypted message and vice versa (there is even such a thing in cryptography). Without the correct key, the encrypted information remains meaningless.

Now let's compose a Romaji alphabet, taking into account that we have the key "tomare". This works like this:We replace the first letters of the alphabet (ABCDE) with TOMARE, then rewrite the remaining letters so that there are no repetitions in the new alphabet -> FGHIJKLNPQSUVWXYZ. We get TOMAREFGHIJKLNPQSUVWXYZ. Now each letter of our alphabet is a replacement for the letter that stands in its place in the original English alphabet.

We have all the data. Replace all letters from QTIUPTD WTY with their corresponding letters from the original English layout:

Q → S, T → A, I → M, U → U, P → R, T → A, D → I, W → W, T → A, Y → Y

The result is the phrase SAMURAI WAY – this is the desired answer (extra). Cool, right?

Btw, if anyone is interested in reading about the Nakagin Capsule Tower, I'll leave a source with full information about it here → link. Personally, I got very interested and learned all about it. For example, have you ever heard of an architectural movement like metabolism? I hadn't.

The next riddle is called "Report: Night Test Train" and is based on a story about a girl who ended up in the land of the dead on a train. The story is long, I won't retell it, we'll stick to a formal solution.

We move to the Notcoin account on X – a video has been published there (link) that carries no semantic subtext (but you can get hooked on the professionally created animation), but the caption to it gives us important information:

Knowing the general mechanics of the quest, mirror each word of the text "nibestap LushuSKf" and get "pastebin fKSuhsuL". We have dealt with this site before. We turn the words into a link pastebin.com/fKSuhsuL. Go here and discover several paragraphs of text, excerpts from a journal in which a conversation was recorded with that very girl who got in touch from the land of the dead.

But here's what exactly interests us here:

Lines 16-27 are from Hiragana – it's the Japanese syllabary, one of the three main types of Japanese writing, along with Katakana and Kanji.

From lines 37-39 we take the coordinates of the syllables in this table:

• Line 8, column 5 → Yo

• Line 7, column 2 → Mi

Yo + Mi = Yomi – the answer to the riddle (extra) and, in fact, the name of the land of the dead :)

Moving on, we are getting closer and closer to the finish line.

The solution to this part is too long to describe, so in brief:

Messages in the group:

At first, one might assume that in the twelfth log on some of the sites you need to find a file in .exe format. However, everything is much simpler.

Useful fact: in two-panel file managers, F5 is traditionally used for copying files.

We go to probablynothing.xyz and hear audio → in it you can hear the word "believe" and the phrase "press F5 12 times".

"Believe" is one of the main answers.

"Press F5 12 times" is a clear indication of what needs to be done. We perform it and pastebin.com/zWRRt6re, called "midpoint", opens.

From the text, we extract several encrypted messages:

1) GSRH RH MLG GSV HGZIG MLG GSV VMW URMW GSV SZOU

2) UOGJTBPW

3) ZVQCBVAG DATE

By brute force, we find the correct decryption method for each:

1) GSRH RH MLG GSV HGZIG MLG GSV VMW URMW GSV SZOU – Atbash cipher → THIS IS NOT THE START NOT THE END FIND THE HALF

2) UOGJTBPW – Vigenere cipher, use the word "HALF" as the key → NOVEMBER

3) ZVQCBVAG DATE – Caesar cipher, shift +13 (from the text: CORE ROT DETECTED: 13) → MIDPOINT DATE

Also, at the bottom of the site there are two important details:

• The website pastebin.com/MpscNuXp where you need to enter a password.

• Text excerpt:

Having combined all the information received, we understand that we need to find the total number of days in the period from 11.12.2000 to 11.12.2050, divided by 2, and then mirror the resulting number.

18262÷2 = 9131 <-> 1319

This is the password for the next pastebin. We enter it and see the binary code:

Each part separated from the next by a space is a letter (ASCII-code).

Decrypting:

01001011 –> K

01000001 –> A

01000111 –> G

01000001 –> A

01001101 –> M

01001001 –> I

KAGAMI – the final answer (extra). Send it to the bot.

The penultimate riddle is quite tricky, so briefly about that too. A key image has been posted in the "probably nothing" group:

Caption:

We find the letters by coordinates, write them in one line.

Route – /wakeup

By adding it to probablynothing.xyz, we get probablynothing.xyz/wakeup (now the route is closed, so you can't access the site).

There is the special alphabet we need:

We replace the letters from the line with their sequence numbers in the alphabet –> 12101809150720.

Also, there is a huge text, so I will write out only what we need to continue:

We can see the encrypted message.

