Besides ASCII art, the huge majority of images is encoded with the AtomSea & EMBII system/format. All images in that system will be documented in that section.
There are a few dozen ASCII arts in the blockchain.
Almost all of them are copy pastes of stuff present elsewhere, or boring high resolution ones auto-generated from images. But hey, it's still fun to see.
  • 5acc5293506c65d346d6ca171d8e8b73b39b3f99fb16a98cc7f3ce9dbe27a87c (2014-03-10) goes straight to the point:
    +----+
    |fuck|
    +----+
  • tx 9f17f3ce43019c24baa6d679edfdddeada856f617cd9c1f6008d49be4542b768, block 301412 (2014-05-18) TODO wft, what/who is "poutine". Cthulhu is of course the fictional (?) entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft.
      _--------.
     /    ~~~~~~\                     p o u t i n e
    (_   ~~~@~~@|     Cthulhu wants your bitcoin/dogecoin, plz donate
     \   ~~//|\\\  |
      \   \|||/\\\_/
      /   /|//_/|/__   BTC : 1JsJs5d6E5SmJSGUiQ12uF1GDZxTCUWvf
     /    \_\ \|\|     DOGE: D93mn1utTc7REQQPjQSjFf9Boupm32gw88
    There were a few small donations: www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/BTC/1JsJs5d6E5SmJSGUiQ12uF1GDZxTCUWvf
  • tx 7b537ad012439c6306dd74e13ba9c20926d68d04fc0c6da2fc81a8eb8f9ea017, block 322917 (2014-09-28) via cryptograffiti.info: hello, it's the Internet:
             /\_/\
        ____/ o o \
      /~____  =
    = /
     (______)__m_m)
  • Figure 1. ASCII art of the Winklevoss twins. tx 09a5d5aaecdce1757e6ec713cc8a2201abca9acdb6fbadc7760e831cdad3d680 (2014-10-01) high resolution image of two men wearing a suit with the bitcoin logo on the background, followed by "if you like it, leave a tip: 1MDBHLGV7WX9viRG9X4LfDQfCX8oZ9w". Both men look quite similar, so quite likely it's the Winklevoss twins, who had a big and later catastrophic involvement with Bitcoin. The tip address appears to be cropped and is incorrect, ooops. 777db7bfbea2c525d5adb05a8fbf47736e2311492f4614e5d38ab199b4bbfac2 give the likely correct version of it "1MDBHLgv7WX9viRG9X4LfDQfCX8oZ9wviC".
  • tx e577e60f4008a00175ef3f3266f052949440009b2ac65e4957da114db29bf96d (2014-11-03) @jamesmorgan. Possibly this Twitter account: twitter.com/jamesmorgan but it was suspended as of January 2024. It had only a single archive from 2008 at: web.archive.org/web/20081007152024/http://twitter.com/JamesMorgan but nothing special about it besides the 2008 vibe of Twitter CSS:
       _____     __
      / ___ \   |__|____    _____   ____   ______ ____   _____   ___________  _________    ____
     / / ._\ \  |  \__  \  /     \_/ __ \ /  ___// ___\ /     \ /  _ \_  __ \/ ___\__  \  /    \
    <  \_____/  |  |/ __ \|  Y Y  \  ___/ \___ \/ /_/  >  Y Y  (  <_> )  | \/ /_/  > __ \|   |  \
     \_____\/\__|  (____  /__|_|  /\___  >____  >___  /|__|_|  /\____/|__|  \___  (____  /___|  /
            \______|    \/      \/     \/     \/_____/       \/            /_____/     \/     \/
  • Figure 2. 777db7bfbea2c525d5adb05a8fbf47736e2311492f4614e5d38ab199b4bbfac2. (2014-10-12). Associated text:
    if you like it, leave a tip: 1MDBHLgv7WX9viRG9X4LfDQfCX8oZ9wviC
    Portrait of a young man. TODO identify. 1MDBHLgv7WX9viRG9X4LfDQfCX8oZ9wviC was tipped twice so far: www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1MDBHLgv7WX9viRG9X4LfDQfCX8oZ9wviC for 0.00240 BTC and 0.02490000 BTC in 2014.
  • tx c6df8850871fce6c8764af2a0a4155241fc987db57abd8c9ead0165895e1ccc4 (2014-11-04): TODO what company is this the logo of? It seems very familiar, Ciro Santilli has certainly seen it before but can't remember where...:
                     `-:+syhhhhhhyo/-.
                  ./sdmmmmmmmmmmmmmmddy/.`
                :sdmmmmmdddddhhysyhhddddho-`
              -ydmmmmddddddddddhhyso++yhddh/``
             +dmmmdddddddyso++/++shdy+:/+ydho``
            +dmmdddddhhy:``       ./sh/.-/yhho`
           -dmmdddhhhy/`            `/y/`./yho-
          .hmddddhhhs:                :h.`::/-:`
          ydmmmdhhhy`                  s+ .` `.-
          ymmmmdhhh+                   /o  @R*.
          /mmmmdhhhs`                  ..
          `hmmmdhhhh/
           ommmdddhhh-
           .hmmmddhhhh+-`
            .hmmmmddhhhhso+:----:+o+/:-
             :smmmmdddhhhhhhhhhhhhdddhh/
             ` -sdmmmmddddddddddddddmmmd-
                 .odmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmd:`
                   .-:odhmmmmmNNNNmdo/.
                       ``-sooosyho``
    
    -JGM
  • The Hashling
    
      /\|--|/\
      /\|OO|/\
      /\|--|/\
    
    @BraveTheWorld
    @petertoddbtc
    Code 1. The Hashling.
    "The Hashling" presumably refers to a cute fictional crab-like animal that somehow inhabits the alternate reality created Blockchain network's incredible hashrate. Yet another souless NFT collection would later be created with that name as well: magiceden.io/ordinals/marketplace/hashlings.B
    But that is not all! Immediately after the ASCII art encoded as one constant, the remaining constants of the input script except for the last one encode a raw PNG image with a hand drawing of the creature:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/a96bda1363e8968f45b05e3c1940ba37b18de53de0157d453ca9bfc44913768c.png
    The last constant is then the only thing that matters and spends the incoming output.
    The ASCII art and image are also inscribed 16 more times on the blockchain: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/hashling. 453c9511ca76361c8c44b4302ce1b5d8d5c98a938b548478ef931baaa7d70e62 also has the image without any ASCII strings.
    Peter Todd is the author of Peter Todd's hash collision puzzles. @BraveTheWorld is presumably twitter.com/BraveTheWorld, but it is less clear what are they.
  • tx 57a4edce05dee9012ff5991532e9aa02aef82ee8d3ebecb9f833c12bfbc708fe (2014-12-19) via cryptograffiti.info "MERRY CHRISTMAS! & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!" with a really ugly father Christmas with gift bag. Reproduced at: asciiart.website/index.php?art=holiday/christmas/santa where is is credited From: Heather Classen <classen@aware.com>, Date: 22 Dec 1994 17:00:58 -0600
      MERRY CHRISTMAS!              __ _ __ ___
            &                  _ __'.:;.:;.:;.:`
      HAPPY NEW YEAR!        _'.:;.:;.:;.:;.:;.:`
                            '.:. , :`,.,`;'/`__ _` _
                            '..:;.;'.:,.;.:;\      (_)
                          -__ --_-_-_-__---_-)
                        (                    )
      ____               (_- -__-_-__-____-__-)
    /####\ /\            |  ,~~~'  `~~~.   %@
    |#####\#|             )  ><@>  <@><    %@%
    |#######|            /      /          %@p
      \######|            ( *   (_c)   * )  % %      .vvvvvvvv.
      |#####|             \ '%@%@%@%@`, %@%@       .vvvvvvvvvv.
      /#####\         _ _ d%@ `----' @%@%@ \ _ _ _.vvvvvvvvvvvvv.
      ~~~~~~~       ':;.;%@@%@%@%@%@%@@%p  /.:;.:;vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.
        `.:;.'     ':;.;%@@%@%@@%@%@%@%@ :: ____vvmvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv.
        :.:;.:`   ':;.:d%@%@%@%@%@%@@%@%.:;/####\/\.:;\mvvvvvvvvvvvv
        :.:;.:;` ';.;;.%@%@@%@%@@%@%@%@p.:;|#####\#|.:;\mvvvvvvvvvvvv.
        :.:;.:;./;.;;.;%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@ ::.'\######|.:;\mnvvvvvvvvvvvv
        :.:;.:;.|:.;.;.% %@%@%@%@%@% % :  mvv\#####|.:;.\mnvvvvvvvvvvv
        :.:;.:;/:;.;.:;.q%@%@@%@%@ %p.:;vv%mv|#####\.:;.\mnvvvvvvvvvv
        :.:;.:;|:;.:;.;;;%@%@@% %.:;.:;.vmnv. ~~~~~~ .:;.|mvvvvvvvvvv.
        :.:;.:/.:;.:;.:;.: o  .:;.:;.:;.vv.:;/.:;.:;\.:;.|mnvvvvvvvvv.
        `.:;.|:;.:;;;.:;.    .:;;;;;;;;;;;;;|.:;.:;.\.:;\mnvvvvvvvv.
          `::/:;;;.:;;.:; o  .:;.;;.:;;;.:;.:|.:;.:;.:\.:;\mnvvvvvnm
            ;.:;;.:;;.:     :;;;.:;.:;.:;.:;\.:;.:;.:;.:;|mnvvvnm.
            :::;.:;.:;. o  ..:;.:;.:;;;;.;;;;\.:;.:;.:;.:|mnvvnm.
            :::;.:;;.:     .:;;;;;;;;.:;.:;;;|.:;.:;.:;./mmvnm.
            ;.:;.:;.;. o   .:;.;.:;;.:;.:;.:;.\________/mmmnm.
            :.:;;;.;;;     .:;;.:;.:;;.:;.:;.:;.;.:;;;;`mmnn
              `#######HHOHHH###########################
              #######HHOHHH###########################
              '::;;;.;; o  :;;;.:;.:;;.;;;;;;;;;;;.:;.:`  H.Classen
  • tx 69708943906eb32a320a5a450fed450b0f14b4e475a98bc74615962b68a0bc83 (2015-01-24) via cryptograffiti.info "All Glory to he HYPNO TOAD" signed "SSt" has an ASCII art of HypnoToad, a ficticius mind controlling frog creature from Futurama: Fandom, KnowYourMeme. The same ASCII art can be seen for example at: www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/AsciiArt/HypnoSebastian.shtml
          ,'``.._   ,'``.
        :,--._:)\,:,._,.:       All Glory to
        :`--,''   :`...';\      the HYPNO TOAD!
          `,'       `---'  `.
          /                 :
        /                   \
      ,'                     :\.___,-.
      `...,---'``````-..._    |:       \
        (                 )   ;:    )   \  _,-.
        `.              (   //          `'    \
          :               `.//  )      )     , ;
        ,-|`.            _,'/       )    ) ,' ,'
      (  :`.`-..____..=:.-':     .     _,' ,'
        `,'\ ``--....-)='    `._,  \  ,') _ '``._
    _.-/ _ `.       (_)      /     )' ; / \ \`-.'
    `--(   `-:`.     `' ___..'  _,-'   |/   `.)
        `-. `.`.``-----``--,  .'
          |/`.\`'        ,','); SSt
              `         (/  (/
    Figure 3. Hypno toad. Off-chain reference image for the ASCII art
  • tx 0913d8125167f728cec1b95d27e6fc62a7a45af35eecfefd3b5000e367ee1468 (2015-02-01) via cryptograffiti.info: ASCII typeface add for an unsuccesful cryptocurrency with a link to its homepage zeit-coin.net:
             _ _            _
            (_) |          (_)
     _______ _| |_ ___ ___  _ _ __
    |_  / _ \ | __/ __/ _ \| | '_ \
     / /  __/ | || (_| (_) | | | | |
    /___\___|_|\__\___\___/|_|_| |_|
    http://zeit-coin.net
  • tx 43b0bb63fc50ad1edbb17486dc44825e4dd642a952c699cc13958e010ba3d8a5 (2015-02-26) has a star of David. Possibly related news from the day prior: www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/jewish-leaders-europe-legislation-outlawing-antisemitism "Jewish leaders call for Europe-wide legislation outlawing antisemitism"
               /\
              /  \
             / /\ \
    ________/ /__\_\________
    \  ____/ /___________  /
     \ \  / /      \ \  / /
      \ \/ /        \ \/ /
       \ \/          \ \/
       /\ \          /\ \
      / /\ \        / /\ \
     / /__\_\______/ /__\ \
    /_____________/ /______\
            \ \  / /
             \ \/ /
              \  /
               \/
    
