A new scavenger hunt launching along Utah's Wasatch Front is dangling a $1 million grand prize for the national winner, and organizers will announce the qualifier's date after the first 200 participants register. The competition, which blends a geofencing mobile app with a cryptocurrency-themed contest platform, is designed to get people out from behind their screens and into their own communities, according to organizers.
The inaugural state qualifier's date will be announced after 200 participants register, according to KSL News. The event pairs the Ogden-based Skavengerz app with the KryptoChase contest platform, two ventures whose founders say they spent years building toward this rollout. Utah was chosen as the testing ground before organizers expand the format to all 50 states, per a release carried by PR Newswire.
Each state-level competition runs as a weekend event, starting Friday morning and wrapping by Sunday evening, the release notes. Participants must clear four location-based GPS challenges scattered around their state before the final destination unlocks — a structure organizers say avoids the chaotic sprint-to-one-spot dynamic of traditional treasure hunts, Morningstar reports.
How Registration and Prizes Work
Entry requires purchasing an official ticket.
Winners in each state take home $5,000 and can choose to receive it as traditional cash or in Bitcoin, the same release states. Those state champions automatically advance to a national championship event carrying the $1 million grand prize. KryptoChase founder Jeremy Lyman, who also serves as chief executive officer of Blue Mountain Hospital in Blanding, said the payout has the potential to change someone's life, per KSL News. KSL News also identifies Lyman as KryptoChase's CEO.
Unlike a conventional treasure hunt, there is no buried chest waiting at the end. Instead, players complete app-based challenges over several days, solving clues tied to real landmarks, hidden gems and neighborhoods within their own state, KSL News reports.
The Founders Behind the Format
Skavengerz CEO Nate Alder is the founder of Klymit. KSL News reports that Alder teamed up with Lyman and travel and tourism marketing expert Brandon Osmond to build the nationwide hunt.
Alder told KSL News the organizers have worked on the concept for years, framing the hunt as a response to a broader cultural problem: people need a reason to get outside and do something. The stated goal, per that same report, is to encourage participants to explore new places while spending less time staring at their phones.
Fitting Into Utah's Treasure-Hunt Culture
Utah already has a reputation for this kind of outdoor chase. Since 2020, local real estate investors John Maxim and David Cline have hidden a $25,000 chest somewhere in Utah every year, and the hunt has attracted hunters from across Utah and beyond, according to the BYU Daily Universe. The new $1 million hunt arrives into a region already primed for this style of competition.
A KSL.com article discussed adults questioning their phone habits and the effects of phone use on sleep, focus and relationships.
A Scavenger Hunt Beyond Utah
One high-value scavenger hunt beyond Utah took place this year. Stack's Bowers Galleries ran a four-city rare coin hunt in October offering $40,000 in collectible prizes across Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston, as Hoodline previously reported.
What sets the Utah-born hunt apart is its multi-stage, app-driven design meant to spread participants across several locations rather than triggering a single-site stampede, and its direct integration of cryptocurrency payouts into the prize structure. How regulators will treat a paid-entry competition offering cash or Bitcoin rewards, and how organizers plan to prevent GPS spoofing or other technological cheating, remain open questions as organizers await 200 registrations before announcing the first Wasatch Front qualifier's date.