"The German" is an indicator of the encryption method. We need to use the Gronsfeld cipher (Gronsfeld is a German count who created a polyalphabetic substitution cipher back in the XVII century).

The key is the number which was obtained a bit ealier.

Perform decryption using any site that can do it.

12101809150720 + KGME SOECUZ WHPD EMTR –> LINE TWELVE WORD FOUR

Going into the group, we see a hint:

In the decoded message, we remove all letters in whose place in the encrypted message there are "*"

LINE TWELVE WORD FOUR –> remains LEVER FOUR. "FOUR" = IV (Roman 4).

LEVERIV – and here is the answer! (extra)

Think it can't get any tougher? Hahahahaha. THE LAST RIDDLE FINALLY BLEW MY MIND WITH ITS INGENUITY AND CUNNING. It seems the creators decided to troll the community, and they succeeded, I'll explain why now 👇

A message was posted in the group:

Translation:

The first thought is to check the main websites.

Go to probablynothing.xyz

A curious sight appears:

The room is the same, but the TV is turned towards us with its bright, flickering screen. New sounds are clearly audible, as if someone is switching frequencies on a radio.

A couple of clicks take us to a site with the full audio lasting as long as 6 minutes and 37 seconds.

It would seem, such a large audio recording, well, we definitely need to listen to it completely and find a clue, because the creators did this every time...))))

The most quick-witted participants immediately extracted the file and went to turn the audio inside out in a professional sound editor and after a long search they found........THIS IN THE SPECTROGRAM:

FINAL ANSWER: RESONANCE

Now do you understand why "mind-blowing" and "decided to troll"?

Resonance caused resonance in the head. Resonance for real.

That's all. It turned out too voluminous, but I think that's not so bad. I hope you had the interest and patience to read to the end.

9. Results

The quest lasted almost two weeks and ended on November 13th.

The prize pool was 8,000,000 $NOT (≈$5600), and was evenly distributed among the 40 fastest, most enthusiastic and active participants, i.e. 200,000 $NOT (≈$140) each. Not bad, considering that it was two weeks of unreal fun and there will be a lot more activities with rewards within the phase.

On the 15th, a video was uploaded to Youtube, which reveals the entire vibe of a noisy, sometimes mysterious metropolis. I'm attaching the link and highly recommend watching it – it's real style.

10. A little about numbers and the technical side

If we take a look at the quest not only as a journey through riddles, but also as a process within an ecosystem, the metrics here speak for themselves. The moment the tasks just started appearing, activity in the main group grew almost instantly.

-> In just four days, the number of participants reached 14,000, and this is provided that the group is closed!

→ In two weeks, more than 18,000 people sent at least one answer to the bot.

→ The minimum time to find an answer was 7 minutes – that's how long it took a member of the NOT-BUSTERS team to find the word "yomi", amazing 0_0

11. What's next? What is all this for?

What's next? Hmm, nothing on the surface, inside a feeling that the next stage will be very soon. The quest did not give a clear answer to the question of what exactly will happen after its completion. Judging by the mood, this cycle will continue, possibly in a different format, possibly in a different geography, but certainly not in a different spirit.

A quest is not about finding answers to riddles, it's not about answers at all. It's about how people act together when something incomprehensible appears before them. About how those who have been silent for months speak up again. About how people unfamiliar with each other explain something they may have encountered for the first time in their lives. A quest is a human tool that brings back the concept of "we". And Notcoin understands this. It is important for them not just to accumulate users; it is important for them to keep the community alive, enthusiastic, and engaged. Such events remind us that crypto and web3 are not just tokens and metrics, but also people who have excitement and a desire to get to the absolute truth. And the quest was exactly about that: about a small route that shows you that the journey is more important than the finish line.

Conclusion

Well, our journey through atmospheric Japan has come to an end. However, this is just the beginning, and there is more to come.

I am sincerely glad that I was able to observe such a cool event and participate in it, thank you to everyone!

I was so inspired and filled with energy over these two weeks that I decided to create two of my own riddles in the spirit of the original quest.

• Those who find and send both answers first – win;

• There will be a total of seven prize places;

• The prize pool is small, but created from the heart:

I will post the riddles themselves shortly in two posts on my channel (it will be more convenient that way than leaving them here)→ t.me/jpdton

The results will be published in about a week. Good luck! ♡

I hope you found that article interesting. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read it! ♡

DM: @udvak

TG-channel: @jpdton

Official Notcoin TG-channel: @notcoin

Officical Notcoin X-account: x.com/notcoin

Special thanks to the Notcoin team for creating this masterpiece and to the NOT-BUSTERS team (in particular @bsnssakk).