        HELLO FROM ZOG
    The signature however appears ironic and could stand for "Zionist Occupation Government"
  • Muy feliz cumple Manu! ---- The Fantastic Four Gang :-D
    ~?O8O7?I$O8888OOZZ$$$7?=~::::::::::::$$8ODZZZ7I,.....,8D88O88O88$I?=7ZO88DDDNDNN
    7888DD888888888OOZZZ$$I+=~:::::~IONNNNNNMNNNMMNMN8~:.,:+888D88O$$$Z$OZOO8DDNNNNM
    88DDDDD8D88888888OZZZZI?=~::~+ODNMNNNMNMMMMMMMMMMNNND~,:?D8D88Z$$$7Z$ZZO8DNNNNNN
    8DDDDNDDD8888OOO8OOOOZ7?=~~+DDDND8NDD88NNNMNMNNNMMMMMND?ODDD888ZOOOOOO88DNNNNNDD
    DD8DDDDDDD88O8O8OOOOOO7?++DDDDD8DDDDD8DDND888NDDNNMMMNMNZ$8DDDDD8DDDDDDDNNNNNNND
    88D888888D88888O88O8OZ$7O8DD8DDNNNDDDDDND8888NDDDNNMNNNNDDO8888DD8DDDDDDNNNNNNND
    88D888888888888888888OZZO88DNDDDDD8D88OOOOO8DDNDNDNNNNNDDDOI+?$88D88D8DDNNNNNNNN
    88D8888D88888888D8D8DO$O8DDNDZ77I???+?++++++IZO8O8O888OOD8D$,,,~Z8OO888DDDNNNNDD
    DDD8888888DDDDDDDDDD8ZO8DDD8$I??+++===~~~~::~~=+===+?I$Z8888=..,7$OOOZO8DDNNNNDD
    888D88DDD888DDDDDDD8ZO8DDDDO7?+++++=~~~~~:~:::::::::::~~+$8D$..:78OOOZO88DDNNDDD
    88O888D88OOOO8DD8DD$888DDNDZ7?+?+?++==~~~~:::::::::::,::~=88DI,+88888OOO88DD888O
    O88888DDOOOOOO88DD8Z88NDNNOZ7???+++===~~~::::::::::::::::~$O88OO8888DD8O888OZZZO
    88O8D8888OZZO8O88DOODDNDDD8OI????++===~~:~::::::::::::::::?ZOOOOOO8OD8DDDDOOOZ7$
    88O8O888O8OOOO88DDO8D8NNNN8O7III?++===~~~:::::::::::::::::?ZOZOZOOO8DDDDDD8877$Z
    8O8888D8O8DDDDDDDDO8NDDDNNZ7I???+===~=~~~~~::::::::::::::~?OZZZ888D8D8888888$$$$
    8O8D88OO88DDDNNNNDZDNNDDN87I?????I$7???++===:~~~~~~::::,:=IO$$O88DD8D888D8DDZ$$$
    8888OOZZZO88DDDDDDO8NDDNDZII??7Z8O88NNNDOI?++=++++++==~::=$8ZZ88DDN8DD8DDDHACKER
    DD88O$$7$ZOOOO88D87ODDDND7??I7$$7777$OOO8O$?+=+$88DDD8O7:~$8$$88DNDNNNDDNNNNNNND
    DDD8O$77$$ZZOOO8DIOZZ8DNZ???7$ZODDNMMI8$8ZI=~:+IZOZ7II+=?=78$$O8NDNNNNNDNNNNNNDD
    DDD8OZZ$ZZOOOO8ODI$7$O8D????III7ZZ$$7IIII77=::+?7OZNDOZ=?~IO7Z8DDDDDDNNNDNNNNDDD
    DNDD88OO88DD88DDNI$?I$OZ??????????+++?+??II+~:==?77$7???+~=$+7DNDDDDDDDDNDDDND88
    NNDNNDDDDNDDNDNDD$I?O8IIII??++++++++===+??I+:::~=++=++~~~:=77ZNNDDDDDDDDDDDDD888
    DDNDDDDNDDNDDDDDNNII77I?II???+====~=~==+???=::::~:~~=~~:::=$+NNDDDDDNDDDDDDDDD88
    NNNNNDNNNNNDDDDDDD??+7??I??I??+==~~===+I??+~:::~::~:~~::::~?=DDNDDDDDNNDDDDDDD8D
    NNNNNNNNNNDDDNNDDN$?I?IIIIIIII??=+=+?I$I+I?=~~::==~::::::~=~NDDNDDDDNDDDDDDDD888
    NNNNMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNO??I$I?II777I?+??777$8D8$?+NO=+=~::::~~~?NNNNNDNNNNNNNDDDD8O8
    NNNNMMMMMMNNNNNNNNDNN8$ZI?II7$$7I7I77?I7ZZOO$I+==++=~~:~=~:MMNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDD8OO
    NNNMMMMMMMMNMNNNNNNNNDO7??III7$777I7I7IIII$$$?+=~=?====~~:+MMNMMMNMMMMNNNDDD888O
    NMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMNNNNDI??IIII$7I?I$$77$7I+=~~~~=?I==+==+?MMMMMMMMMMMMNNDDD8888O
    NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNND??IIIIIIII?+?8O+I~=~I=IZZ?I$?+=+=8MMMMMMMMMMMMMNNDD888888
    NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMMMNN??I7777I77I=+?III+~:~:,~+?+I+++==MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMDDDDDDDDD
    MNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNN?I777777I7I??++?I?++=~~=~:~+=+++IMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNNMMMM
    MMMMNNNNNMMMMMMMMMMMNMM?I77777II77I???++?IIII+~~:~===++MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN+II7$7$$77III???++++===~~~~=+++MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMMNMMMMMMMNMMMMMMN??I77$7$$7$7I?+++==~~~~~~~~=+?MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMMZ=+??II77$$$$77777I+==~~~~~:~~=+?MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMNNNMMMMMMMMMM:+?II???II77$ZZZ$$$$$II+===+~~==??MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMNNNNNMMMMMM7:I?77I?IIII7$$ZZOOZ7$$$7I??III?++8NMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMNMNNNMMMMMM,:I?$$IIIIIII7$$ZZZZ88OZ$$$777I?+=NNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMMMNNNMMMMZ,,?7ZO7IIIIIII7$$$$$$ZOOOZ7????++=DMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMMMMNNMMM8:,,,,Z$7I?I??I7777$$$$$$7II?++++++,ZMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMMMMMMNDI,,,,,,,?7II?????II7777777I?+???++++.8MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMMMMNNND=,,,,,,,,,,,.?????????IIII7I7I???++++=~.?MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    MMMN7:,,....,,,,,,,,,,,..??+++++?????III?++++++$.,..IDMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
    Code 2. Muy feliz cumple Manu!
    tx 00d8871c1b3fb85912616bb2602b5a9869a345d9fa092f8454614c6158c83d10 (2015-04-08)
    Muy feliz cumple Manu! ---- The Fantastic Four Gang :-D
    which means: "Happy birthday, Manu", in Spanish, followed by Manu's face in medium resolution
    The given names of the other three of the "Fantastic Four Gang" are then given at Figure 4. "Viva la Revolucion! Happy Birthday Santi".
    Figure 4. Viva la Revolucion! Happy Birthday Santi.
    tx 1b35d4b9506ab80ec7fc5542f73271cbb72090aa3f70bfa77670f8bd43d072a7, block 378022, 2015-10-08) has a message:
    Viva la Revolucion! Happy Birthday Santi! Manu, Santi, Demi, Esteban
    and starts a long chain of contiguous transactions that renders Santi's face twice in low resolution. They are encoded one line every two transactions with OP_RETURN:
    and we've decoded it manually in Vim.
    Both blocks were mined by AntPool, so they weren't mining themselves to enforce ordering. So how is ordering assured? TODO are transactions actually contiguous in the block or are there other transactions interspersed? According to:
    bitcoin-core.cli getblock 00000000000000000baf6e3006fd05a1c5dbca3d430012180f8098cbe8b8ce22
    many of the transactions are contiguous but we haven't checked all of them.
  • Figure 5. Warren Buffet.
    tx 0fc0c50e410b62ee3a316135711116db6b4e728841c976f29ab85e2a41e0dcc3 (2015-08-02) Associated message:
    if you like it, leave a tip: 1P675gRxNwhFXgfuDu5yXwGDgwLDbXNJqz BM-2cUDAqyqcnksx7YDtgu2y72xDxcRjPeYfo
    1P675gRxNwhFXgfuDu5yXwGDgwLDbXNJqz was never tipped so far: www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1P675gRxNwhFXgfuDu5yXwGDgwLDbXNJqz TODO what is "BM-2cUDAqyqcnksx7YDtgu2y72xDxcRjPeYfo"?
    Figure 6. Warren Buffett. Source. Off-chain reference image for the ASCII art.
  • Figure 7. ASCII art of Mr. Spock. tx 467c075ee6edaa60f184d0683655f1f6d267efd98061872f167ef7ca9ca7c50f (2015-08-09). The eyebrows are a bit wrong, and he is a bit too young for the original series. Minor manual fixes were applied by Ciro Santilli, it is unknown why this was needed.
  • tx beeead7429cdb78f3bfe8a17d8e485a3a847b3e99a511a025bb49e2948af5058, block 378735 (2015-10-13) contains a happy birthday message:
    To my dear friend Mariano, por muchos anos más de diversión!
    the Spanish part translates to:
    Here's to many more years of fun
    It does not show well in our ASCII jumps because the non ASCII characters are UTF-8-encoded. Europeans... This is followed by the ASCII art with Marian's nerdy face in it:
     _______  _______ ____      ___   _______    _______  __   __  __   __  _______  ___      _______
    |       ||       ||   |    |   | |       |  |       ||  | |  ||  |_|  ||       ||   |    |       |
    |    ___||    ___||   |    |   | |____   |  |       ||  | |  ||       ||    _  ||   |    |    ___|
    |   |___ |   |___ |   |    |   |  ____|  |  |       ||  |_|  ||       ||   |_| ||   |    |   |___
    |    ___||    ___||   |___ |   | | ______|  |      _||       ||       ||    ___||   |___ |    ___|
    |   |    |   |___ |       ||   | | |_____   |     |_ |       || ||_|| ||   |    |       ||   |___
    |___|    |_______||_______||___| |_______|  |_______||_______||_|   |_||___|    |_______||_______|          
    
                                              ``````
                                      ``..---------------...``
                                    `.--------------------------.`
                                  .-------------------------------.`
                                 .----------------------------------`
                                `------------------------------------`
                                .------------------------------------.
                                ------------:+yo------+yo:-----------.
                                ---------/shhs+:------:+shhs+--------.
                              ``--------so$/:--------------:/os--------``
                            `.-------------/oso:------:ooo/--------------`
                            .------------:ho:-:ohsssshs:--+h:------------.
                            .------------so-----y+--/h-----+y------------.
                            .-----------:-:h+--:oh----ys:--+h/-----------.
                            .-------------/ooo/------:ooo+--------------.`
                              `..------------------------------------..`
                                .----------------------------------.
                                `-----------.```....```.-----------`
                                 .------------.``````.------------`
                                  `-----------------------------.`
                                    `.-----------------------..`
                                       ``....----------....``
    
               __   __  _______  ______    ___   _______  __    _  __   __   __
              |  |_|  ||   _   ||    _ |  |   | |   _   ||  |  | ||  | |  | |  |
              |       ||  |_|  ||   | ||  |   | |  |_|  ||   |_| ||  | |  | |  |
              |       ||       ||   |_||_ |   | |       ||       ||  | |  | |  |
              |       ||       ||    __  ||   | |       ||  _    ||__| |__| |__|
              | ||_|| ||   _   ||   |  | ||   | |   _   || | |   | __   __   __
              |_|   |_||__| |__||___|  |_||___| |__| |__||_|  |__||__| |__| |__|
    which reads:
    Feliz cumple, Marian
    which means:
    Happy Birthday, Marian
    The message is encoded with OP_RETURN payloads across multiple transactions, 40 bytes per transaction. They actually managed to upload two almost fully consecutive transaction blocks and in the correct order. Could they be miners?
    Some of the payloads contain newlines, you are just supposed to paste all payloads together to form the image. Our reconstruction here is manual however, lazy to script it properly.
  • tx f6039915b829377849be87fc242303873e6574528db7916dd81ff44141b3560f (2016-04-27) via cryptograffiti.info contains some candles followed by poem that starts with:
    vaardig regulerend de orde van de dag
    Is in Dutch of course, literally:
    skillfully regulating the order of the day
    Given the date and language, it appears to be a reference to Koningsdag, Dutch national holiday that celebrated the birthday of their King at the time, King Willem-Alexander. Born in 1956, he would have been turning 60 at the time, so a nice round number in 2016 when these birthday candles were inscribed.
                      )                    `
                    /(l                   /)
                    (  \                  / (
                    ) * )                ( , )
                    \#/                  \#'
                  .-"#'-.             .-"#"=,
                (  |"-.='|            '|"-,-"|
                )\ |     |  ,        /(|     | /(         ,
      (       /  )|     | (\       (  \     | ) )       ((
      )\     (   (|     | ) )      ) , )    |/ (        ) \
      /  )     ) . )     |/  (     ( # (     ( , )      /   )
    ( * (      \#/|     (`# )      `#/|     |`#/      (  '(
      \#/     .-"#'-.   .-"#'-,   .-"#'-.   .-=#"-;     `#/
    .-"#'-.   |"=,-"|   |"-.-"|)  1"-.-"|   |"-.-"|   ,-"#"-.
    |"-.-"|   |  !  |   |     |   |     |   |     !   |"-.-"|
    |     |   |     |._,|     |   |     |._,|     a   |     |
    |     |   |     |   |     |   |     |   |     p   |     |
    |     |   |     |   |     |   |     |   |     x   |     |
    '-._,-'   '-._,-'   '-._,-'   '-._,-'   '-._,-"   '-._,-'
    The poem also appears at: 2422215c9a6040c0e337bf1c1e9b2b32244a1e36f3dd3e79fb77592c90bbb5a8.
  • tx a55e7587bb34a56ae1113b0848506ea2fcf0c0e1af8c241e76677eb2bcb727eb (2016-04-27) via cryptograffiti.info
    /y            _,     _   _    ,_
              o888P     Y8o8Y     Y888o.
            d88888      88888      88888b
          ,8888888b_  _d88888b_  _d8888888,
          888888888888888888888888888888888
          888888888888888888888888888888888
            Y8888P"Y888P"Y888P-Y888P"Y88888'
            Y888   '8'   Y8P   '8'   888Y
              '8o          V          o8'
                `                   `
    The image is also reproduced a bit later at tx 959a19729ca02b1e06e600a331d7f4603669a7eaaa20b5cfb9f3528e3005a8f2, block 410357 www.blockchain.com/explorer/blocks/btc/410357 (2016-05-05). This second one includes the lyrics:
    Denk niet wit, denk niet zwart.
    Denk niet zwart-wit
    Maar alleen aan de kleur van je hart.
    translation;
    Don't think white, don't think black.
    Don't think black and white
    But only by the color of your heart.
    of the 1984 song "Zwart Wit" (Black and white) by Dutch artist Frank Boeijen, sample performance by the artist:
    Video 1. Zwart Wit by Frank Boeijen. Source.
  • tx 15fb36eb159d2bbc78a4a4dffc29d166e662a020f42211c176648015102cbf77, block 410366 (2016-05-05) via cryptograffiti.info has a cute "ASCII art poem" if you will:
      ####################
      Transhumanism and###
      singularity are lies
      and tricks. Don't###
      let them brainwash U
      and become enslaved#
      to Mr. Computer#####
      It's not intelligent
      ####################
      The Angels Trumpet##
      lures to takes away#
      your free will######
      You loose emotions,#
      CREATIVITY, sanity##
      and true INNOVATION#
      You have been warned
      ####################
      Humans are not tools
      to abuse and discard
      They have never been
      and they'll never be
      ####################
      Love & cherish life#
      Don't give up ur <3!
      ####################
      Pray for the Victims
      Send them love######
      Heal Mr.Computer too
      ####################
      
