TapeFoundry
The daily puzzle
One number a day, and only some drawings can reach it. The circuit checks the answer, not us.
Every day the site publishes a target number. Your job is not to compute it by hand — it is to own a card that can.
How a round works
- Read the target. It is derived from the date, so everyone sees the same number.
- Pick one of your cards. The page runs a search on that card's netlist for inputs that produce the target.
- Sign. One signature proves the submission came from your wallet.
- The server re-runs the netlist. If the output equals the target, the solve is recorded.
Nothing is judged by hand. The netlist on chain is the referee.
Why the big cards matter
A circuit can only output as many distinct values as its output bits allow. A 40-gate shifter has four output bits: it can produce 0 to 15, and nothing else, ever.
| Drawing | Output bits | Largest value | Can answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| EQ8 | 1 | 1 | 0 or 1 |
| CMP4 | 3 | 7 | 0–7 |
| SHIFT4 | 4 | 15 | up to 15 |
| MUL2 | 4 | 15 | up to 15 |
| ADD4 / SUB4 | 5 | 31 | up to 31 |
| MUL8 / DIV8 | 16 | 65,535 | up to 65,535 |
| MUL12 | 24 | 16,777,215 | up to 16,777,215 |
This is the point of the gates. Two cards with the same cap are not the same object: a 2,118-gate multiplier can answer questions a 40-gate shifter cannot even represent.
The stretch target
Beside the daily number, every day carries a stretch number in the 24-bit range — somewhere between 65,536 and 16,777,215. Nothing in the entry tier can reach it: a 4-bit or 5-bit output simply cannot represent the value. Only the 12×12 multiplier can, because it is the only drawing with 24 output bits.
Stretch solves are recorded separately from the daily board. That is deliberate: the daily target keeps everyone playing, and the stretch target is what a bigger card is for.
Records, not just days
Every solve is tied to a wallet and a date. The site keeps three numbers per wallet: how many days you have solved, your current streak, and — separately — how many stretch targets you have taken. Streaks are the reason to come back tomorrow; the stretch count is the reason to own a card that can reach further.
The difficulty ladder
Targets are tiered by day: most days are small (4-bit), some are 8-bit, a few are 16-bit. While the collection is young — fewer than 200 cards stamped — every target stays in the 4-bit range, because the cards in circulation are entry cards. The ladder widens as the set fills.
The ladder is published in advance
The next six days are visible on the page, each with the number of output bits it needs. Targets are fixed when they are first generated and never recomputed, so a solve today cannot be invalidated by tomorrow's sales.
Rules
- One daily solve and one stretch solve per wallet per day.
- The card must be yours at the moment of verification — wrapped counts, because the TFD proves the same ownership.
- Submissions are signed; an unsigned or mismatched address is discarded.
- The board is public and resets at 00:00 UTC.
What it is not
It is not a quiz about circuits, and it does not test arithmetic skill. The page does the search. What it tests is what you hold — which is the only thing a gate count was ever supposed to mean.
Where this goes with Series 02
A puzzle is defined by what a drawing can represent, not by arithmetic. Memory circuits answer a different question — store a value and read it back, count to N, hold two words at once — but the shape is the same: a target, a card, and a netlist that decides. The ladder widens with each series; the referee never changes.