The cost of brute forcing the answer is greater than the prize for the contest.
"This can happen if a security check is failed, or in the case that the first 128 bits of the SHA-1 of the newly created encryption key don‘t match on both parties’ clients when this stage is completed (this corresponds to Paul and Nick comparing the key visualizations for the Secret Chat in their Telegram apps)."
So, given the contest would "succeed" (or "fail", depending on the viewpoint) with no one getting the prize, the only thing we could be more or less certain of, is that no one would likely consider cracking Telegram under given conditions for $300K in 2 months. Or maybe I'm missing something.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/when_will_we_... "211 * 28.4 = 219.4 ~ $700K by 2015"
The cost of brute forcing the answer is greater than the prize for the contest.
"This can happen if a security check is failed, or in the case that the first 128 bits of the SHA-1 of the newly created encryption key don‘t match on both parties’ clients when this stage is completed (this corresponds to Paul and Nick comparing the key visualizations for the Secret Chat in their Telegram apps)."