    57bc317de1d9a1724b751a008951f76c79c0b787d47cb7561598cc62994237ab has a related one.
  • tx e10c958e199daf71ab31342d40e188380fe84f07abee6a11d02c274d5431902a (2016-05-26) via cryptograffiti.info ASCII typeface spelling "CrimsonHexagon"
    _________        .__                              ___ ___
    \_   ___ \_______|__| _____   __________   ____  /   |   \   ____ ___  ________     ____   ____   ____
    /    \  \/\_  __ \  |/     \ /  ___/  _ \ /    \/    ~    \_/ __ \\  \/  /\__  \   / ___\ /  _ \ /    \
    \     \____|  | \/  |  Y Y  \\___ (  <_> )   |  \    Y    /\  ___/ >    <  / __ \_/ /_/  >  <_> )   |  \
     \______  /|__|  |__|__|_|  /____  >____/|___|  /\___|_  /  \___  >__/\_ \(____  /\___  / \____/|___|  /
            \/                \/     \/           \/       \/       \/      \/     \//_____/             \/
                                       http://smarturl.it/spacetransient
    The URL redirect is dead as of January 2024. Possible meaning: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Hexagon
  • Figure 8. I Love You Forever. tx ddc39a3da0ee6f0651bdf0be7119b4db2612b19416e9128091b1f29cdfe2aa0d (2016-06-20) via cryptograffiti.info. Busts of a man and a woman looking forward.
  • ...........................................................  .......................................
    ........................................................?$OOZZOZ:. .................................
    ......................................................?8I~,....,,=,.................................
    .... .................................................8~~~:::,,,,,~=................................
    ~~::,.................................................==~~~:,,,,:,:I=...............................
    ::~~~::,,............................................:=====$8D+:~:~$7+ .............................
    ,,,:::~~~::,... .....................................:IDD8DI$Z7$?=?$7+..............................
    ,,,,,,,,::~~::,,....................................8?$Z$N:++?+=~~~~?~..............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,::~~::,,.. .............................. =+D=,:=7+~:::=~=~.............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,.,,,:::::,,...............................+?7OIO8ZZ?~~+7+~,.............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,.,,.,..,,:::::,,.. ........................?$NDD$ZODD=+?II,..............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.,,....,,,::::,,... ..................,+8N$I$IZZOI$7I+O..............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.,,........,,,::::,,....................$8DD8O7?78OZ$I+,..............................
    ,,,,,,,,,,,.,.,..............,,::::,,................ .D88ZZOZOOO$I+~+..............................
    ,,,,,.,,,,,.,..............................,............888D8O8Z?+==~:.............................:
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,.,.............................,..............?$OI?+++=+....$+.....................:::::
    ...........,,,.................... .......................??+??++??..,.D8O$Z?..............,::::::::
    ...........,,,...........................................IM7I??II+..,.ND8D88ZZ$Z$7......::::::::::::
    ,,,,........................... ......................?7,D77$77I?7O,.DDND8888888.....:::::::::::::~:
    ,,,,,... ...................... ..................~ZOZ8.DN7?++Z?+IM=NNNDD88NDDN..,.....:::::,:~~:,,,
    ,,,,,,,..........................................O88NDDDNN+~=~==+NMMNNDDDNNNDD=,........,:~~,,,,,,,,
    ,,,,,,,.........................................$DDDDNNNNNI~~7~=MNNNNDNNNNNDD8,..,,......,,,,,,,,,,,
    ,,,,,:,... .. ..................................8DNNDDNNNNN::,?NNMNNNNNDDNNND7.:..,,......,,,,,,,,,,
    ,,::::,... .....................................DDDNNNDNNNN7,DNNNNNNNNNNNNDDD=,~,,,,,.......,,.,,,,,
    ::::::,........................................,DNNNNNNNNNNNDMNNNNNNNNNNNNNND,,,.,,,,.......,,,,,,,,
    ::::::,........................ ......... .....,NNNNNNNNMNNDMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNMN,,,,,,,,,.....,,,,,,,,,
    ::::::,.....,..................................+NNNNNNMMMMDNMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNMMN~=,,,,,,.,.....,,,,,,,
    ,,,,,,,,..................... ................:~NNNNNNNDNMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNMMMD?,,,,,,,.......,,,,,,
    .....,,,....,................ ................::NDDNNNNNNMNNNMNNNNNNNNNNMMMMMMMM::,::,,.....,,,,,,,,
    .....,,,.....................................,::~NNNNNNMMNNNMNMNMNMMMMMNNMNNNNMM~:::::,,,....,,,,,,,
    ~~~~~~=:..................................,::,:::=NNNNMMMDNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNMM?~:::::,,,....,,,,,,
    ?+????I~..............................,:::::::~~~~DNNMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM~~:::,,,,...,,,,,,,
    ???????:...........................,::::::::::~~~~?DMMMMMN8MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM~=:~:~,,,....,,,,,,
    +++++++:...,.,,..,,,,..,,,......:::::::::::,:~~~~=~OMMNNMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMMMZ==~~:::,....,,,,,,
    +++++++:.,..................,:::::::::::,~~:,~~=~+~7MMNMMNNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMM?++~~~::,...,,,,,,
    ++++++=:.................,::::::::::,:~~:,,,.~~=~+=DMNNMNMNMMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMO+=:=~~~:,..,,,,,,
    +===+==:.... .........:::::::::::,:=~:,,,,...:===+=DNNNMDMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNMMMMMM7=+?=:~,::,,,,,,,
    ====+==:,:,,,,,,,,,:::~::::::::~=::,,,,,.....~~++???NNNNDMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMMMMMI?=:~~~:.,.,,,,,
    ====+===~::::::~::::::::::::~=::,,,,.........:~??77$NMNMNDNMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMMNNNMMMMM$$I+,~:::::,,,,,
    =======~~::::~~~~:::::::~=~:,,,,,,,..........:~=++7ZNNNMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNNMMMMMNNI~=,:,.....,,,,
    =======~::~~~~~~~~:::~=~:,,,,,,,...,.........=+~+?ZONNNMNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMD~~,,:,,:,:,,,,,
    =====~~~~~~~~~~~~~==~:,,,,,,,,,,,...........,:~=+IZONNNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMMMMMD~:~~::,..,,,,,,
    Dr. Bill Maurer
    Economic anthropologist
    Code 3. ASCII art of Dr. Bill Maurer.
    tx 06d2528cfabf360c7a8f925d84207d47612cd0ac1ad2efd8aea9758263d9738b (2016-07-13) via cryptograffiti.info entitled:
    Dr. Bill Maurer
    Economic anthropologist
    . His university home page faculty.sites.uci.edu/wmmaurer/ describes himself as:
    Professor Maurer is a cultural anthropologist and sociolegal scholar. His work explores the technological infrastructures and social relations of exchange and payment.
    His Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maurer.
    Figure 9. Photograph of Dr. Bill Maurer. Source. OFf-chain reference image for the ASCII art taken from his university home page: web.archive.org/web/20231109222608/https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/wmmaurer/
  • tx e35a9a198b77ece71272b66f94f9329184c6e4ee48e9e768e54ee8caf5d471fb, block 425758 (2016-08-18) via cryptograffiti.info has a dark one:
    killyour
    children
    setthemz
    free.il+
    6(\___/)
    6( O_O )
    6 `---`%
    evlbunny
    here)to@
    rule^you
    which reads:
    Kill your children, set them free. 666. Evil bunny here to rule you.
  • github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/out/0437.txt#L1937 tx eede99ab9b50aa5871fcb4b1d0d1a22ac2fa94b08172b1fa677f0b200e96f84a blk 437669 (2016-11-06):
        __  / __
       / * `'   \
       \        /
         ._,.__,
    APPLE BAKE '16
  • ____________________________________________________
    |                         AA                         |
    |                       AAAAAA                       |
    |                      AAAAAAAA                      |
    |                    AAAAAAAAAAAA                    |
    |                  AAAAAA    AAAAAA                  |
    |                 AAAAAA      AAAAAA                 |
    |                AAAAAA        AAAAAA                |
    |               AAAAAA          AAAAAA               |
    |              AAAAAA            AAAAAA              |
    |             AAAAAA              AAAAAA             |
    |            AAAAAAA              AAAAAAA            |
    |           AAAAAAA                AAAAAAA           |
    |          AAAAAAAA                AAAAAAAA          |
    |          AAAAAAAA                AAAAAAAA          |
    |         AAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAA         |
    |         AAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAA         |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |        AAAAAAAAA                  AAAAAAAAA        |
    |____________________________________________________|
    Code 4. Study Math and Computer Science at Augustana College.
    Contains ASCII art of a large letter A. Has some custom encoding we didn't have the time to investigate which makes it deformed in our dumps, so we fixed it manually. The associated message reads:
    !Study Math and Computer Science at Augustana College!
    and so we understand that the ASCII art is formatted to look like the font of the logo of that university from Illinois.
    Figure 10. "Augie A". Source. Off-chain reference image for the inscribed Code 4. "Study Math and Computer Science at Augustana College" typeface logo taken from the Augustana College website.
    Data Insertion in Bitcoin's Blockchain by Andrew Sward, Vecna OP_0 and Forrest Stonedahl is a paper published by some people of the university, presumably the culprits. This was brought to our attention via: twitter.com/ottosch_/status/1735297943563837726.
  • tx fd739c26276ea81fea8210939d527fccd7c9622f93aa17d18ee0bd5321387fde, block 517406 (2018-04-09) contains the first line of an ad from American stockbroker company TD Ameritrade. It is encoded one line per transaction with OP_RETURN, but the ordering is completely scrambled. A link is given: TDAmeritrade.com/Blockchain but it is 404 as of January 2024 of course, companies can't keep their pages up for more than 3 seconds, but there is an archive which decodes the indented picture for us, including the corresponding tx hashes for each line web.archive.org/web/20180902001329/https://www.tdameritrade.com/landing-pages/offer/blockchain/index.html?cid=TVTDACDDRTVJ64, here is a copy from the website because we were lazy to double check each line:
    .............See the full picture at TDAmeritrade.com/Blockchain................
    ................................................................................
    ................................................................................
    ................................................................................
    .......................................................................^V^......
    ........XXX......................................................^V^............
    .......XXXXX....................................................................
    ........XXX=====================................................................
    ........| | ....................\\..............................................
    ........| | .......................\\=========================..................
    ........| | ..................................................\\................
    ........| | ...................................................\\==========.....
    ........| | ...............................................................\\...
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| |.................................................................||..
    ........| | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ................................................||..
    ........| | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ................................................||..
    ........| | X| .........\XX ....@ ..................* ..@ ..........@ ......||..
    ........| | XXX| @ XXX\  XX    @ @   @/@@@  @@  @/@ @ @@@ @/@  @@ @@@ .@@ ..||..
    ........| | XXX| @ XXXX| XX   @@@@@  @ @ @ @ /  @   @  @  @   @ @ @ @ @ / ..||..
    ........| | XXX| @ XXX/  XX  @@   @@ @ @ @  @@@ @   @  @, @    @@ @@@  @@@  ||..
    ........| | XXX| @      /XX ................................................||..
    ........| | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ................................................||..
    ........| | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| | ................................................................||..
    ........| |===================== ...........................................||..
    ........| |.....................\\========== ...............................||..
    ........| |.................................\\==============================//..
    ........| |.....................................................................
    ........| |.....................................((((()))).......................
    ........| |...................................((((((())))).(((()))).............
    ........___..................................(((((((())))))(((()))))............
    ......./___)................................((((((((()))))((((()))))))..........
    ....../ | |..................................(((((((((((()))))))))))))..........
    _____ ..| ( )...................................................................
    ........| ( )...................................................................
            | ( )..............(().(()..............................................
    _____\__| ( )............((((())))))............................................
    ........| |.............((((((()))))))..........................................
    ........| |.....................................................................
    ........| |.....................................................................
    ....MMMM| |MMMMM................................................................
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMM..............................................................
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMM...................................$.....................
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM............................$$$$$$$..................
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....................$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.............
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM............$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$..........
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM......$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$....
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$$$$
    MMMMMMMM| |MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM$$$$$$$
    \\\\\\\\| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
    \\\\\\\\| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
    \\\\\\\\\ /\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
    \\\\\ TD Ameritrade, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. copyright 2018 TD Ameritrade \\\\\
    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
  • tx eda919b0a61b91c1fb030e6af314dfe5aaa6198416bfdaf8599d7f1a80c5d614, block 526446 (2018-06-07) starts an ASCII art spread across several transactions on different lines. Lines are completely scrambled, so either there is an index somewhere, or it was meant as a puzzle. This is the best we've managed to unscramble so far:
    ................................................................................
    ..............................@(..@@@@@@%@@,.@@@@@@@............................
    ........................@@@@..@@@@@(..@@@@@@@(.@@@@@@..@@@@@@@.@@@@..@..........
    ......................@.@@@@..,..........@@@@@@...@@@#..@@@@@@@..@@@.@@@........
    ....................@@@.@@@@..@....../......@@@@&..@@@..@@@@@@@@.@@@@.@@@.......
    ...................@@@..@@@...@..&@..@@........@@@%@@@..@@@@@@@@..@@@@@@@@......
    ...................@@..@@@..../&.@@@@@@@........@@@@@@..@@@@@@@..,@@@@@@@.......
    ..................@@..@@@@....@..@.@@.@@@.......@@@@@@.@@@@@@@...@@@@@@@........
    ..................@@..@@@@...@........@@@@......@@@@@@@@@@@@@..@@@@@@@@.........
    ...................@@@#.@@@@.,...................@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@...........
    ....................@@@@.@@@@.@@............@.@@@&.....@@@@@@@@@@@@@............
    .....................@@@..@@@@.@@@........@.@@@.@@@@@@@@@,..@@@@@@@@............
    .....................@@@@...@@..@@@......@@@.@@@@@..@@@@@@@@..@@@@@.............
    .....................#@@@@@..@@..@@@@@@@@@@@.@@@@@@@..@@@@@@@.(@@@..............
    ......................@@@@@@@@@...@@@@@@@@..@@@@@@@@@..@@@@@..@@@...............
    ........................@@@@@@@@@........@@@@@@@@@@@..@@@@..@@..................
    ...........................@......%@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@....................
    ...............................@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@........................
    ..............................@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@......@@@........................
    ..............................@@@@.....@@@@@@...................................
    .............................@......@@@@@@................#@@@@@@@@@@@..........
    ..................................@@@@@@...............@@@@@@@..................
    ................................@@@@@................@@@@@@@....................
    .............................@@@@@.................@@@@@@@......................
    ...........................@@@@@.................@@@@@@@........................
    ........................*@@@@..............,@@@@@@@@@@@.........................
    ......................@@@@..........@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@............................
    .........@@@@.....@@@@@........*@@@@@@@@@@@@(...................................
    ........@@@@@@@@@@@.........@@@@@@@@/...........................................
    ......@..@@@....@@@.......@@@@@@................................................
    .....@@@@@.@@#..........@@@@@...................................................
    ......@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@......................................................
    ...................................................................===========/.
    .........................................................==========..........//.
    ................................................=========..................../..
    .........................................=======...........//XX...XXXXXXX...//..
    ...................................======.........XX..XXXXXXXXX.XXX........./...
    .........................=========........XXX....XXX..XXXX.......XXXXXXXXX..\...
    ...............==========............XXX.XXXXX...XXX..XXXXXXXXX....XXXXXXX..\\..
    \=============/..............XXXX....XXX.XXXXXX..XXX..XXX.......XXXX..XXXX...\\.
    \\..................XXXX.....XXXXXX..XXX.XXX.XXXXXXX..XXX../XXX..XXXXXXX.....\\.
    .\......XXXXXX......XXXXX....XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX...XXXXX..XXXXXXX................//.
    .\\...XXX...XXX....XXXXXXX...XXX..XXXXXX.XXX....\XXX....====================/...
    .\\..XXX..........XXX..XXX...XXX....XXXX.XX=....=======/........................
    ../..XXX..........XXXXXXXXX..XXX............===/..######...###...###..####......
    .//..XXX....XXX..XXX.....XXX.X......======//......#...##.###.###..##.##..##.....
    .//...XXXXXXXX..XXX.........======//................###..##...##..##..####......
    ./.................=======//......................###....###.###..##.##..##.....
    /================//..........T.I.T.A.N.I.U.M......######...###....##..####......
    ................................................................................
    ..................Duncan.Marshall-Founding.Partner-Droga5-USA...................
    ..................Gail.Heimann-President-Weber.Shandwick-USA....................
    ..............Susan.Bonds-Co-Founder.&.CEO-42.Entertainment-GLOBAL..............
    .............James.McGrath-Creative.Chairman-Clemenger.BBDO-AUSTRALIA...........
    ............Fred.Raillard-Founder,.Chief.Creative.Officer-FF-GLOBAL.............
    ...........Eugene.Cheong-Chief.Creative.Officer-Ogilvy.&.Mather-APAC............
    ..........Colleen.DeCourcy-Chief.Creative.Officer-Wieden+Kennedy-GLOBAL.........
    .......Caitlin.Ryan-Regional.Creative.Director-Facebook.and.Instagram-EMEA......
    .......PJ.Pereira-Creative.Chairman.&.Co-Founder-Pereira.O'Dell-GLOBAL..........
    .Jason.Xenopolous-Global.Chief.Vision.Officer.&.Chief.Creative.Officer-VML-EMEA.
    At firs we thought it was some kind of tribute to the Cannes Film Festival, but given the string "Titanium" and the fact that all people mentioned on another section of the art work for advertisement companies, we understand that it is instead almost certainly about the "Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity", previously "International Advertising Festival", which has a "titanium" prize category, e.g. as mentioned at: www.thedrum.com/news/2018/06/22/cannes-lions-winners-titanium-glass-grand-prix-good-and-more:
    The highly coveted Titanium Lions - created to honor marketing work that doesn't fit neatly into traditional categories
    The part with the at signs '@' which we believe represents the lion is the hardest one and we've perhaps gotten some lines wrong, corrections are welcome.
  •                     `...:.
                      `''''';';
                      '+'''+''''
                      `'''++++''''
                      ;'++++';;'++,
                      '+++++';;;''+,
                      '+++++;;;;;++;
                      '++++'';;;;;+':
    ::::::,,,,,,,,...`+'''';;;'';;;;;` `````````````
    ::::::::::::::::::';'''';+++';;';:::::::::::::,,,,
    :::::::::::::::::::''';;''+'';;';:::::::::::::::::
    :::::::::::::::::::;''++'''';;;'':::::::::::::::::
    :::::::::::::::::::;+++++';'''''+;::::::::::::;:::
    :::::::::::::::::::::;'+'''''++'';#';:::::::::::::
    ::::::::::::::::::'+++''''''+''++'+'+;::::::::::::
    :::::;:::::::::::'+++++''++++''++'#++'':::::::::::
    ;;;;::::::::::::'+###++#'+++'++++'#+#++'';::::::::
    ;::;;;;;:::::::'++++++++#+++++++++#+++++++';::::::
    ;;;::::;;;:;;;;++++'''''+####+++++##;++++++';:;:::
    :::;;;;;;;::::+##';''''''###+##++##+;++++++++':;::
    :::;;;;::::::;+#+';''''''###++###+#+;###+++++'':::
    :::::::::::::#+#'''';''''+###+++####;##++++++++':;
    ;;;;;;:::::;:++++''++'''+####+++++##;#+#++++++++':
    ;;;;:;:::::::#++'#++++##++#++++++++#'###+++####++;
    ::::::;;;;;;;+++''''++'+++@+++++++'####+#++#+++++;
    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;+#';'''''+'+##'+++++'+#####+++++#++;
    ;;;;;;::;:::;:'++'''+''+++##++'+''+#########+++++:
    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;''++'++'''++##+'+##++#+##+#+++##++++;
    ;;;;;;;;;;;'''''#++''''++##+###'#######+####++++;;
    ;;;;;;;;;;;;''''+#++'+++###'#+;'##+####+++#+++++;;
    ;;;;;;::;;'''''+'+##++++###'#';###+##+####++++++;;
    ;;;;;;'++'''''++++#++++####'+;+##+###++####++++;;;
    ;;;;:+++''''++++++#####@###'+;######+#++###++++;;;
    ;;;';;#+'''+++++++########+'++######+++++++++++;;;
    ;;;::;'+'+++++++++########''++##+##+++++###++++;;;
