Haha, @plushzilla, you've caught me.

The method of hiding the seed word for next stage in the AES-encrypted message so as to force players to solves the puzzles sequentially from stage 1 to 5 is partially inspired by the blockchain as well! 

And the winners are verified by entry into a secret discord server to avoid spoilers in comments and "copy-cats" who turn up and copy the answers of someone who actually did the work, which is common for Steemit puzzle games.