Topics (118k) Articles (119k) Users (810) Discussions (503) Comments (457) New article
New Updated Top Announced A-Z
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / cryptograffiti.info by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
twitter.com/cryptograffiti (marked as joined March 2014)
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
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Raw images by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-11-18
View more
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 2.
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 3.
JPG thumbnail
. Presumably a JPEG upload test. tx 515a95381e511141229966d722db19db7da66a0d629b1f883d296287632e72b3, block 349362 (2015-03-26) via cryptograffiti.info.
Figure 4.
we 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.
We don't know if she's actually Iranian, it's just an uneducated guess.
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.
which is a reference to Nada's original dialogue:
I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Video 1.
I'm here to chew bubblegum
. Source. Off-chain film scene for context.
Figure 12.
Cryptocurrency 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.
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 the now dead as of 2021: cryptograffiti.info/#ca4f11131eca6b4d61daf707a470cfccd1ef3d80a6f8b70f1f07616b451ca64e.jpg.
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 2.
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 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). The man depicted is Cryptocurrency developer Sahil Chaturvedi. 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.
tx 976e0766ebe0528d44595170f83f46ab1304c0a3b809f16454ee9be0e816e3a3, block 921133 (2025-10-28) contains an OP_RETURN encoded MP4 AI generated video of Bitcoin Core developer Gloria Zhao standing up and showing her buttocks. This transaction takes up most of the block with an Ethereum tatoo on her lower back. Presumably it is from someone criticizing Gloria's design choices regarding inscriptions on the blockchain. Also mentioned at:
TODO decode:
Read the full article
Facebook by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / AtomSea & EMBII data format by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
For a detailed analysis of one transaction see: Nelson-Mandela.jpg.
Best guess so far, all in ASCII hex of output scripts:
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Nelson-Mandela.jpg analysis by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
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
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.
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / ILoveYouMore.jpg by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
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? One of the photos is from the First Lutheran church in Fargo, Nort Dacota.
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.
x.com/EMBII4U/status/1940802996851634198 comments on the effect his mother's death had on him:
I was dealing with severe depression brought about by life and the loss of my mom
was too many things left unsaid
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:
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Early AtomSea & EMBII uploads by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
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 tx c9d1363ea517cd463950f83168ce8242ef917d99cd6518995bd1af927d335828 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 cropped 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 on tx 70fd289901bae0409f27237506c330588d917716944c6359a8711b0ad6b4ce76 from block 273522 (2013-12-07):
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989
tx b8b9f50a354166c46b69ecd47a0fbd20ee78c3471d2557bf275aff1b4cf4752d (2013-12-07) on bitfossil.org) contains Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein:
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.
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.
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Custom encoded images of unknown source by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
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.
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.
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/
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Force of Will by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
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:
Read the full article
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-19
View more
This is a collection of cool data found in the Bitcoin blockchain using techniques mentioned at: Section "How to extract data from the Bitcoin blockchain". Notably, Ciro Santilli developed his own set of scripts at github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer to find some of this data. This article is based on data analyzed up to around block 831k (February 2024).
Drop some Bitcoins at 3KRk7f2JgekF6x7QBqPHdZ3pPDuMdY3eWR if you are loaded and like this article in order to support some much needed higher educational reform: Section "Sponsor Ciro Santilli's work on OurBigBook.com".
When this kind of non-financial data is embedded into a blockchain some people called an "inscription". The study or "early" inscriptions had been called a form of "archaeology"[ref][ref]. Since this is a collection of archeological artifacts, we call it a "museum"!
Video 1.
My Bitcoin inscription museum by Ciro Santilli
. Source. Introductory video to this article. Edited from Aratu Week 2024 Talk by Ciro Santilli: My Best Random Projects.
One really cool thing about inscriptions is that because blockchains are huge Merkle trees, it is impossible to censor any one inscription without censoring the entire blockchain. It is also really cool to see people treating the Bitcoin blockchain basically like a global social media feed!
Starting on December 2022, ordinal ruleset inscriptions took the bitcoin blockchain by storm, and dwarfed in volume all other previous inscriptions. This museum focuses mostly on non-ordinals, though certain specific ordinal topics that especially interest he curators may be covered, e.g. Ordinal ruleset inscription porn and ordinal ASCII art inscription.
Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014) is a mandatory precursor to this article and contains the most interesting examples of the time. But much happened since Ken's article which we try to cover. This analysis is also a bit more data oriented through our usage of scripting.
Artifacts can be organized in various ways:
In this article we've done a mixture of:
  • themes: if multiple items fall in a theme, we tend to put it there first
  • then by media type if they don't fit any specific theme
  • then by encoding
  • and finally chronologically within each section
Who said it was easy to be a museum curator!
Read the full article
Bitcoin inscription by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Read the full article
Bitcoin blockchain j( upload system by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
This is likely a system that uploads text to the blockchain.
One example can be seen on the Marijuana plant.
Messages are uploaded one line per transaction, and thus may be cut up on the blk.txt, and possibly even out of order.
But because each line starts with j( you can generally piece things up regardless.
TODO identify. The first occurrence seems to be in tx e8c61e29c6b829e289f8d0fc95f9eb2eb00c89c85cfa3a9c700b15805451ae6a:
j(DOCPROOF@?pnvf=!;AG
Read the full article
Peter Todd's data upload scripts by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
tx 243dea31863e94dc2f293489db02452e9bde279df1ab7feb6e456a4af672156a contains another upload script. The help reads:
Publish text in the blockchain, suitably padded for easy recovery with strings
Read the full article
BitcoinStrings.com by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
bitcoinstrings.com has all strings -n20 strings, we can obtain the whole thing and clean it up a bit with:
wget -O all.html https://bitcoinstrings.com/all
cp all.html all-recode.html
recode html..ascii all-recode.html
awk '!seen[$0]++' all-recode.html > all-uniq.html
awk to skip the gazillion "mined by message" repeats.
A lot of in that website stuff appears to be cut up at the 20 mark. As shown in Force of Will, this is possibly because they didn't use -w in strings -n20, and the text after the newlines was less than 20 characters.
That website can be replicated by downloading the Bitcoin blockchain locally, then:
cd .bitcoin/blocks
for f in blk*.dat; do strings -n20 -w $f | awk '!seen[$0]++' > ${f%.dat}.txt; done
tail +n1 *.txt
Remove most of the binary crap:
head -n-1 *.txt | grep -e '[. ]' | grep -iv 'mined by' | less
Read the full article
Meal deal by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
x.com/Birdyword/status/1777591446612193667
A while ago a Singaporean taxi driver asked me what a UK hawker centre lunch might cost. I explained that there aren't any. He asked what office workers ate, and I explained the concept of Meal deals. And he looked at me with such a powerful combination of pity and revulsion.
Singaporean taxi drivers are the cutest.
Read the full article
Bitcoin Inscription Indexer by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
Previously called "bitcoin-strings-with-txids" since text was the initial focus, but Ciro Santilli decided to go for the more general name once images became more and more important to the project.
Set of scripts b Ciro Santilli, primarily created while researching Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain.
Read the full article
Blockchain.info by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
TODO who owns it? Are they reliable?
This helper dumps a transaction JSON to a binary:
bitcoin-tx-out-scripts() (
    # Dump data contained in out scripts. Remove first 3 last 2 bytes of
    # standard transaction boilerplate.
    h="$1"
    echo curl "https://blockchain.info/tx/${h}?format=json" |
    jq '.out[].script' tmp.json |
    sed 's/"76a914//;s/88ac"//' |
    xxd -r -p > "${h}.bin"
)
Their API limit witout key is 1 query per 10 seconds!!!
Read the full article
Blockchain explorer by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Read the full article
How to extract data from the Bitcoin blockchain by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
TODO: it would be cool to have something like bitcoinstrings.com but including the actual transactions:
Read the full article
How to store data in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
View more
There are apparently two methods:
Specific implementations:
Read the full article

Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project

Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Video 1.
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source.
We have two killer features:
  1. topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculus
    Articles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
    • a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
    • a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
    This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
    Figure 1.
    Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page
    . View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivative
    Video 2.
    OurBigBook Web topics demo
    . Source.
  2. local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:
    This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
    Figure 2.
    You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either https://OurBigBook.com or as a static website
    .
    Figure 3.
    Visual Studio Code extension installation
    .
    Figure 4.
    Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation
    .
    Figure 5.
    Web editor
    . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.
    Video 3.
    Edit locally and publish demo
    . Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.
    Video 4.
    OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo
    . Source.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact
Site settings