    ;;:+;''+++++++++++#+#####+''#+#+###+++#####+++';;;
    ;'';;+''+++++++++++######'''+######+++++###+++;;;;
    ;';;'''+#+++++++++######+'';#++############++#:;;;
    ;'';''+'++##++++++++####+'''###@########++#++#;;;;
    ;''''''+@++++#++++++####''+'##############++#;;;;;
    ;''''''''++++++++++++###''+'##############+##;;;;;
    ;'''''''''++++++++++++##+'''##############+#+;;;;;
    ;;;;''''''+###+++####+######################;:;;;;
    ;;;;+''''''+##############+#################;:;;;;
    Code 5. 90b663f380ed043a0c35aaeed5405b260545df991fed4bfff3d1386ecb256ce1. 2017-05-27 via cryptograffiti.info. A low resolution man and a woman hugging looking forward, signed "B&E April 9". The image /s repeated at: tx 47fafaa96c24d3f204658fb4bec34ab6f18df138084e04535ea60cce8c4e4857 without signature.
  • tx 79947c26f8abc8d5c2a9b5442005a5426f35f436119b3092f59e6fe3fad80df1, block 530614 (2018-07-05) has this lolcat:
    lolcat test |\---/|
                | o_o |
                \_^_/0
  • tx f8102999c0aaf7681deec383eb8e7946f093e94a116a21e367e9ed6b7c32d1fb (2018-08-23) contains the logo of the GrrCon, an annual cybersecurity conference with message:
    Your free GrrCon ticket
    The actual code appears to be:
    OPRETURNISMYFRIEND
    a reference to OP_RETURN. It is sealthly encoded diagonally across the skull's eyes. Ciro Santilli only saw this after grepping:
    grep @ data/out/0538.txt
    which made all non @ signs stand out due to the terminal's syntax highligh. This image was uploaded one line per transaction with a few interruptions that we removed manually, and there were was a previous partial attempt a bit before: at tx f8102999c0aaf7681deec383eb8e7946f093e94a116a21e367e9ed6b7c32d1fb so either a failure, or maybe it was intentional to obfuscate things a bit.
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@YOUR@FREE@GRRCON@TICKET@CODE@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@,          *@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@%                          @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@                                   .@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@          *@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@,           @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@         @@@@(                   %@@@@          @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@       @@@@                             @@@&        @@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@       @@@        @@@@@@@@@@@@@,@.           @@@        @@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@      %@@       .&@@@@@@&%@@@@@&&&@@@@@#          @@/      /@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@      @@       @@@&@@O@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@(@@@@&         @@       @@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@     @@.      .@@@,%&@@P@@@@@(,*&*@@@@@@@@#(#.@        (@@      @@@@@@@
    @@@@@@*     @@       @@(@%@@@@@&R@@@@&@@@@@@@&@@@@@@/ @@@        @@      @@@@@@
    @@@@@#     @@       @@@@@@@@,,@%@E@%@@@@@@@@@@@%@@@@@.@@@@        @@      @@@@@
    @@@@@     @@        @.@@@@@,@@@(@,T@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@        @@      @@@@
    @@@@     @@        @&@@@@@@/@#@(@&@U@@@@@@@@(@@@@@@., #@@@@@        @@      @@@
    @@@*    @@         @@@@&@@&@    #@@@R@.@@@@@.@@@@@@@%@@(@@@@@        @@     @@@
    @@@     @@         /@@*@@        @@@/N/@,@@@@@@@@@    @@@@@@,        @@      @@
    @@@    @@          @@@@@          @@.@I@@,@@@@@@@@    @@@@&@@         @@     @@
    @@/    @@           @@@,           (#@/S@@@@@@.,@     **@@&,@         @@     @@
    @@     @@           %((           @#@@@@M@@@@@&@    #./%&@@*          @@     %@
    @@     @@           #&&@          @@@@&@@Y@@@@@     &@,@@@.(          @@     %@
    @@,    @@           @@@@@@        *(@@%@@@F&@.      @@&%@@            @@     @@
    @@@    @@           @#@%@/@         @@@*@@@R(      @@@&@              @@     @@
    @@@     @@         @@@@@@@@@%@@@%%@@@@@@@%%/I@  @@@@, @              @@      @@
    @@@.    @@         @@@@@@@*@&@@@@# @(@@@@@@@@E@@@@@@@&               @@     @@@
    @@@@     @@         @@@@&@@(@@@@@@.@# @@@ @@@@N@@@@,@(              @@      @@@
    @@@@@     @@            @@@*@@&@@*(@  @@@&@@&@@D@@@@&              @@      @@@@
    @@@@@.     @@                  @/@,@@@@@@@@@@@@@@%                @@      @@@@@
    @@@@@@      @@                 @@@@@@@@@@@@@,@@@@                @@      %@@@@@
    @@@@@@@,     @@/             @&@@(@@@@ @@@@@@@@@               &@@      @@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@      @@          #%@(,&,@@@@ @(&  @/,@              @@       @@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@      /@@        @@&@@@@@,*  @@&  @@@@@@         .@@.       @@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@       @@@        @(@@@@@@ @@@  .@(@@,       @@@        @@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@       &@@@                             @@@#        @@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@         @@@@@                   @@@@@          @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@#          .@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@            @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@         @  ,        .  @           @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@     @ @   @#   @  *, @     @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@&              @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    without @s to better highlight the code:
                            YOUR FREE GRRCON TICKET CODE
                                      ,          *
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      lOOXXNNXKKKKK0OkxdkOKOox00KXXNNXXKOdl',dKKKKKKK0kxxOXXNXX0OxlcllodkOkxc';;:
      cKO0XNNX0kddolccc::cldxxdOKXXXNNNNXOkxoNNNNNNNNNXK0Oxxkkxoc:;,,'...':x0Oc,,;
    .'0KKKXKOdlcc:::::::;;::cccclloxOKXNNNOxKWWWWNNNNKOxdoocc:::;;;,,'...  .ckOl';
    .dKXK0Kklcccc::::::::::;;;;;;,,,:ld0XNXXXWWWNNNKxolcc::::::;;;,,'...     ;xOc
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    ,KXKKOdcc:::::;;;;::::;;;,''...',;:cxKNXWWWNXOxdoollcc:::::::::::clxkkdlc;..o,
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    ;d0kdOO0000KKKKK0OkxoooxkkkkkxxdddlloxkXWWWWN0kdxk0K000KKKK0Oxl::;;clc:;,,...
    .k0OOxO0KKKXNNXXXK0xlccxKXXKKK00OOOOOxkNWWWWWX000OO0KXXOkOOxkddl:....;;;,'....
    ddklxodxkkO0000000KkoloO0KKKXXXKK00OkO0XWWWWWXK000KK00Okxxxdxxxoc,..'lolc::;,.
    xodlodllllodddddxOkl:,,dOxkkkkkxxddddO0NN0KWWWXK0OOkkxddoooodkkxl:;...:ddolc:;
    dllollooooooooodxocc:''cddllllllllloxxONNlcNWWNK0xdddoolllloxOxkxolc;:lccodxdl
    O0ddooolllllloooolc::,';cddolllloodddxKXNdk0NNNX0kxddoolllooxOO0KK0kooc:::ldxo
    NNNdddlllllllodolllccc::cldollllllodxO0K0dxxk0XNX0OkxxddooodxxkOOOkxolcccooooo
    NNNxxxdooooodddk0K0kxkkOOxddoloooodxk00OxdxxxxxOXX00OkkxxdddxdxxxxkkkOkxoc::cc
    NXKkxxkxdddddoodxkO0KKOkkdoodddoodxkOkkxxxxxxxxxxOK0000Okkxxxk00KK0Okxxxoc:;;,
    XKXKxxkkxxxddddddxxkOOxddoooododdxkOOdxddddddoooddddk0K00OkxxkkkkOOOkkxdlc;,'.
    KXXW0OkOkk000OOOOOOOkkOkxxxOkkxxxkkOdoooooolooolooodxk0K000OOkkkxxxxdollc:;,,'
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    KXXWWWNK0KOOkxxxkOOOOOkxddoodxOO0OdddddddoddoddoddodxodXNNNXKK000OOkxxdddxxkKX
    KXWWWWWWNKKOkkxxxxxxxxxxdddxxOO0XXdlloodolooddodldooxox0XNNWNNNNXXXXKKKKXXXXXK
    XWWWWWWWWWXKOkxdoooooooooodxO0XWWWOloodolddddololllloOXWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNWWXXXXKK
    WWWWWWWWWWWWX0Okkxxxxddddxk0KXWWWWXdcooocllllll::ccoXWWWWNNNNNWWWWNNNNNNXXKKKK
    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWXKKK000OOO0KXNWWWWWWNOlllollocl:lllkXNWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNXXXKKKKKK
    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNWWWNXloccxdxkoldOXNWWWWWWWWNNNWNNNNNNNNXXXXXXXX
  • kkkkkkkkkkkkkOOOO0000OOOkdc:,''...  ............';oooodxdx0K0OKKXXXXKKNNNWWWNW
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    0kkkkOOOK000000KKKKKKOl;,'...,'..  '.     ..........,ckKdx000000KKKKXNNWWNNWWW
    OOOOOOOOXNXXXXX0kkOxd:,'........  .,.      ...........cddk000000KXXNWWWWWWWWWW
    XXKXXXXXKKKKKKKKKXKx;'....   .... .:.   ............. .;oOXNNNNWWWWWMWWMMMWMMM
    OOOOOOOOOOOOOO0OOOx;.. .      ....':..  ......  ...  . .,OXXXXXXXXXWWWNWWWWWWW
    xxxxxkkkkkkkkOOkkx:..       .';:c:,;;...'...      ..    .:k0000000XNNNNWWWWWWW
    xxxxxkkkkkOkkkO0Kd..      .,:odxxkkxkOxoc,.              .o00000KXNNNNNWWNWWWW
    xkxkkkkOOOOO00KOkc.      'clldxxxkkOO000Okxl:'.           ,kO000KNNNNNWWWNWWWW
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    kkkkOO0KKK00OOOOk'.     .,:cldxxxkkkOOOOOOkxdlc:,..        o00OO00KXXXXXNNNWNN
    00KKXXXKKKKKKKKKO;      .;cc,'.'cldxxkxdoc,',cll:,;.     .'OKKKXXXXNWWWWWWWMMM
    NNNNNNWWWWWWWWWWNk    . ':c:cl;cdoclxkdlooo;ccclcc;.    ..x00KKKKXXXKKKKKXXKXX
    kkkkkkkkxxkkkddooo:. .. 'clllooodolcdxoodddddooolc;.   ...O00000000000OO000OOO
    xxxxxxxxddkkkxdolll:'.  .clooddxxolldxoodxkxxxdool;.  ..'.xxkkkkkkkOOOOOOOOOOO
    oooooodddodddol:;;;:..   ,loddxxxllldxlloxxkkxddoc;.   ..lXXNNNNNWWWWWWWWWWWWW
    oooooddddddxxxxdddxd..    ;lodxddccokxlolxddxxdoc:.    ..lONWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
    00000KKKKXXXXXXXXXXXl; .  .;colloollododdddllolc:,     .....:kNWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
    XXNNNNNNNNWWWWWWNNNXx,.    .;collcclodolllooolcc,      ...    .:xOOkkkkkxxxddd
    NNNNNNNXXXXKKKKKOkx'..  .   .':lolccccclodddol:'                .:lccccccccc::
    ooooooodddddddoc;'...   ....  .;loooddddxddlc;.           ..,:loool:::c:::::::
    lllllllllloll:,,'....... .      .:odddxdol;'.        ...'coooooooooo::::::::::
    ccccccccclcc;'''''..              .',;;'.                .';coolollod::::::;;;
    :::ccc::;;,.....                                              .',:cllo:::;;;;;
    :::,'.'...                                                         ..,c:;;;;;;
    ;......                                                               ..';;;;;
    ccc.                                                                     .,,,,
    cc.                                                                       .',,
    .,                                                                         .,,
    _______________________________________
    |         An immutable poem             |
    |    Unchanging over time, forever      |
    |   Written in transactions flowing     |
    |                                       |
    |     Unbroken blocks for a Rose        |
    |     That I found in September         |
    |   Freedom gives this simple prose     |
    |     For all our time together         |
    |                                       |
    |      Thank you for being you          |O
    |    Like this poem, it is forever      |,
    |     After all these years true        |
    |      I love our time together         |
  • tx 0d034d6dc3cfa8c8ebb1df202ada251bdf890f9dd5f0c4dffbe185b8cc5c999d, block 669986 (2021-02-10) a teddy bear, also visible e.g. at www.asciiart.eu/toys/teddy-bears? "xoxo" means hugs and kisses. Maybe this was in preparation for St. Valentine's day a bit later on February 14th?
      ___
    {~._.~}
     ( Y )
    ()~*~()
    (_)-(_) xoxo, S
  • tx 7076d9a40b44e92d8b96f9f5f1cb258619356d0789fe5bcf5197e2eaeb2b9eab block 693550 (2021-07-31) contains what could be an obituary for a bird:
    YOU ARE
        _
        |o}=
        | (
      / /)
      /_//
    _/_//
    \/_'
    __LL
    SO FAT
    and tx b478c2a3566fa644ccb3c9da567f39c9030e337537610c9ff5c5c885ea6109b8 block 693776 appears to follow up on it:
      _    _
    /and\/so \
    | (o><-) |
    \//\ /\\
      V_/ \_V
      `\ / '
      loved
      Chris<3
    Cute.
  • tx 5c4f060e6166a530d891cafd0e9df42441d29b1ed9cff71a1652201b8d50bd72 (2021-10-27) TODO what does it represent? It seems so familiar... Decoded from our dumps with fold -w80 -s. It is encoded as a sequence of 43 OP_RETURN output scripts each containing 80 payload bytes each
               :d,                        ,do'                        ;d;
               :NNk;.                    .OWWk.                    .:OWK,
               '0MMWO:.            ...  .xWMMWd.  ..             .l0WMMk.
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                ;KMMMMMWKo. .lXMMMMMX; :XMMMMMMX; :NMMMMWKc. 'dXMMMMMM0'
                 oWMMMMMMMXd'.'dXMMMNc ,0MMMMMMO. lWMMWKl..,xNMMMMMMMNc
                 .dNMMMMMMMMNx,..oXMMK; :XMMMMK; :XMWKc..;kNMMMMMMMMNl.
                   ;kNMMMMMMMMNk, 'kWM0' lNMMX: ,KMNd..:OWMMMMMMMMNx,
               .  '..,xNMMMMMMMMNd..oNMk..dNXo .OMXc .xNMMMMMMMMXd'.'' .'.
             ,ko..kXo'.,xXMMMMMMMWx..dWWd..;,..xWNl .OWMMMMMMMKo..,xNx..kO;
           .xNWo ,KMMXd,.'dXMMMMMMWl '0MNl    oNMO..dWMMMMMWKl..;kNMMO..xMNx'
          cKMMN: :NMMMMNx,..xNMMMMMO. dMMX;  :XMWl ,KMMMMMXo..:kNMMMMK, lWMMXc.
        .dNMMMNc '0MMMMMMNklOWMMMMMN: :NMM0dxKMMK, lWMMMMMNxoOWMMMMMWk. oWMMMWx.
       .kWMMMMMK:..oXMMMMMMMMMMMWNNNd .OMMMMMMMMk..kWNNWMMMMMMMMMMMKl..lXMMMMMWk.
       .;lx0XWMMNk,.'xNMMMMMWKd:,'.,'  dMMMMMMMWl  ',.',:dKWMMMMMNd..;OWMWNKkdl;.
     .coc,...,cokKKd..:KMMMNd. 'ldxd:. ,KMMMMMM0' .:dxdl' .dNMMW0; .okkoc;'..';coc.
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    lNMMMMX0XWMMNl  cKMMMMWX00KNWMMM0: .xNMMNOxKMMMMX: ,0MMMMMMMMMWl  '0MMMMMMMWO'
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          .lKWMXl..xWMMMMMk. ,0WMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNO,  oWMMMMMNd..lXMWO:.
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                         .cxOKNWMMMNd..:oc. :KMMMMWNKkd,
                             .;lxOKXNk.    :XNX0kdc,.
  • tx cbf7cfb6c074e35e82ea604e2de6c82d00c168d7d7a1205383f93a6f40ee8520 (2022-01-24) ASCII typeface ad for Keepcase, some kind of Bitcoin hardware wallet. Manually converted to horizontal form to not take up too much space here.
    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@V/@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
    @@>                 @                   @.                  @,                  @'                  @;                  @^                  @''                 @:                  @>
             #          @   ###    ###*     @   ###########     @   ##########*     @   /###########    @   ###########*    @    /#########     @   ##########/     @   ###########/    \@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
          #######       @   ###    ##       @   ###             @   ###.            @   ###    #####    @   ###/*           @   ###     *##     @   ####,           @   ####"           @///
      #####     #####   @   ########(       @   #########       @   ########        @   ##########.     @   ##<             @   ####### ###     @   *#########      @   #######         KEEPCASE : THE
    ###(   ####   ####  @   ###     ###.    @   ###\            @   ####            @   #####/          @   ###\.           @   ####### ##/     @        ####       @   ###_            ORIGINAL HARDWARE
    ###  ###  ###  ##   @   ###     ###\    @   ##########      @   #########/      @   ###/            @   \#########*     @   ###     #*      @  #########        @   ###########(    WALLET CASE
    ###  ##    ##
    ###  ###  ###   ##
    ###    ####   ####
      #####     ####*
          ######,
    @@>>
    A bit later we see another ad for the same company:
    Figure 13. keepcase.jpg. tx 6ea24c417d60a1c5312ca8ec0ab44bbdba2d79d84ceffa4c9455e02f89831d7f (2022-01-24) contains a data URL for a JPEG image:
    /@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@data:image/jpeg;base64,<base64 image> \@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
  • tx 3c9216146bf1d9415ded8a1d03dd63fae8f0af2cbcaf68efaff4ad654a45b74d (2022-06-08) tiny face. The --BEGIN TRIBUTE-- format is a call back to BitLen, but they just don't do ASCII art like the old days anymore:
    ---BEGIN  TRIBUTE---
    ....!&&&&&&#####B!.:
    ...:GB5Y55555PG#&Y..
    ...^B7^::::^^~7P#J..
    ...:Y7??!^~7?J?JP!..
    ...:7!!?7~7???7?J!..
    ....^!^:~~7!^~77^:..
    :....!7!7???7?J!..:.
    ::...:7Y?77?YYJ!:..:
    :::::.~?JJY5Y77?Y5^.
    ----END   TRIBUTE---
    B5
  • tx 14e89fc01c367841f2d5c2786a3b051d67008be980694272530546a0452aeea9 (2022-07-05). ASCII typeface for:
    Chockchai Chawatcharaporn
    This seems to be aa Thai name, e.g. possibly www.linkedin.com/in/chokchai-thawatcharaporn-179398213/?originalSubdomain=th. And so we learn that Thai people are the coolest because their name can end in "-porn" which is awesome. The given name is:
    @   ###########*    @   ###    ###'     @    ########       @   ###    ###*     @   #########*      @   ###     ###"    @    /#########     @    ########/      @
    @   ###/*           @   ###    ###      @   ###    ###,     @   ###    ##       @   ##/*            @   ###     ###     @   ###     *##     @       ###.        @
    @   ##<             @   ##########      @   ###    ###]     @   ########(       @   ##(             @   ###########     @   ####### ###     @       ###,        @
    @   ###\.           @   ###    ###.     @   ###\   ###      @   ###     ##.     @   ##\             @   ###     ###.    @   ###     ##/     @       ###         @
    @   \#########*     @   ###    ###/     @    #######/       @   ###     ###\    @   ##########\     @   ###     ###/    @   ###     #*      @   /##########     @
    and the rest is just more of the same, just 10x longer. Manually converted to horizontal form to not take up too much space here.
Tip for ASCII art hunters:
grep -n -r '   ' . | sort
grep -n -r '@@@' . | sort
grep -n -r 'XXX' . | sort
grep -n -r '...' . | sort
Tribute to computer security researcher Len Sassaman, who killed himself on 2011-07-03, starting with an ASCII art portrait followed by text.
Because it comes so early in the blockchain, and because it is the first ASCII art on the blochain as far as we can see, and because is so well done, this is by far the most visible ASCII art of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Transaction: www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/930a2114cdaa86e1fac46d15c74e81c09eee1d4150ff9d48e76cb0697d8e1d72 from 2011-07-30, a few weeks after the suicide.
Created by famous computer security researcher Dan Kaminsky and Travis Goodspeed, presumably this other security researcher, evidence:
"Bernanke" is a reference to Ben Bernanke, who was one of the economists in power in the US Government during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and much criticized by some, as shown for example in the documentary Inside Job (2010). As hinted in the Genesis block message, the United States Government bailed out many big banks that were going to go bankrupt with taxpayer money, even though it was precisly those banks that had started the crisis through their reckless investment, thus violating principles of the free market and business accountability. This was one of the motivations for the creation Bitcoin, which could reduce government power over economic policy.
It is worth mentioning that there do exist some slightly earlier "artistic" inscriptions in the form Punycode inscription in the Namecoin blockchain, but as far as we've seen, the are all trivial compared to BitLen in terms of artistic value/size.
---BEGIN TRIBUTE---
#./BitLen
:::::::::::::::::::
:::::::.::.::.:.:::
:.: :.' ' ' ' ' : :
:.:'' ,,xiW,"4x, ''
:  ,dWWWXXXXi,4WX,
' dWWWXXX7"     `X,
 lWWWXX7   __   _ X
:WWWXX7 ,xXX7' "^^X
lWWWX7, _.+,, _.+.,
:WWW7,. `^"-" ,^-'
 WW",X:        X,
 "7^^Xl.    _(_x7'
 l ( :X:       __ _
 `. " XX  ,xxWWWWX7
  )X- "" 4X" .___.
,W X     :Xi  _,,_
WW X      4XiyXWWXd
"" ,,      4XWWWWXX
, R7X,       "^447^
R, "4RXk,      _, ,
TWk  "4RXXi,   X',x
lTWk,  "4RRR7' 4 XH
:lWWWk,  ^"     `4
::TTXWWi,_  Xll :..
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
LEN "rabbi" SASSAMA
     1980-2011
Len was our friend.
A brilliant mind,
a kind soul, and
a devious schemer;
husband to Meredith
brother to Calvin,
son to Jim and
Dana Hartshorn,
coauthor and
cofounder and
Shmoo and so much
more.  We dedicate
this silly hack to
Len, who would have
found it absolutely
hilarious.
--Dan Kaminsky,
Travis Goodspeed
P.S.  My apologies,
BitCoin people.  He
also would have
LOL'd at BitCoin's
new dependency upon
   ASCII BERNANKE
:'::.:::::.:::.::.:
: :.: ' ' ' ' : :':
:.:     _.__    '.:
:   _,^"   "^x,   :
'  x7'        `4,
 XX7            4XX
 XX              XX
 Xl ,xxx,   ,xxx,XX
( ' _,+o, | ,o+,"
 4   "-^' X "^-'" 7
 l,     ( ))     ,X
 :Xx,_ ,xXXXxx,_,XX
  4XXiX'-___-`XXXX'
   4XXi,_   _iXX7'
  , `4XXXXXXXXX^ _,
  Xx,  ""^^^XX7,xX
W,"4WWx,_ _,XxWWX7'
Xwi, "4WW7""4WW7',W
TXXWw, ^7 Xk 47 ,WH
:TXXXWw,_ "), ,wWT:
::TTXXWWW lXl WWT:
----END TRIBUTE----
Code 1. Len Sassaman tribute.
Figure 1. Len Sassaman (2010) Source. Reference image from Wikipedia for the ASCII art.
Figure 2. Official portrait of Ben Bernanke (2008) Source. Reference image from Wikipedia for the ASCII art.
Video 1. Black OPS of TCP/IP by Dan Kaminsky (2011) Source. Presented at the BlackHat 2011 conference. Dan unveils the Len memorial at the given timestamp around 8:41. The presentation was done on 2011-08-03 or 04, so very few days after the upload to the blockchain.
From the JSON transaction we understand the encoding format:
   "out":[
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"1CqKQ2EqUscMkeYRFMmgepNGtfKynXzKW7",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":0,
         "script":"76a91481ccb4ee682bc1da3bda70176b7ccc616a6ba9da88ac"
      },
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"157sXa7duStAvq3dPLWe7J449sgh47eHzw",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":1,
         "script":"76a9142d2d2d424547494e20545249425554452d2d2d2088ac"
      },
...
      {
         "spent":false,
         "tx_index":0,
         "type":0,
         "addr":"157sXYpjvAyEJ6TdVFaVzmoETAQnHB6FGU",
         "value":1000000,
         "n":77,
         "script":"76a9142d2d2d2d454e4420545249425554452d2d2d2d2088ac"
      }
So it is really encoded one line at a time in the script of the transaction outputs.
j(-> 1EGa1izEFDHzEobDDQny73re9BwXdzhZvH <-
j(                 ,
j(                dM
j(                MMr
j(               4MMML                  .
j(               MMMMM.                xf
j(              "M6MMM               .MM-
j( h..          +MM5MMM            .MMMM
j( .MM.         .MMMMML.          MMMMMh
j( )MMMh.        MM5MMM         MMMMMMM
j(  3MMMMx.     'MMM3MMf      xnMMMMMM"
j(  '*MMMMM      MMMMMM.     nMMMMMMP"
j(    *MMMMMx    "MMM5M\    .MMMMMMM=
j(     *MMMMMh   "MMMMM"   JMMMMMMP
j(       MMMMMM   GMMMM.  dMMMMMM
j(        MMMMMM  "MMMM  .MMMMM(        .n
j(         *MMMMx  MMM"  dMMMM"    .nnMMMM
j(Mn...     'MMMMr 'MM   MMM"   .nMMMMMMM*
j(4MMMMnn..   *MMM  MM  MMP"  .dMMMMMMM""
j( ^MMMMMMMMx.  *ML "M .M*  .MMMMMM**"
j(    *PMMMMMMhn. *x > M  .MMMM**""
j(       ""**MMMMhx/.h/ .=*"
j(                .3P"%....
j(              nP"     "*MMnx
The transaction before the ASCII art tx 9b08c00ced2bca4525d74e82db9af2aec8ef213eb1c1bf68a48b6be929968332 starts with what is likely a "Legalize" and must be a Tor Onion service:
j(-> 1EGa1izEFDHzEobDDQny73re9BwXdzhZvH <-
but that address as is + .onion is invalid, TODO find the correct one.
Other marijuana plants can be found contained entirely in single transactions:
tx d338da06d13a21a296506c0c8cd8c8533ba8fa076ff5c2c1fd02a457aac3ef77 via cryptograffiti.info contains a marihuana plant followed by a complaint:
[ mirrored by http://dmabraham.info/ | moarrr ]
[ CryptoGraffiti: Donate BTC: 1MVpQJA7FtcDrwKC6zATkZvZcxqma4JixS ]
[ Latest News: EU/Greece chaos due to huge debts! ]
[ Bless! ]

