For those who haven’t heard of Tricky NFTs, they are cutting edge, experimental NFTs that are designed to see what is possible in the NFT space, especially on the RMRK standard.

At the time of launch, there was very little information. In fact, there was no clear information. But as more clues have been dropped, digital sleuthing has inspired the community to move from “What are these posters that look like a 10 year old drew them” into, “I wonder what these will become.”

Tricky has always incentivized the curious with lower entry prices, and rewards for early adopters, and the WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE collection has risen to an impressive top 10 position in highest volume on Singular Marketplace, all based off of Tricky’s reputation, and his chaotic madman (or genius?) scribblings.

With RMRK 2.0 arriving, Some of Tricky’s collections are already launched on Singular 2.0, with a low-entry “learn how this RMRK 2.0 stuff works” collection that’ll cost a couple bucks for anyone to experience. It’s also easy to gift, so hit me up if you want a demo piece and you don’t want to pay the .03 KSM entry fee.

There is, however, an “OG” collection in the above collection that is more of a collector’s item–demonstrating your early adoption of some of the first RMRK 2.0 compatible NFTs. There are also several mysterious collections he’s begun to release that promise missions, gameplay, and of course–riddles galore, all built around the nested NFTs of RMRK 2.0 which is detailed on his subsocial.

Anyway, along with beta birds, hideouts, bubble collections and gamma gangs–there are a lot of terms, puzzles, and mystery. In the NFT world, there are a number of projects that are trying to find the balance between authentic community engagement, and too many barriers to entry. I don’t know about you, but my time is severely limited, and if a project is asking for too much from me to “prove” my interest, well…I’m more likely to walk the other direction.

So, for all of y’all who felt like Tricky’s mysteries were just too much, this article is for you. We’re here recap the adventure and riddles (some still unsolved) around Tricky’s alignment to Kusama’s “Expect Chaos” approach. It’s an awe-inspiring unraveling, if I do say so myself.

HUGE thanks to Eikas (Twitter: @eikas20) who, in full admission, solved almost all of these riddles and did all the real work behind this article.

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I first lightly covered Tricky NFTs in this article: https://app.subsocial.network/5892/some-total-degen-nft-finds-dead-or-alive-mao-snails-pi-ps-31039, but it turns out that I was still late to the party compared to Eikas.

He tracks down Tricky’s first tweet to here:

November 27, 2021

A tweet appears. https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464360652085121024

“A dive into Tricky NFT’s ksm address shows this extrinsic, a system remark written to the kusama blockchain.

“The key part is this: ‘2.0.0 = as in, a RMRK 2 NFT - was minted.’

“This would be the first of its kind, excluding the original Kanaria birds. It was a collection of 42 (collection size was only visible on-chain at this time) called ‘THE_Beta_Birds’, alongside a collection called ‘The Bubbles’ that can be equipped onto the Beta Birds.

RMRK::CREATE::2.0.0::{"max":42,"issuer":"GAYBQX5f7NXS4dv5EnL7NRSGLnAQmoDqajx998nYLv8QoJT","symbol":"THE_Beta_Birds","id":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdCollection.json"}

November 28, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets this: https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464754429845020675

“The first equippable non-kanaria RMRK 2.0 NFT’s were minted. There were seven in total, #00-06 Beta Birds were minted and distributed to the RMRK core team and #0 for Tricky.

December 5, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets that all 42 Beta Birds have been minted and are ready to leave the nest. What could this mean? https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1467573278092967938

December 6, 2021

A mysterious collection from Tricky NFT in Singular marketplace appears. It’s called ‘Code Crumbles’

“There are a total of 41 identical NFT pieces, only available from numbers 9-41. Hindsight shows that this was rather obvious, but note that collection size was only visible on-chain at the time.

“The collection started from #9, but Beta Birds had 7 distributed (if you guessed that tricky got 0, without on-chain snooping). So what happened to #8?

“It seems this was later distributed to https://twitter.com/martin__jensen Could this be a Co-founder of Tricky NFT?

“From the image, we can see that it has obvious crumbles of code in it. It’s rather hard to see visibly from the image. However it was possible to download the image and see that it was in .svg file format.

“Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a web-friendly vector file format. As opposed to pixel-based raster files like JPEGs, vector files store images via mathematical formulas based on points and lines on a grid.”

“This image format can be opened in a simple text editor to find the code within that constructs the image. In this code a hint was found (same code is visualized in the image as a bird).

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::%7B%22collection%22%3A%229ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds%22%2C%22symbol%22%3A%22TheBIRD%22%2C%22transferable%22%3A1%2C%22sn%22%3A%2200000002%22%2C%22metadata%22%3A%22ipfs%3A%2F%2Fipfs%2Fbafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74%2FBetaBirdMeta.json%22%7D

“Cleaned up, you can see this:

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::{"collection":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","symbol":"TheBIRD","transferable":1,"sn":"00000002","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdMeta.json"}

“This is an extrinsic, a system remark that essentially says, ‘Mint RMRK2 NFT in the collection THE Beta Birds with ID #2 and here is the metadata in ipfs server (image, description etc.)”.

“This was a very clear hint alongside the collection size + same creator, that these Code Crumble NFT’s will represent actual Beta Birds. As in by buying one, you will be airdropped later the actual Beta Bird once it is released. It is kind of like an egg.

“The Code Crumbles collection was sold out in a matter of days, at the listed 5 KSM price.

“Interestingly though, crumbles #24, #26, #27 and #32 were never listed for sale. Does this mean there are still four Beta birds still out there?”

Much of Eikas findings are straight up on-chain stalking. This is one of the beautiful things about blockchain, though.

December 11, 2021

“A new tweet appears. It seems to be a wanted poster for a bird. What could this mean?” https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1469788760040779777

December 13, 2021

“A collection appears in Singular marketplace ‘WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE’ https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA

“At first, 100 NFT posters were minted with listed names as ‘Jolly [GG]’. The pricing for each ranged from 0.3 to 0.6 KSM. Many were bought in the coming days, but not all - especially the higher priced ones. Essentially, the sooner you purchased it, the cheaper you got it, as the posters were identical otherwise.

“In the coming days between December and January of 2022, a total of 10 posters were released every few weeks with the same pricing theme. The price increased as time went on for the new poster listing, the last one being 1.2 KSM at the cheapest. In February, all posters also went through price waves of the floor increasing; currently the cheapest ones run at 2 KSM.

**Tricky explains: **

"Why the strange pricing structure? The zero knowledge presale phase had a stepped price system. The entry price was low, allowing early adopters and believers, even if they had just a small bag of KSM, to get some NFTs. With the ongoing hidden parts of knowledge the pricing got higher. This article is the end of the zero knowledge presale phase."

Eikas continues:

“During the release of the posters in December and January, hints were dropped on tweets by Tricky, and the images themselves also included hints hidden within the .svg file format code, shown below. Each poster description also held a hint, that we have not figured out yet (far as we know it does contain info that is already out there).

Jolly = No hint (?)

DaVinci = “GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG”

Bonnie = “RMRK2”

Chad = “1% AIRDROP CHANCE”

Mary = “EQUIPPABLE COLLECTION”

Hell = “Each bird unique”

Hook= ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠ ☠10 character classes with shared as well as class-specific items☠ ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Coca = ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠ ☠all the 10 characters can be used as CAPTAIN ☠ ☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

GG-1337 = “POSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRD”

Cpt. Tricky = “2022-02-02” and this ASCII art below hidden in the SVG.

“At the time, these hints would reveal that these birds in the posters were called ‘Gamma Gang’, built on a RMRK 2.0 equippable collection. Each bird is unique. 1% Airdrop chance? And each of these 10 Birds has a unique class, with unique class-specific equippable items. And, any of the 10 Birds can be used as Captain. Each poster represents one bird (airdropped later perhaps) and finally, there was a date in the future - the 2nd of February, 2022.

December 15, 2022

On Tricky's tweets, he links to a Youtube video along with his poster drop with the song "In My Eyes" by Steve B.

February 2, 2022

“The first subsocial article appears from Tricky NFT with ‘Part 1, Introducing the Gamma Gang!’

“More articles appeared throughout February, detailing several mysteries about the Gamma Gang. This is where Part 1 ended, but with several hints left about being early, doing detective work, and early birds getting the worm.

GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG https://app.subsocial.network/5799

“Here are the visualized hints:

DaVinci: Hidden in the background of the SVG, and reversed, the text GAMMA GANG repeats.

Bonnie:

Hidden in her eyes, the text RMRK2 appears, (color changed to red for visibility).

Chad:

Hidden in his eyes. 1% Airdrop chance.

Mary:

Hidden in her eyes, highlighted red for visibility. Equippable collection

Hell:

Hidden in its eyes. Each bird unique

Hook:

Twitter hinted at .svg file format. When looking at the code, you can see the hint commented out.

Coca:

the hint was hidden in comments at the .svg code

GG-1337:

The hint was a half moon. Light and Dark. When looking at the poster in Singular, using dark mode, you can see the binary code behind the poster. Translated, it gives the hint of 02-02

CPT. TRICKY:

The hint on twitter was hourglass emoji, or time. Waiting for 10 seconds to pass, the poster begins to animate. When the animation ends, a screen appears with binary code and roman numerals. Both combined bring up a date, 02-02-2022: the day the subsocial page was created. During the animation, the numbers 20 14 1 are also highlighted for some reason.

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Since, Tricky has released his experimental collection, however, at the time, we thought it was another mystery to jump on. We decided to mint before Singular 2.0 was available.

What the below shows is Eikas walking through how to purchase the “freebie” NFTs he launched later, using polkadot.js.

And then, how I was out-sniped by Plx5 7 minutes before I purchased.

Whatever the case, even though it proved to not be an actual first to snipe situation, it was fun learning a new skill.

**Tricky’s latest image drop in his discord is this: **

He describes what this means here: https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-x-birdonomics-31738

It’s nice to get some clarity!

His other recent subsocial post describes much of the gamification we can expect coming up through missions--and you'll see that the mysteries are far from over! In fact...some missions might already be out?

https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-ix-tricky-mission-system-31733

Suprises Down the Dirt Roads

As with all research, it’s easy to find yourself down a dirt road–but sometimes, you find some interesting tidbits along the way. Such as–what’s this? A connection between Tricky and Skylab?

Actually Pointless Dirt Roads

The written descriptions truly puzzled us for the longest time. Each poster had a seemingly random set of characters.

However, when putting all the descriptions together, and aligning them vertically next to one another, we found this:

Eikas says:

“Cpt. Tricky has description 20 14 1. This is the hint. In alphabetic numbers it is "TNA" or what we know as ‘Tricky NFT Art’.

“In Leet, 0010001 in binary is ‘!’

“All the previous ones are just set of characters, I believe. The first one is either 12 or 24 underscores. Then 5 dots, 5 x, 6 +, 6 circles. So it could be something like "XEEFFI!TNA"

“The first two could be morse with _ . I do think the "hint" will actually make sense instead of XEEFFI. Tricky has said that we’ll know when we found a hint, so this is still not the right answer.

“Underscore_underscore_dot is GG actually!!

“GG//!TNA is my closest guess. x+0 graphs in math to / and | vertical bar is also used in math as divider /. Double // is often commenting in code. ! is used in code as "is not" GG is not TNA? Huh?”

To which I replied:

“If it's like the rest, it's probably !”

Eikas:

“Oh? ‘GG!!TNA’ makes more sense.There are lots of double !! in the wanted poster names, too. welp that’s the description mystery solved. Might be useful at some point, but I can’t figure out where to use it atm.

And of course, me flailing about as I imported every image and played with each layer, trying to unmask clues that were already visible in the metadata (duh)--and, coming up with things that were very unlikely. I was convinced that because the loops each had an empty spot in each image, that it must mean that if you overlaid it with a map, then it was a treasure map... I think I was stretching a bit.

I'm also theorizing that Mary, the only bird without a GG after her name, is significant?

We'll find out.

I hope y’all enjoyed this adventure. You can find Tricky’s collection on Singular 1.0 (there’s still time) here.

And, even if the art isn't your cup of tea, I will say the tech and the updates have been shipping faster than most NFT collections, and it's clear that Tricky's got this planned from top to bottom.

Donations for this article are appreciated. KSM can be sent here: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz

Or to Eikas here: Hq7g2Xia3Aoyc21dXvz7Zkjzd2q8ZM6jqJs4Y7nP2YCHyca