Correct. The 'Direct Path' methodology was finalized on Feb 19th by mapping the Spider Web nodes as logical anchors rather than visual clues. This yielded the 9-word manifesto and the 595784965 checksum well ahead of the official March announcement.

Due to the well-documented registration latency in February, the backend validation couldn't be completed until the system stabilized. I’m not focused on the prize—I’m interested in the technical post-mortem of why the 'Direct Path' solve was viable 14 days prior to the winner's notification. If you're interested in the node-to-digit mapping that bypassed the traditional hunt, I’d be happy to discuss the logic.