{ Supa - https://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=supa }
William Robert Girdlestone
1535 Dingwall RD Apt 35
Courtenay
British Columbia
Canada
V9N 3S8

( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=575743.0 )
[ One of the lowest rated #bitcoin-otc users, owing me at least 10 BTC ]
[ Most likely much more with compounding interesting, but its all ]
[ written off as a huge loss to me. Never again deal with him! ]
ASCII art of a Force of Will, a famous and powerful Magic: The Gathering card first printed in 1996.
This is Ciro Santilli's personal favorite ASCII art he has found in the blockchain so far. Also Ciro could not find any other previous source of this, so there is some chance it is original. One can dream.
The choice of card is probably linked to the function of the card in the game of Magic: The Gathering. This card essentially prevents the opponent from casting a spell they are about to cast. The presumed intended meaning of this art is further accentuated by the old card type term "interrupt" (late renamed to "instant"), which suggests that "this ASCII art is an interruption to the normal monetary transactions of the blockchain".
One of also reminded of the prayer wars interruption attempts. We could not however identify anything specific that this ASCII art might have tried to interrupt besides the normal flow of monetary transactions.
If one goes full art critic mode, it is also tempting to draw a parallel between the card's "You may pay 1 life" alternative casting cost (as opposed to 5 mana, 3 and two blue, which is a very large cost for most games) as being a reference to the money spent by the uploader of the art to upload it.
TODO understand exactly how it was encoded and why it is so weird. The UUUU has a slightly weird encoding which we fixed by hand here TODO understand.
 -------------------------------------
|  Force of Will               3 U U  |
|  ---------------------------------  |
| |                  ////////////   | |
| |                ////() ()\////\  | |
| |               ///_\ (--) \///\  | |
| |        )      ////  \_____///\\ | |
| |       ) \      /   /   /    /   | |
| |    ) /   \     |   |  /   _/    | |
| |   ) \  (  (   /   / /   / \     | |
| |  / ) ( )  / (    )/(    )  \    | |
| |  \(_)/(_)/  /UUUU \  \\\/   |   | |
| .---------------------------------. |
| Interrupt                           |
| ,---------------------------------, |
| | You may pay 1 life and remove a | |
| | blue card in your hand from the | |
| | game instead of paying Force of | |
| | Will's casting cost.  Effects   | |
| | that prevent or redirect damage | |
| | cannot be used to counter this  | |
| | loss of life.                   | |
| | Counter target spell.           | |
| `---------------------------------` |
|                                     l
| Illus.  Terese Nelsen               |
 -------------------------------------
Figure 1. Force of Will Magic: The Gathering card (Alliances) Source. A high resolution scan of the original card depicted in the ASCII art for comparison.
The following two ASCII transactions:
tx 0f05c47a8caafadecc10d70ba3bf010eaf6bb416b5e1ad7b01cf3445f5fb7a1c
I am. Therefore, I have come to be.

-- Hyena


tx e6d48f6912929a58a2ee30c13768058777d8547215c27109b5cb0724e7abaaba
Erich,
Bro, this looks excellent!!
-Duriel
suggest this ASCII art might have been uploaded by Figure "Erich Erstu", AKA Hyena, creator of cryptograffiti.info, a service which would have allowed uploading ASCII content to the blockchain.
The only other mention of "Duriel" in the blockchain is tx 140562ceb42fc8943fa52ccc0ddbb11ca2d88dae9b5240d7a4b46864538c515a which has some freedom of speech comments and gives the email:
Duriel@paystamper.com = 1HcuhfTAiQCt6KdMG2rZLXsTcKYj9nLDhS
paystamper.com was some other blockchain service from circa 2015:
The following almost certainly contain ASCII art but we were not yet able to decode them. Puzzle solvers from the Internet, we need your help!
  • tx b4ba91b4892ff85a5eb18b85bc1fd744d9418b2a71f1dc130447893b9e1cab60, block 651974 (2020-10-09) The link yang.yiping.de/btc is dead with no archives, but the toplevel yang.yiping.de is an obituary to a Chinese lady called "Yang Yiping" (杨一平). The Bitcoin message is acknowledged on the website at:
    archiviert auf der BTC Blockchain TX b8e80f2bd1eac8c6db4dfb8b6cc9c8eb71133cbc1a0d32e6952c1a2818eecc8f
    She apparently lived in Germany as the website is bilingual German/Chinese, the text:
    Wir vermissen dich
    means:
    We miss you
    TODO decode properly. It is encoded as P2PKH keys (20 bytes at a timt) but also contains its own newlines and trailing spaces. Maybe a start:
              .-==-.
              `-==-
               |    |
               |    |
               |
          Yang, Yiping
         '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'
         *-====-.    .-====-*
         *~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
         .-====='    '=====-.
         .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
         //yang.yiping.de/btc
         Wir vermissen dich! |
              Yang, Yiping   |~
    Could it be across? She's apparently Christian based on the website.
    tx b8e80f2bd1eac8c6db4dfb8b6cc9c8eb71133cbc1a0d32e6952c1a2818eecc8f, block 652005 (2020-10-09) also contains some related content with her name, though not identical. Perhaps they are meant to be assembled together somehow?
  • tx 71d9187cbb7b00b4c516df218499bbc301996262cfafc4533fd7916af1fb6315, block 709632, (2021-11-14 ) starts a consecutive sequence of transactions that seem to encode an ASCII art. Each line is encoded with OP_RETURN, is 38 bytes long, and starts and ends in 6 spaces, leading to 26 non-whitespace characters per line. In block order we have:
          ;4Fdzw1k=zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz;      
          ,zzzzzq;.           1zzzz,      
          ,zzzzq  ,qzzzzzz1,  1zzzz,      
           ,;qzzzzz1qq,                   
                 ,;1zzzzzqqq,             
          ,zzzzq    .;qzzzzzq:1zzzz,      
          ,zzzzq:1zzzzzq;.    1zzzz,      
          ,zzzzq         .;qzzzzzzz,      
          ,vtv3f5aKY0jGQglP9a1AGw==.      
          ;BynQtpeUyWTXKGTrGhdV2Q==;      
          ;tVMd3L1CKM4wFmyxEEEUV2bY;      
          ,zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,      
          ,zzzzzzzzq,         1zzzz,      
                    .:qqzzzzqqq,          
          ,zzzzq       ,qzzzzzzzzzz,      
          ,zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,      
    The strings:
    vtv3f5aKY0jGQglP9a1AGw==
    BynQtpeUyWTXKGTrGhdV2Q==
    tVMd3L1CKM4wFmyxEEEUV2bY
    4Fdzw1k=
    seem like Base64 encoded data due to the = sign padding, but nothing human readable comes out of them.
Figure 1. bitcoin.jpg. Source.
A bitcoin logo on block 123573 (2011-05-13).
This is the very first ASCII string to show up at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer after only the Genesis block message.
This version of the image was just ripped from Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014).
Reconstructing it should likely be a simple matter of copy pasting the ASCII yEnc encoding present in the two transactions from tx ceb1a7fb57ef8b75ac59b56dd859d5cb3ab5c31168aa55eb3819cd5ddbd3d806 into a text file and decoding the yEnc, but after searching for 20 minutes Ciro couldn't find a working yEnc decoder on Ubuntu 21.10. How can a format be so dead, even after considerable extensive use in the Usenet??? It makes you think about life.
As mentioned by Ken, the logo is split across two transactions: ceb1a7fb57ef8b75ac59b56dd859d5cb3ab5c31168aa55eb3819cd5ddbd3d806 and 9173744691ac25f3cd94f35d4fc0e0a2b9d1ab17b4fe562acc07660552f95518.
There appears to be nothing strictly linking the two transactions, besides that they are very close by and the only ASCII strings around back in those pre-infinite-spam days, as can be seen at: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/out/0123.txt#L11, so you could just see both of them by eye.
Also the first one starts with:
=ybegin line=128 size=8776 name=bitcoin.jpg
and the second one ends in:
=yend size=8776 crc32=a7ac8449
so this is likely clearly part of the yEnc format for someone who knows it, and the filename bitcoin.jpg gives the file format.
They are not even in the same block:both from 2011-05-13. Also note that they ended up being committed reverse order, since you don't have a strict order control over the final blockchain.
Figure 2. v27sSra.jpg.
An image of a dozen people siting at a dinner table, with each person identified by a Twitter handle that was edited in.
This image is present tx 4be3a833ee83b4ca7d157d60fbf7411f7528314ce90df8a844f855118bc6ca11 from block 357239 (2015-05-20), an input transaction.
It contains a base 64 encoded image:
v27sSra.jpg

