The solution to the puzzle is a sequence of five letters.
Let's say you're submitting an answer on November 5th, and you wanted to submit "XABDU" as your solution, you would write a comment: "11/5/25: XABDU".
Please do not try to brute-force this. Each user gets one guess per calendar day, I'm not going to check every single time stamp diligently so don't abuse this rule or I will block you from the market and be sad.
I will check the market once per day (don't worry if I forget or skip a day, I'm human) at a random-ish time. If the value of the market is below 50%, I will give a single hint, which I will compile in the description over time. If the value of the market is above 50% (inclusive), I will not give a hint.
I think this puzzle will be hard. The more time that passes without hints, the less likely you will be to solve it. I anticipate that you will need at least ten hints to solve it, possibly far more. You might need to collaborate. You have until the end of the year!
11/3 Hint 1: Portugal
11/4 Hint 2: harbor
11/5 no hint today
11/6 no hint today
11/7 no hint today
11/8 no hint today
11/9 no hint today
11/10 no hint today
11/11 no hint today
11/12 Hint 3: Nazareth
11/13 no hint today
11/14 no hint today
11/15 Hint 4: [VPP]
11/16 Hint 5: 9gag
11/17 no hint today
11/18 Hint 6: [O-MBRV]
11/19 no hint today
11/20 no hint today
11/21 Hint 7: herring
11/22 Hint 8: [L-MBRV]
11/23 Hint 9: Setúbal
11/24 no hint today
11/25 no hint today
11/26 no hint today
11/27 no hint today
11/28 no hint today
11/29 no hint today
11/30 no hint today
12/1 no hint today (but it is my birthday 🥳, that's not a hint)
12/2 no hint today
12/3 no hint today
12/4 no hint today
12/5 no hint today
12/6 no hint today
12/7 no hint today
12/8 no hint today
12/9 no hint today
12/10 no hint today
12/11 no hint today
12/12 no hint today
12/13 no hint today
12/14 Hint 10: Presidente
12/15 Hint 11: Santos
12/16 Hint 12: 9lives
12/17 Hint 13: Somerton.
12/18 Hint 14: Peru
12/19 Hint 15: hamlet
12/20 Hint 16: Nazca
12/21 Hint 17: [U+025F]
12/22 Hint 18: 9-iron
12/EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE IS AI SUMMARY GIBBERISH
The creator will not reply to every guess. If there is no reply to a guess, assume it is not correct.
Incorrect guesses will be acknowledged with a like from the creator (rather than a written reply). If there is no response to a guess, assume it is incorrect.
If no one guesses the correct solution by the market close date (midnight on 2025-12-31), the market will resolve NO.
The market can resolve YES immediately upon a correct guess being seen by the creator, prior to the market close date.
The solution must consist of five letters from the English alphabet (the 26 standard letters A-Z). Non-English characters are not valid.
Guesses containing non-English alphabet characters (such as accented letters like Í, Ó, etc.) will be treated as their unaccented English equivalents (e.g., SÍTIO will be treated as SITIO).
The creator will not trade on this market.
All guesses must include a date in the submission. The format can be flexible as long as it's legible. This is to avoid ambiguity about which comment constitutes a user's daily guess.
Guesses will not be invalidated based on timezone differences between the guesser and the creator. Users may use their local timezone when dating their guesses.
If the creator misses announcing a hint/no-hint on a given day, they will apply that day's result (based on whether the market was below/above 50%) the morning after they next check the market, rather than skipping that day entirely.
Update 2025-12-21 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): If no one solves the puzzle by market close: The creator will provide the answer and may create a follow-up market (e.g., "Would Manifold have gotten the answer if they'd received a hint each day?") to give participants one more attempt.
The answer was not hashed but there is a definite answer that exists.
Update 2025-12-21 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The answer is not case sensitive - uppercase and lowercase letters will be treated as equivalent.
Update 2025-12-21 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The period/dot at the end of "Somerton." is intentionally a period character (not a typo or formatting artifact). The creator cannot comment on its meaning for solving the puzzle.
Update 2025-12-21 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): If a user submits multiple guesses or an ambiguous guess in a single comment, the creator will ignore the entire comment. Users must submit exactly one clear guess per day consisting of five letters.
1,000🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ25,495 | |
| 2 | Ṁ9,511 | |
| 3 | Ṁ5,725 | |
| 4 | Ṁ3,340 | |
| 5 | Ṁ3,028 |
People are also trading
@traders Round 2 begins tomorrow :)
https://manifold.markets/bens/will-manifold-solve-my-puzzle-round
I wrote up my experience with the market on my blog here: https://phenomist.wordpress.com/2025/12/23/solving-a-puzzle-for-fun-and-profit/
The Benko gambit, often just called "The Benko" is a common chess opening. I took the notation (d4Nf6c4c5d5b5), rotated it by 180 degrees, and then encoded that into a series of clues. The 180-degree rotated character was the first letter of the corresponding clue, and in the cases of 180-rotated f and c, which aren't parse-able in alphanumeric, the character is encoded with a unicode hint instead.
Congrats to @phenomist for solving!
Surplus guesses for anyone’s taking at:
https://manifold.markets/MachiNi/will-bens-puzzle-be-solved-in-the-l#208lwsui1i9j
Also links to all the derivative markets and general clearinghouse.
h/t @Eliza
@traders Round 2 begins tomorrow :)
https://manifold.markets/bens/will-manifold-solve-my-puzzle-round
Alas, it has all come to an end. We shall all give tips to the winning comment! https://manifold.markets/bens/will-manifold-solve-my-puzzle#4lwru1xvkf
Did someone say cyrllic?
Союз нерушимый республик свободных
Сплотила навеки Великая Русь.
Да здравствует созданный волей народов
Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
I wrote up my experience with the market on my blog here: https://phenomist.wordpress.com/2025/12/23/solving-a-puzzle-for-fun-and-profit/
@Mactuary I was willing to sacrifice mana to unlock hints but I kept finding that the only effective way was to hold No shares which I really didn't want to do. I think there's a reasonable chance we never got enough hints to see the pattern repeat if Caleb didn't buy so many No shares. I was going to donate any profit to Caleb but since I'm down mana overall it's hard to justify too much.
Sometron. hint is related to the Tamam Shud mystery. The Somerton Man was later identified as Carl “Charles” Webb, who was poisoned
Pal Charles Benko[1] (Hungarian: Benkő Pál; July 15, 1928 – August 25, 2019[a]) was a Hungarian and American chess grandmaster, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.
@bens Can an answer have more than one set of clues - like multiple clues pointing to the same answer?