cia kryptos sculpture code auction 2677451

An anonymous bidder has won the solution to the final unsolved puzzle of Kryptos, a famous encrypted sculpture at CIA headquarters in Virginia, for $962,500 in an online auction by R.R. Auction. The artist, Jim Sanborn, offered the handwritten code for the fourth message (K4) along with other unpublished items and a prototype, far exceeding the presale estimate of $300,000–$500,000. The sale came after the solution was accidentally leaked to journalists Jarett Kobek and Richard Byrne, who discovered the plaintext in Sanborn's papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, though they have agreed not to release it.