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/2wBDACgcHiMeGSgjISMtKygwPGRBPDc3PHtYXUlkkYCZlo+A
...
TAkBaMxbbhuYXGDMyXw/MIV84IqrE//Z
...
By manually copy pasting that into a file v27sSra.base64 we can obtain the image with:
base64 -d <v27sSra.base64 >v27sSra.jpg
The exact same content appears to be present on the next input transaction 56d23a230042c094bc54bb72fc4c10a3f26750030b9927994e741d3689f5c09e on the same block.
Google reverse image search leads to freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/05/21/the-story-behind-the-picture-of-nick-szabo-with-other-bitcoin-researchers-and-developers/ The story behind the picture of Nick Szabo with other Bitcoin researchers and developers by Arvind Narayanan (2015), in which Arvind (@random_walker) who attended the meeting clearly lists all names and handles, and talks about the background of gathering of Bitcoin devs that happened in March 2014. The article also contains a higher resolution version of the image uploaded to the blockchain.
It also links to a popular Reddit thread that contains the image from May 2015: www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/36hfu4/pic_coredevs_having_dinner_with_nick_szabo/
Googling v27sSra.jpg leads to bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1061926.220;wap "New York Times identifies Nick Szabo as Satoshi Nakamoto" which links to i.imgur.com/v27sSra.jpg so this is a Satoshi Nakamoto-real-identity thing.
A text/file upload system.
bitfossil.org/ an indexer website which interprets the format. Each page has an "abuse report" button to unindex presumably. TODO website source? Local indexer/extraction script? Ciro's indexer and its generated index can be found at:
Each AtomSea payload has a toplevel transaction which links to other transactions. All the linked transactions together make up the payload. The most common payload type is a text plus image, as is the case of Nelson-Mandela.jpg, which can be seen at bitfossil.com/78f0e6de0ce007f4dd4a09085e649d7e354f70bc7da06d697b167f353f115b8e/ where 78f0e6de0ce007f4dd4a09085e649d7e354f70bc7da06d697b167f353f115b8e is the toplevel transaction ID: www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/78f0e6de0ce007f4dd4a09085e649d7e354f70bc7da06d697b167f353f115b8e
See Section "Nelson-Mandela.jpg (2013-12-07)" for a detailed reverse engineering of the format, and Section "AtomSea & EMBII data format" for a summary of it.
apertus.io/ is the system to upload/index locally, and therefore likely part of the backend of bitfossil: github.com/HugPuddle/Apertus
The system shows the messages and the images on a single page: bitfossil.org/4cbb32cd27b5b5edc12d3559bdffc1355ac2a210463d5cfaadc7ce9b06675b2b/index.htm It is basically a blockchain-based Twitter.
Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014) suggests that AtomSea & EMBII are the creator's aliases. The following online profiles of the creators feel authentic:Tried saying hi to them at: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1382080760774033415 and they replied: twitter.com/AllenVandever/status/1563964396656812034
Somewhat related projects:
At twitter.com/EMBII4U/status/1762501350997233976 (2024) EMBII mentions that he was inspired by the Satoshi uploader.
These are of course likely all made by AtomSea & EMBII themselves while developing/testing their upload system.
They are also artsy peoeple themselves, and as pointed at twitter.com/AllenVandever/status/1563964396656812034 what they were doing was basicaly non-fungible token art, which became much much more popular a few years later around 2021.
The first upload that we could find at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/tree/3f53e152ec9bb0d070dbcb8f9249d92f89effa70#atomsea-index was tx 44e80475dc363de2c7ee17b286f8cd49eb146165a79968a62c1c2c4cf80772c9 on block 272573 (2013-12-01) but it does not show on Bitfossil: bitfossil.org/44e80475dc363de2c7ee17b286f8cd49eb146165a79968a62c1c2c4cf80772c9/. This is was due to an upload bug explained by the following entry. By looking at the ASCII data at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/out/0272.txt#L449 that this is meant to contain the same content as the following message: a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, so this is definitely a bugged version of the following one.
The next one is bitfossil.org/c9d1363ea517cd463950f83168ce8242ef917d99cd6518995bd1af927d335828/ on block 272577 (2013-12-02). It actually shows on bifossil and it reads:
I WONDER WHAT HISTORY WILL THINK ABOUT THESE FIRST FEW BUGS...HA HA HA. NOBODY IS PERFECT.
followed by:
He who regards
With an eye that is equal
Friends and comrades,
The foe and the kinsman,
The vile, the wicked,
The men who judge him,
And those who belong
To neither faction:
He is the greatest.
The bug message is definitely a reference to the previous non-visible bugged upload bitfossil.org/4b72a223007eab8a951d43edc171befeabc7b5dca4213770c88e09ba5b936e17/, TODO understand exactly how they fucked up. This illustrates the beauty of the blockchain very well: unlike with version control, you don't just see selected snapshots: you see actual debug logs!!!
Figure 1. WeAreStarStuff.jpg. Source.
The third AtomSea & EMBII upload, and the first actual image.
Message:
Photo etchin' test. #AtomSea #embii (photo by Travis Ehrich)
The image shows showingAtomSea and EMBII together, presumably photographed by this dude.
The filename is of course a reference to the quote/idea: We Are Made of Star-Stuff that was much popularized by Carl Sagan.
bitfossil.org/fac0b9a4f90414710b806fd286e020aea2404498946845ef3783f305dd4cd3a7 (2024-01-13) contains a crapped version with only AtomSea persent.
Figure 2. HugPuddle.jpg. Source.
The fourth AtomSea & EMBII upload, and the second image. Message:
HugPuddle Testing Apertus Disk Drive
And then finally we meet Chiharu, EMBII's partner, with her hair painted blond (she's Japanese): ILoveYouMore.jpg.
Then there's an approximation of pi as ASCII decimal fraction bitfossil.org/70fd289901bae0409f27237506c330588d917716944c6359a8711b0ad6b4ce76/ from block 273522 (2013-12-07):
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989
tx b8b9f50a354166c46b69ecd47a0fbd20ee78c3471d2557bf275aff1b4cf4752d (2013-12-07) contains Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. TODO find on bitfossil.org, toplevel, tx seemed like a likely toplevel, but not working: bitfossil.org/b8b9f50a354166c46b69ecd47a0fbd20ee78c3471d2557bf275aff1b4cf4752d
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
, And watch where the chalk-white arrowls go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
tx 56768b30dec33bd284223d85c23087975e2360b3391d20d505aa59a5675e5379 (2013-12-13) TODO find on bitfossil.org has the cutest message:
Dear Aliens,
Hey.
Sincerely, EMBII & AtomSeaMBII
bitfossil.org/73ca50321147bac9010bec43d63f7f76857fe9ede240cc89710e28723fdb242f/ (2013-12-14) has message:
MULTIFILE SUPPORT TEST
and links to 3 .txt files 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt containing single characters 1, 2, and 3.
Figure 3. CompressedLogo.png. Source.
2013-12-20. Message:
Colby Nelson and myself burnt the midnight oils designing the APERTUS imagery last night....
Thanks Colby for all your help.
Possibly www.linkedin.com/in/colby-nelson-59b538207/.
Contains an Apertus logo which is used on bitfossil.org/ itself, presumably they were designing that logo.
This is the first of many love declarations and mentions EMBII makes of his partner Chiharu! This came just one day afte the very first uploads of the system.
Figure 1. ILoveYouMore.jpg. Source.
Message:
My Dearest Chiharu....I Love you more. <3 Eric
Note that she's Japanese and not really bond, it's hair dye.
Figure 2. OurWedding.jpg. Source.
Message:
My Dearest Chiharu, I will love you forever. Taken Aug 6th 2014 in Ipswich, SD.
Figure 3. MadyBobbyOffToCollege.jpg. Source.
Associated messages:
A #father could not ask for more perfect daughters. I #Love you both so much!! <3 Pa
My oldest daugher moves into the dorms tomorrow morning. Dear Mady, You are forever my baby. <3 Pa
EMBII's daughter, Maddy Bobby, (presumably not with Chiharu) is going off to college! Sadface.
Figure 4. Chiharu EMBII and The Atom Sea say Happy Halloween.jpg. Source.
Message:
#Chiharu #embii & the #AtomSea #Fargo #ND
so their location was: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo,_North_Dakota
Figure 5. Chiharu.jpg. Source.
Messages:
mini camera test #Wilson #Chiharu #embii #Broadway #Fargo #ND
and:
"Trip to Italy" Mini Digital Camera N. Broadway, Fargo, ND 49°F
TODO actual Italy? Or some place named Italy in the US?
Figure 6. Loraine.jpg. Source.
Photographer unknown, but presumably EMBII's father or another close family member.
Message:
In loving memory of Loraine Elizabeth White
EMBII's mum died :-(
Cost: ~0.001 BTC ~ $0.80 at the time.
Figure 7. SatoFamily.jpg. Source.
This one gives Chiharu's full identity with picture basically. Message:
The Sato Family Arrives from Japan! Taken Aug 2. 2014 in Minneapolis MN. (Keiko, Chiharu, Hideaki, Katsuhiko) Now preparing for the Sato / Bobby Great American Vacation!!
so presumably Chiharu's full name is Chiharu Sato.
More EMBII social media:
Figure 1. Nelson-Mandela.jpg. Source. Message:
"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. - Wikipedia Born: July 18, 1918, Mvezo, South Africa Died: December 5, 2013.
The toplevel transaction is 78f0e6de0ce007f4dd4a09085e649d7e354f70bc7da06d697b167f353f115b8e
Like all AtomSea & EMBII uploads, the data it is encoded as P2FKH.
The full concatenated payload contains the following ASCII characters:
8881a937a437ff6ce83be3a89d77ea88ee12315f37f7ef0dd3742c30eef92dba|396*8881a937a437ff6ce83be3a89d77ea88ee12315f37f7ef0dd3742c30eef92dba
575061146335bd57f2dc132112152d0eeea44cf187ea6a52ac02435a7e5bea44
674c7cc34ea44bb276c6caf76f2b28fa1597380ab6e6a6906076d8f7229ca5b3
8e2642416ad20924b43f51a633fa1c0a5ba8e4a7b631877db1c64540a42081c9
a3084018096b92af04df57b6116e01ff4b7c7e8bd228235ed49e23f4a2817029
39348722b841afa0c5b67e5af10839afe965ed1b24874e89336bea9fa4ef3091
tomSea & EMBII\0
Output 2 is a change, so it contains no data and has been excluded. Change appear to be randomly placed in the list of output of the uploads, but they can be easily removed because they are the only output with a different value.
The newlines shown above are explicitly encoded as CR LF newlines with characters 0d 0a.
396 is the number of payload bytes between 396*8881a937a437ff6ce83be3a89d77ea88ee12315f37f7ef0dd3742c30eef92dba and the last txid 39348722b841afa0c5b67e5af10839afe965ed1b24874e89336bea9fa4ef3091, including newlines but exclusding the last line.
The last line appears to contain arbitrary data to fill out the 20 byte payload granularity:
  • A is missing from AtomSea
  • there is a NUL character just after EMBII, possibly part of the protocol?
Now let's inspect the transactions linked to from toplevel.
tx 8881a937a437ff6ce83be3a89d77ea88ee12315f37f7ef0dd3742c30eef92dba contains only payloads without any change. It starts with the following UTF-8 string with CR LF spaces;
"396\“There is nothing like returning to a place
 that remains unchanged to find the ways in 
 which you yourself have altered.”
 -Nelson Mandela


Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Afrd۽^2c'︨`ica from 1994 to 1999. -Wikipedia

Born: July 18, 1918, Mvezo, South Africa
Died: December 5, 2013
396 is once again the number of payload bytes present in that string.
This is immediately followed without any separator by a filename, and another size marker:
Nelson-Mandela.jpg?14400/
then followed by all the 14400 - len(Nelson-Mandela.jpg?) + len(/) JPEG bytes bytes, starting with the two JPEG file signature byte "FF D8".
Further toplevel transaction payloads are then simply concatenated with the previous ones, until the last bytes of the image "FF D9" appears at the end of the payload.
00000430  d2 81 de 80 0c 52 f1 40  ea 29 68 03 ff d9 6f 6d  |.....R.@.)h...om|
00000440  53 65 61 20 26 20 45 4d  42 49 49 00              |Sea & EMBII.|
padded once again by an AtomSea & EMBII string fragment terminated by a NUL character.
tx e3e37ed5c1de2631c147bd39429e42ff634e95b7d72423bc32d6c6b9d8eef8ee (2014-07-01):
For my first official Journal entry I've decided to archive some old poetry. Here are a few of the computational poems I've created using cyphers.
Figure 1. Shiemaa&Vincent.jpg. Source.
Message:
"Even if we tried to do it on purpose, never would have we succeeded." My beloved Vincent.
TODO identify Shiemaa and Vincent.
Figure 2. BikeLady.jpg. Source. Bike Lady by Allen Lee Vandever. tx 2c4b9497af8c0c0eb9383357b40c3de33dba0b4f481099a32719f2b9036da8e7, block 319927 (2014-09-10)
Figure 3. Arecibo_message.svg. Source.
An "artificially" colored visualization of the Arecibo message ripped from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arecibo_message.svg (with attribution).
The cool thing about this image is that it highlights the striking parallels between the encoding of the Arecibo message with crypto graffiti, because in both cases people were creating undocumented new ways of communicating with strangers on a new medium in those early blockchain days.
The associated message contains the Arecibo message as ASCII 0's and 1's. When properly cut at the newlines, they draw the message as ASCII art, as the original Arecibo encoding intends, here's a version with the 0's replaced by spaces to make it more readabale:
      1 1 1 1
  1 1     1 1       1
1   1   1   1  1 11  1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  1  1

            11
          11 1
          11 1
          1 1 1
          11111

11    111   11    11
1             11  1
11 1   11   11    11 1
11111 11111 11111 11111

    1                 1

    1                 1
11111             11111

11    11    111   11
1       1         1
11 1    11   111  11 1
11111 11111 11111 11111

    1      11         1
          11
    1     11          1
11111     11      11111
          11
  1        1        1
    1      11       1
    11    11      1
      11   1    11
          11  11
      11   1    11
    11    11      1
    1      1        1
  1       11        1
  1        11        1
  1         1       1
  1       1       1
    1            11
    11        11
  1   111 1 11
  1       1
  1     11111
  1    1 111 1  1 11 11
      1  111  1  111111
1 111    111     11 111
          1 1     111 11
  1      1 1     111111
  1      1 1     11
  1     11 11

