FAQ

Is this real money? No. Shielded Quest runs on the Zcash testnet. TAZ has no value.

Can the site see my answers? No. Answers and guesses are processed in your browser and never sent. Only the locked hunt file is stored.

Can the site steal the prize? Not while a hunt is unsolved. The pot's seed phrase is made in the creator's browser, and the server is given only a viewing key that can't spend. Two things remain, both listed on the Privacy page: the site serves the code your browser runs, and a one-click claim sends the unlocked phrase through the site. A winner who doesn't want that can sweep the pot from their own wallet.

Why does each guess take a moment? On purpose. Each guess runs Argon2id with 64 MiB of memory. It's barely noticeable for you and very expensive for someone trying millions of guesses.

What if I lose my backup file? If nobody solves the hunt, the prize stays in the pot forever. Keep the backup.

Can two people win? The first valid claim takes the whole pot. Everyone else who finishes sees that it's been claimed.

Can I add to someone else's prize? Yes. Send shielded TAZ to the pot address on the hunt page. The prize goes up for everyone.

Who can see that I won? Nobody, from the chain. The claim is a single shielded transaction that even the pot's public viewing key can't decrypt. The site briefly sees your address if you use one-click claim; sweeping yourself avoids even that.

Does the site track me? No accounts, no cookies for tracking, no analytics, no third-party scripts or fonts. Pages send Referrer-Policy: no-referrer.

What is a private hunt?

A hunt only people with its invite link can open. It isn't listed, and its title and first clue are encrypted with a key that lives in the link after the #, which never reaches the server. Opening the hunt's address without the key shows a locked page. See For creators.

I lost my private hunt's invite link. Can you recover it?

No. The key was only ever in the link and in your backup file. Check the backup: it lists the invite key. Without it nobody can read the hunt, but you can still take the prize back from the hunt's page with the backup file.