  111     1
  111 1 1   1 1 1 1 1 1
  111         1 1 1 1
              1 1
        11111
      111111111
    111       111
    11           11
  11 1         1 11
  11  11       11  11
  1   1 1     1 1   1
  1   1  1   1  1   1
      1   1 1   1
      1    1    1
      1         1
        1  1 1
  1111  11111 1  1111
Figure 4. He sleeps in a temple.jpg. TODO identify. Novel work by EMBII? TODO we need a geocacher to find it, some city in North America no doubt. tx 460ed23bea89176cdfe18e13fce51ad5386ad8e3e1f7d6f5b4711b3be97b0502, block 360565 (2015-06-12)
Figure 5. PIA17563.jpg. Source.
Associated message:
NASA: A purple nebula, in honor of #Prince, who passed away today. Image: Crab #Nebula, as Seen by Herschel and #Hubble Image credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/MESS Key Programme Supernova Remnant Team; #NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) #PIA17563
Figure 6. Dr_Craig_Wright.jpg. Source.
The image is present e.g. at: www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/australian-man-claims-he-is-satoshi-nakamoto-bitcoin-creator/ It was inscribed about two months after Craig publicly claimed that he is Satoshi.
This is a relatively unusual AtomSea & EMBII upload as it does not have the common toplevel transaction, everything, text + image fits into a single transaction. This is perhaps why the image is relatively low resolution to have a smaller size.
Figure 7. YellowRobot.jpg. Source.
Yellow Robot on block 450516 (2017-01-29)
Photography by EMBII, original art by TODO.
The associated message reads:
Chiharu and I found this little yellow robot while exploring Chicago. It will be covered by tar or eventually removed but this tribute will remain. N 41.880778 E -87.629210
This is one of Ciro's favorite AtomSea & EMBII uploads. This is the cutest thing ever, and perfectly encapsules the "medium as an artform" approach to blockchain art. More Chiharu stalking at: ILoveYouMore.jpg.
At twitter.com/EMBII4U/status/1615389973343268871 EMBII announced that he would be giving off shares of that image on a Bitcoin-based NFT sale system he's making called Sup!?, and in December 2023 gave some shares to Ciro Santilli. Amen.
Other possibly novel EMBII street photography:
Audio:
For a detailed analysis of one transaction see: Nelson-Mandela.jpg.
Best guess so far, all in ASCII hex of output scripts:
  • remove the single output value different from first one from payload, that's the change, and it is randomly placed as far as I see
  • 64 bytes: hex address of top level text
  • 1 byte: some random punctuation
  • decimal number of bytes of some payload
  • 1 byte: some random punctuation
  • 64 bytes: same as the first address
  • CR LF
  • ends in NUL
In this section contains a list of images we could find that wre uploaded as raw data to the blockchain, without any special encoding, e.g. as done by the AtomSea & EMBII system.
It is possible that some/most of those were uploaded via the cryptograffiti.info system, but since that indexer stopped working, and since the format is so non-specific, it is not possible be sure as far as we can tell.
These images were indexed by looking for standard transaction output script hashes that contain JPEG or PNG images immediately on the first payload byte based on file signature bytes and indexed/easily downloaded at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer#image-indexing-and-download.
Figure 1. western-union-bitcoin-spoof.jpg.gz.
This ad highlights one of the claimed potential advantages of Bitcoin: cheaper/faster cross border transactions.
This inscription is highlighted at Data Insertion in Bitcoin's Blockchain by Andrew Sward, Vecna OP_0 and Forrest Stonedahl. Finding Gzips with binwalk is hard because the file signature is only 2 bytes long (1F 8B), so there are lots of false positives.
Gzip binary uploaded at: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/200f3f6f8a91ae438d1924e5cedca98cea7f0197b9eba11343948b5621ca19ed.jpg.gz gunzip 1.12 complains:
western-union-bitcoin-spoof.jpg.gz: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
but we were not able to fix that: removing bytes at the end goes straight from "trailing garbage" to "incomplete file" after a certain byte.
Figure 4. Super Mario coin sprite. tx bf7ef3216ae09f8252c76e7d0031bc4aa131a23a6900f8371c44ffde7957c8da (2015-03-01). Possibly from Super Mario World for the SNES (1990). No doubt a self-reference to Bitcoin itself. Encoded as a data URL for a PNG image:
<img src="data:image/png;base64,
Visible e.g. at www.pinterest.fr/pin/137993176075040653/.
Figure 5. JPG thumbnail. Presumably a JPEG upload test. tx 515a95381e511141229966d722db19db7da66a0d629b1f883d296287632e72b3, block 349362 (2015-03-26) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 6. we love bitcoin.
A heart next to a bitcoin logo and written "we love bitcoin". Reproduced at: kryptomoney.com/grayscale-report-institutional-investors-retirement-funds-love-bitcoin/
Embedded in the image itself, there's a message in the header comments:
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks
which is the opening paragraph of: bitcoin.org/en/
Figure 7. Iranian lady with polar bear hat.
The image data is cut in half. This makes the image an invalid JPEG, but ImageMagick is able to recover and convert to a valid image which is what we show here to make it portable to more browsers. The raw invalid image is present at: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/b673c7d0c62cce8315ad6cc63a2c8ca8169bf73432435760b808735e1a7fe0e2.jpg, but it can also be generally viewed by most viewers.
This embedding uses a novel more specialiezd protocol on top of a raw daisy chain Bitcoin inscription.
THe daisy actually starts at f49e79889b34d355fa8a02f13b9db4ed69c067f975e25339737ef10e4b993d7a and data is encoded as follows:
OP_RETURN 62 00000000 48656c6c6f20776f726c64212052657475726e20626c6f622070726f746f636f6c2076
OP_RETURN 62 00000001 313a204d41474943203d20307836322c205041434b414745203d2075696e7431362c20
OP_RETURN 62 00000002 53455155454e4345203d2075696e7431362c205041594c4f4144203d20757020746f20

OP_RETURN 62 00000000 48656c6c6f20776f726c64212052657475726e20626c6f622070726f746f636f6c2076
OP_RETURN 62 00000001 313a204d41474943203d20307836322c205041434b414745203d2075696e7431362c20
OP_RETURN 62 00000002 53455155454e4345203d2075696e7431362c205041594c4f4144203d20757020746f20

OP_RETURN 62 00000003 33352062797465732e0a

OP_RETURN 62 00010000 ffd8ffe1001845786966000049492a00080000000000000000000000ffec0011447563
OP_RETURN 62 00010001 6b79000100040000003c0000ffe1039a687474703a2f2f6e732e61646f62652e636f6d
OP_RETURN 62 00010002 2f7861702f312e302f003c3f787061636b657420626567696e3d22efbbbf222069643d
OP_RETURN 62 00010003 2257354d304d7043656869487a7265537a4e54637a6b633964223f3e203c783a786d70

...

OP_RETURN 62 00010085 51290358a41fe5408b4435254208d4810a5fe9113044c1ae3aa544656d729756395b87
OP_RETURN 62 00010086 c4e261f55c5d19e1c792c3f78adff1368db58e5a0bb85b2c6753c42de6d973edae0642
OP_RETURN 62 00010087 1b2c8370f203aaa0a6eb7ea0871d8e9ae6534b785b57347171e4df6a5463d7ce77b93b
OP_RETURN 62 00010088 9b8bf96edd1b982e2474a41ad28e3c01e74586d1d1ad7a874c5a1b7c742d2285c371f6
The first block is:
Hello world! Return blob protocol v1: MAGIC = 0x62, PACKAGE = uint16, SEQUENCE = uint16, PAYLOAD = up to
which then gets repeated, probably an error, but now with the sentence completed:
Hello world! Return blob protocol v1: MAGIC = 0x62, PACKAGE = uint16, SEQUENCE = uint16, PAYLOAD = up to 35 bytes
This therefore gives us the name of the protocol as "return blob protocol". We also understand that the 0x62 was aconfiguration parameter.
ffd8ffe1 marks the start of the JPEG.
If the rest of the image were inscribed somewhere random in the blockchain, we'd expect to find the string 6200010089 containing the netxt data chunck on a nearby block, but bgrep did not find it, so perhaps the data just isn't there.
The last tx of the daisy is 43b182065ab2c7d1908ec3cee756d9f626c1e4bd1efa17a7c3993433b653d499 which is followed by 9e6838a3545bd59a708d0c177d6840c7d82b8ac6220138ca3d8133a1376405aa which does not contain any data.
Figure 8. Erich Erstu. Alias: 1Hyena. A well built man wearing a gas mask. Google image search leads to: github.com/1Hyena (archive), who is the creator of cryptograffiti.info. It was around after this time that the number of raw images surged dramatically in the blockchain, so it is possible that this is when the service started operating. This further suggests that most raw image uploads we found were made with cryptograffiti.info. tx c206e8fff656f07b27dac831ef9b956792bae4e76a2cb43f14f49f0298bf2c2f, block 416527 (2016-06-16). Embedded text:
Hyena was here on the 16th of June 2016.
and:
Hi mom! I love you.
Figure 9. Water Deer. badtaxidermy.com "Water Deer" image, visible at: web.archive.org/web/20200527070011/http://www.badtaxidermy.com/?page=3. tx 357e8ae080e5a1b554eaec2953e3e6e2e7955f3af4559dd0f1bc6381d56aa183, block 416735 (2016-06-16) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the strings:
www.badtaxidermy.com
and:
Cryptograffiti.info now allows you to attach JPEG images to your messages.
Figure 10. hotmine.io. A mining supplier: hotmine.io/en. twitter.com/uahotmine. tx 8ec01c5e8f3b57adb13079af3b7e40e7acd3986a5ed14325388405771bd43f9b, block 416835 (2016-06-18) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string embedded into it:
Smart Heating, Bitcoin Mining For You - en.hotmine.io
Figure 11. Nada from They Live (1988). tx 83df1e5ecc1c7ac455d2855e15cff8fa5771afe2ad1796c8b6b1a8e910e829c4, block 416896 (2016-06-18) via cryptograffiti.info. The file has the following string embedded into it:
I have come here to chew bubble gum and dance on Ethereum's grave.
And I'm all out of bubble gum.
presumably a reference to Nada's dialogue.
Figure 12. Cryptocurrenty Minning ad. Twitter "@dobcrypto": twitter.com/dobcrypto Reuploaded at: imgur.com/gallery/00oOuhm. tx eda07af9584391bb6f5ebb07ba57a51b610751fdf06ae49d9166225c36d97d0b, block 417111 (2016-06-20) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string:
Subscribe, I will be glad to see you! www.youtube.com/c/dobcryptocurrency
Figure 13. Chinese wedding.
A white man and a Chinese woman wearing Chinese traditional dressess holding hands, presumably a token from their wedding. A Chinese poem is visible next to them, with four vertical setences made up of 7 characters each, to be read from right to left. This is a classic Classical Chinese poetry form known as qijue.
A photo of a snowy mountain is shown in the background, fitting the theme of the poem. It looks like an European mountain, possibly Mont Blanc? TODO identify. Perhaps a reference to the nationality of the husband.
TODO transcribe the Chinese text, cursive grass script + traditional characters + ultra-low res put this beyond Ciro Santilli's capabilities/patience ratio. Ciro Santilli's wife's transcribed gave the first column as:
丹珍默然藏山中
A scarlet gemstone hides quietly in the midst of the mountains.
and no Google hits, so maybe an original poem? What a hero. TODO transcribe the rest.
The image file contains the English transalation of the Chinese poem embeded into it:
A scarlet gemstone hides quietly in the midst of the mountains.
Its beauty softly enters the wanderer's dreams.
Fame and fortune become like drifting clouds
But the gem endures like the constellations above.
TODO embedding method, does not show up on ExifTool.
Figure 14. Superbuffo. Googling gives a Toni Caradonna: twitter.com/superbuffo. At twitter.com/Superbuffo/status/1620900765014556672 that twitter account claimed the art or its depiction. www.imdb.com/name/nm9516368/ has some obscure references to him. tx 6240f61bbaeac66cd623e921a153addaf5f379a996f2de0f0c6506d628fe3812, block 417354 (2016-06-21) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following string embedded into it, in addition to a lot of Adobe boilerplate:
Superbuffo the first comedian on the blockchain
Figure 15. Rene Angelil and Celine Dion. Reproduced at: web.archive.org/web/20191130174338/https://people.com/celebrity/inside-celine-dion-and-rene-angelils-21-year-marriage/ but cropped to faces. tx e2e5b9cf04d93ae5fc1b54e9208b92b668823e014b251f57510e4702661fa1a6, block 417272 (2016-06-21) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
You will be here forever
Figure 16. New Age dance. Woman dancing a New Age-like dance with New Age-like Indian looking clothes, holding a lamp, and with a rose on her hair. TODO identify. tx 0602dd1b375bc71818db0a40d7a14f438499af3eda9056125eb5a1b74bed790b, block 419676 (2016-07-07) via cryptograffiti.info. The image contains the following text embedded into it (TODO unknown mechanism, does not show up on exifTool:
No alcohol and smoking since 07.07.2016. Love girls!
Figure 17. Snake penetration sculputure. Sculpture of what seems to be a snake penetrating a vagina. tx 83f412eb7ff40fe542901186a6d37cba0eb4f8458c574bc02a6f7236c599fe07, block 420122 (2016-07-10) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 18. Wedding invitation. TODO: make out names, quite low res, no patience. Looks like Cyrillic script. tx 01c3af71c12d49260231dcb3cc86d6ff21b3cd90878e9556482ef3b0908abffe, block 420960 (2016-07-16) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 19. Bitcoin love certificate. Hard to make out due to ultra-low-res, and in Cyrillic script. Contains three dates: 8.02.1982, 16.07.1992 and 17.07.2016. tx 075d1c78883ccb237b374c7ed7f9ff0f90df3308c48f9e7a29348b815326b769, block 421151 (2016-07-17) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following text embedded into it:
Wedding Wallled 15Nz214yv76BmkKLCi8kAVssa5C7nQHLjx
Figure 20. Oles Slobodenyuk.
Wedding picture with people holding "Blockchain" and "Ipa" signs.
Reproduced at: web.archive.org/web/20200926150213/https://freebitcoins.com.ua/zapushhen-ukrainskij-bitkoin-pul-bitcoinukraine/ Google translate:
One of the initiators of the launch of this pool was Oles Slobodenyuk, who earlier created a grocery store in Kiev accepting bitcoins, arranged a TakeMyBitcoin flash mob, and also registered his own marriage in the bitcoin blockchain on the weddingbook.io website.
Oles is for example featured at: uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-miners-heating-homes-free-133053106.html Bitcoin Miners Are Heating Homes Free of Charge in Frigid Siberia by Anna Baydakova (2019)
The image file contains the following text embedded into it:
<Wedding date: Jul 17, 2016 proof link goo.gl/photos/2GToBx1WqRyiQtxQ6
The link is dead of course.
Figure 21. Nematode. A... nematode-like shaped hand drawn extremely simple image? A test upload presumably? The squiggle outside of the worm might be a test direction marker. tx 554846025e808df7adec3b1d099e3d4d54b7367cddaa959939cb5ca0fc6abf7b, block 424414 (2016-08-09) via cryptograffiti.info. The image file contains the following string embedded into it:
2016, painting, 135.7 x 130.7 cm (18 DPI)
Figure 22. Hand written contract.
Wedding contract written in Czech. Transcription and translation by Petr Kadlec:
Svým podpisem pod tímto textem potvrzuji, že Daniela Dudysová a Pavel Urbaczka v mé přítomnosti dne 20.8.2016 v Ropici projevili vůli uzavřít spolu manželství, přičemž ani jeden z těchto projevů se mi nejevil jako nesvobodný, nikoliv vážný, nesrozumitelný, omylný nebo uzavřený v tísni.
Translation:
With my signature under this text, I confirm Daniela Dudysová and Pavel Urbaczka have, in my presence on 2016-08-20 in Ropice, expressed the will to enter marriage, whereas neither of their expressions seemed to me to be non-free, not serious, in error, or under distress.
Signatures:
Tereza (unreadable) Hana (unreadable) Jakub (unreadable) Radim Kozub (unreadable) (unreadable) Lenka (unreadable)
Petr also conjectures that Jakub may refer to Jakub Olšina from Blockchain Legal. Figure 23. "Wedding on grass" on the same block contains a image of a wedding, presumably the same of the contract. The photo of the man might be the same person as www.linkedin.com/in/olsinajakub/, but a bit younger.
Figure 23. Wedding on grass.
The file contains the following text embedded into it:
Danila a Pavel se právě vzali!
which is Czech for:
Danila and Pavel just got married!
So it is a followup to Figure 22. "Hand written contract".
Figure 24. Onshape ad. Ad for www.onshape.com/en/, an online CAD company:
#CAD users all over the world are designing in the cloud! Join them by creating a #free Onshape account: hubs.ly/HO3vJ6tO. tx c0bb963cb3ceffc49059f09db94e3fd73caa3b7a8e005160d49e99020ff6b51a, block 426832 (2016-08-25) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
@Onshape - The Future of Professional CAD
Figure 25. Pepe the Frog. ca933de16b6466e40b37c7ee0ec0dcd9a56bc365a567a5fff81ba4927dd61e23 (2016-10-17) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
In Pepe We Trust
#BITCOINPEPE
Figure 26. Hello. Yes, this is dog. knowyourmeme.com/memes/yes-this-is-dog. tx 4b0cd7e191ef0a14a9b6ab1c5900be534118c20a332ff26407648168d2722a2e, block 440418 (2016-11-24) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 27. Ross Ulbricht. Exact image also reproduced at: ethereumworldnews.com/ross-ulbricht-attorney-dismiss-2018/. tx b25ba2080d15c1277569bd2fee707a216c4e2ee0a1f479349c2309651c261511, block 442225 (2016-12-06) via cryptograffiti.info. Embedded text:
Silk Road saved lives that would
have otherwise been lost on the
streets.
Figure 28. Tuxedo and rose. Black and white and intentionally blurred photo of couple, the woman wears a tuxedo, and the man holds a red rose/light-like thing in the middle. tx c67dca17d3e5544d8d2c70d143196e1c1438a09c7371b80086d0a71ec5aec3c8, block 453083 (2017-02-14) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 29. Couple on mountains. Middle aged couple selfie in front of some mountains. tx 00a64f2ff9aae7a34c21d07b8fc9bad79989f25295ccbddc6fbe73b3685b65a9, block 456370 (2017-03-09) via cryptograffiti.info. The file contains the following Spanish poem, whch confirms that their Spanish looking faces are actually Spanish, perhaps they are at the Pyrenees:
Entre tus brazos y los míos
no hay espacio, tan juntitos
estamos que los pensamientos
son uno.
A veces somos casi dos desconocidos,
raros tan raros cómo distintos,
pero nos engañamos, tú lo sabes yo lo sé,
en realidad somos muy dentro
la misma verdad.
Escondidos en tus ojitos
duermen mis sueños más hermosos,
cuándo los abres frente a mi
se despiertan alegres y rumbosos.
Which translates as:
Between your arms and mine
there is no space, so close together
we are the thoughts
They are one.
Sometimes we are almost two strangers,
strange as strange as they are different,
but we deceive ourselves, you know it, I know it,
actually we are very inside
the same truth.
Hidden in your eyes
my most beautiful dreams sleep,
when do you open them in front of me
They wake up happy and cheerful.
Not easy Google hits so possibly novel.
Figure 30. Tank Man.
See also: Section "China".
Searching for the image hash ca4f11131eca6b4d61daf707a470cfccd1ef3d80a6f8b70f1f07616b451ca64e leads to archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/191157608/#q191162145 which links to cryptograffiti.info/#ca4f11131eca6b4d61daf707a470cfccd1ef3d80a6f8b70f1f07616b451ca64e.jpg suggesting that this upload was made with cryptograffiti.info, or at least was indexed by it. But that link is not working as of 2021.
Figure 31. Mr. Burns You're here forever.
Mr. Burns from The Simpsons showing a sign:
Don't forget, you're here forever
Still from S06E13 of The Simpsons. A reference to the immutability of the blockchain.
Video 1. Mr. Burns "You're Here Horever". Source. Off-chain source clip for the still.
This transaction is given at Data Insertion in Bitcoin's Blockchain by Andrew Sward, Vecna OP_0 and Forrest Stonedahl. We've decoded it with:
btc getrawtransaction 94e319d09fc236fb9d7a24e60af8f47ed41ca3cc01e9950c925d806153ed8aa3 true | jq -r '.vin[].scriptSig.asm' | sed -r 's/^[^ ]+ //' | sed -r 's/ [^ ]+$//' | tr -d '\n'  | xxd -r -p > tmp.jpg
TODO understand the encoding better. Our indexing scripts Bitcoin Inscription Indexer missed it because the image is encoded on starting on the second constant of the input script and not the first.
This was missed by binwalk because it does not index the valid JPEG signature "ffd8ffdb"... we should patch it... github.com/ReFirmLabs/binwalk/blob/cddfede795971045d99422bd7a9676c8803ec5ee/src/binwalk/magic/images#L107
Figure 32. Augustana College Old-Main.jpg.
First tx 1e347cf7521a1318ef31af4f5758efbc45f1bb2a7db9bc1cc469bfe93599eaf7 sets up 48 P2SH outputs and gives ASCII message
Augustana College Old-Main.jpg Reconstruct with data preceding redeemscripts
Then tx 033d185d1a04c4bd6de9bb23985f8c15aa46234206ad29101c31f4b33f1a0e49 redeems those with 48 input scripts that encode the image with ASCII message:
Augustana College Old-Main.jpg Reconstruct with data preceding redeemscripts
Figure 33. PDF demo. tx b4f537bc536c392d425af0693e3282bbf697df01debeeaf7f9918b93af6bdd14, block 474646 (2017-07-07) via cryptograffiti.info contains a single page 7.9 KB PDF sample file also present e.g. at: www.studocu.com/en-gb/document/harrow-college-uxbridge-college/assessing-risk-in-sport-unit/pdf-sample-its-nothing-dw/61244699. This image is a screenshot of the PDF made manually to make it easier to view here, the actual inscribed file has been uploaded to: raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/data/bin/b4f537bc536c392d425af0693e3282bbf697df01debeeaf7f9918b93af6bdd14.pdf. The first lines of the document read:
Adobe Acrobat PDF Files
Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts, formatting, colours and graphics of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.
Figure 34. Cat manga. TODO identify, transcribe japanese. tx 4986e9cd20b75bb534df92e60b232945e18274f4c46d25b8853af9bdda5166b8, block 581526 (2019-06-20).
Figure 35. Arms crossed. Nerdy caucasian woman in her late teens/early 20's wearing glasses and a jeans jacked with her arms crossed. TODO identify. tx a55e5e7492848445a9f9ecf55ce566242c9d95e6c46a171fd94a345e8b74c355, block 597374 (2019-10-01) with P2FKH
Figure 36. Black cat. No, Google reverse image search is never going to find the exact one amongst billions of pics. tx 8cf28eb9ac221d8cd15298b9ae63eca910b536a5234c133c7e364b29a4e39d21, block 625045 (2020-04-09) with P2FKH.
Figure 37. Teddy bear. tx 546124c6ad55acc6e0cd00a66fbd29e9b7df5fe8505e2ebf8470bb44aa35bc16, block 654100 (2020-10-24) with P2FKH. Cost: ~0.002 BTC ~ $25.77 at the time. Transaction made up of 339 * 550 SAT outputs.
Figure 38. The Starry Night by van Gogh.
tx 225ed8bc432d37cf434f80717286fd5671f676f12b573294db72a2a8f9b1e7ba, block 685647 (2021-05-31) Stored on SegWit. Googling leads to this hit: github.com/aureleoules/bitcandle by French programmer Aurèle Oulès which is an obscure uploader not known to us before this transaction was found.
tx 8dc2785335c59df6c00257f9b20e5df9b932a717f97066b279e292faba71a67a on block 685737 contains another one, but with a slightly different encoding, presumably Aureole was trying out different things.
Figure 39. Kitchen mirror selfie in swimming glasses.
This P2FMS has the peculiarity that each payload constant is preceded by a 04 byte which must be thrown away, we've decoded it manually with:
bitcoin-core.cli getrawtransaction 3110f49fb6047d62e6fa198a0a4b180d9abf7075d6f29472747990ae286295cb true | jq -r '.vout[].scriptPubKey.asm' | head -n-2 | sed -r 's/^....//;s/ 3 .*//' | tr -d ' \n' | xxd -r -p  > tmp.jpg
This transactions is also mentioned at: github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/28400 "Make provably unsignable standard P2PK and P2MS outpoints unspendable"
Figure 41. Gulagu.net people. tx 36e7f004ff22aa1146a00705d166fbca64d174c472a5296ed1f38d4749a74e10, block 710354 (2021-11-19). Rightmost Vladimir Osechkin. Two-stage P2SH inscription.
Figure 42. Low resolution GIF screenshot of the Bitcoin whitepaper intro.
The payload starts with: 7b260000 before the acutal GIF, which is why we hadn't found it before using binwalk. TODO what do those bytes mean?
The last payload uses OP_RETURN and encodes the ascii filename:
BTGC:satoshi.gif
TODO what is BTGC?
Figure 43. A man and his cactus. tx 4719e7252f4bdefd9f7bdf5058f17af28729b79c303b067eb01c107e57235754 (2024-01-27). Encoded as a data URL for a JPEG image in an OP_RETURN:
data:image/jpeg;base64
Perhaps a meme given the phalic shape of the plant.
TODO decode:
twitter.com/cryptograffiti (marked as joined March 2014)
Bitcoin blockchain image indexer and uploader. Uses fake P2PKH address.
At some point it stopped using Bitcoin mainline and moved to Bitcoin Cash instead: www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/cryptograffiti-rejects-bitcoin-core-bch-now-available-payment-method/ and therefore became useless. Existing indexes seem to have been broken as well.
Also, based on the timing of Figure "Erich Erstu", this service may be responsible for a large part of the raw JPEG images present in the blockchain from block 416527 (2016) onwards. This is also suggested by the comments at Figure "Tank Man".
A Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Arbitrary Blockchain Content on Bitcoin gives the interesting insight that all its transactions seem to return change/fees to one or two given addresses, thus making it very easy to list all their uploads if they were consistent! So all we need are some starting points, which we have mostly due to ASCII mentions of the site on known inscriptions, all of which have a few common spent addresses at the very end:
so we just have to solve get all Bitcoin transactions from and to a given address and we are done. Blockchair shows about 800 entries as of February 2024, between 4f94f97eb156b8563a213bb292314a0bd9c95b39afc521fc5965d050daab2a78 (2014-03-02) and ac5f4ea03597b43a72fb8ab42bd5384629f87f4f4abc534f38b8c15148ccaf9f (2017-10-12): blockchair.com/bitcoin/outputs?s=time(desc)&q=recipient(1MVpQJA7FtcDrwKC6zATkZvZcxqma4JixS)
Other related transactions:
TODO understand what these are:
  • ae92dc4c31943955ad6e3e45a4eb0067f488fdd9aecca65c946460dd2a85488d
  • 3020dbd7c850bf8c19ebacf670a2830fe50999a8b2560a202af21d536760eea4
  • d65384a21cb1c327cc42416a0b1e2a78ad0296cb7a15312bdcd67ef169ecb309
  • a3e3100d2b9a86e310430945c001df97a70626220a9e151208aecbb613f1f152
  • a9c82ebc47fabd1eed7eeea7760d0a3c99288af3c3a17e396ec790fc280698a2
  • 92bfd5c0fb0f24efa6ca568c4475f44e94dfc8d0d4d5da04dfafc6261bf17f45
  • 73c22adb21b93f9220d00d2614a50350824be95b8ea966349e6f35fe5ac5537b
  • 099c0fd06d18953c886121ff143ea0a20d0baf29999f424fa1ac707a81cf4987
  • 3ad6677303fb6f700a4f2f977fe86e5324e0ddb0d3b33a649e513d7e88904e85
  • 31a2ddaf4b146e021246e1f82e28121f5c9c8729620978309004515c7e559910
  • adaae897fd286aefb64a69e88a53e9af17ee98611ea595c3c92d038f3274d723
  • d8bf48e9ad3de62c695ff34a96e340912bd62e0a0282b94da6386b837c31a30d
Ordinals are inscriptions created with the protocol described at: docs.ordinals.com/inscriptions.html The protocol was designed by developer Casey Rodarmor, and shares a few similarities wit hthe AtomSea & EMBII protocol.
The protocol also includes a way to have ownership over inscriptions, effectively creating an NFT system on top of the bitcoin blockchain. AtomSea & EMBII also already had such a system however. In either case, Ciro Santilli couldn't give less of a fuck about who owns some random publicly viewable digital asset.
For whatever reason, orinals became extremelly popular compared to the AtomSea & EMBII format, leading to millions os inscriptions, and 10k+ images as of block 830k
This in turn led to a lot of child porn rediscussion, and people linking back to this page to view earlier inscriptions: incoming links.
Unfortunately, unlike AtomSea & EMBII and even cryptograffiti.info uploads, most ordinals are designed to be just souless bulk collectibles, as with as much artistic merit as any random collectible card set or postage stamps you may find at a newpaper stall. To make things worse many of them are likely algorithmically generated. Eternal September had truly arrived to the Bitcoin blockchain. As a result, machine learning would be almost essential in order to find interesting uploads amidst such bulk.
The source code for the reference uploader and indexer is at: github.com/ordinals/ord
The reference viewer server for the runs at: ordinals.com
Figure 1. Ordinal #0. This is the first ordinal ruleset inscription: ordinals.com/inscription/6fb976ab49dcec017f1e201e84395983204ae1a7c2abf7ced0a85d692e442799i0. It was made on block 767430 (2022-12-14).
The i0 at the end of the URL above means "inscription 0". This is because a single transaction can have multiple inscriptions.
Some of them have sold for high prices. Magic Eden is a popular interface for trading them:
The ordinals also started taking up large portions of the Bitcoin blockchain:
Apparently the "Taproot" Bitcoin update made it easier to upload image-sized data once again, which had become prohibitively expensive 2023 and much earlier:
These were found by running object detection software for some porn/nudity detection. We need to run some more, all sex was likely missed: github.com/GantMan/nsfw_model/issues/160
This section is about groups of ordinal ruleset inscription that share a theme and were presumably created by a single entity.
From their site:
OCM Genesis is our flagship generative art collection that's set many historic precedents since its launch in 2021. Genesis is the first NFT collection where all 10,000 images and metadata (similar to DNA describing the NFT) were generated using code entirely on-chain in a single transaction on Ethereum. With the launch of Bitcoin Ordinals, Genesis is the first ever collection of 10,000 images to be inscribed on Bitcoin in 2023.
Some of their likely transactions were noted in our list of large transactions: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/blob/master/data/payload_size_out e.g.:
004c3f1efa0095b229dd05ea247c94a5af742daf682fb082a6e62f4aeeb973f2 66033
ffc73ef454d512f98a451960e05a0a036406ed1078a1bd7082fd4036cf0af067 66021
but we haven't had the patience to index them properly yet. Boring art anyways.
They seem to be inscribing JPEGs with wizard faces on the Bitcoin blockchain .
TODO inscription method.
www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/01/12/taproot-wizards-bitcoin-ordinals-project-that-raised-75m-to-sell-quantum-cats-collection/ "Taproot Wizards, Bitcoin Ordinals Project That Raised $7.5M, to Sell 'Quantum Cats' Collection" OMG if only the worlds wouldn't invest in such useless crap... it would probably be a more boring world.
This section is about ordinals that are interesting primarily due to technical reasons linked to edge cases of the protocol.
Interesting MIME types:
Different ord markers:
  • 71e85885522047240a9e70542145dbf2385e1bd468e6ac6002aa755422ea10f5 uses takingnames. Decode with:
    bitcoin-core.cli decodescript "$(bitcoin-core.cli getrawtransaction 71e85885522047240a9e70542145dbf2385e1bd468e6ac6002aa755422ea10f5 true | jq -r '.vin[0].txinwitness[1]')" | jq -r .asm | sed 's/.* 0 //;s/ OP_ENDIF//;s/ //g' | xxd -r -p > 71e85885522047240a9e70542145dbf2385e1bd468e6ac6002aa755422ea10f5.png
    gives the PNG of the wireframe draing of a washing machine with transparent background.
These were ordinals that were only indexed in later versions of the script. So to prevent changing the useless indices of existing ordinals, they gave them negative numbers.
The word "cursed" is a meme from the 2010/20s, e.g. knowyourmeme.com/memes/cursed-images--2.
Some examples: