= Genesis block message
{c}
{tag=Coinbase message}
{title2=2009-01-03}
{wiki}
<Inscription (Blockchain)> added by <Satoshi Nakamoto> on the <Genesis block> containing:
\Q[The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks ]
which is a reference to: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chancellor-alistair-darling-on-brink-of-second-bailout-for-banks-n9l382mn62h wihch is fully titled:
\Q[Chancellor Alistair Darling on brink of second bailout for banks]
The "Alistair" was slikely removed due to limited payload concerns.
Through the newspaper reference, the message proves a minimal starting date for the first mine.
And it hints that one of <Bitcoin>'s motivation was the <financial crisis of 2007-2008>, where banks were given bailouts by the government to not go under, which many people opposed as the crisis was their own fault in the first place. A notable related stab is taken at <cool data embedded in the bitcoin blockchain/Len Sassaman tribute>.
We can extract the image from the blockchain ourselves by starting from: https://blockchain.info/block-height/0?format=json[].
From that page we manually extract the hash `000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f` and then:
``
wget -O 0.hex https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f?format=hex
xxd -p -r 0.hex
``
and that does contain the famous genesis block string:
``
EThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks
``
The JSON clarifies that the data is encoded in the `script` field of the transaction `input`:
``
{
{
"script":"04ffff001d0104455468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f72206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b73"
``
The extra `E` (0x45 in <ASCII>) in `EThe Times` is just extra noise required by the script, we can break things up as:
``
04ffff001d0104 45 5468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f72206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b73
``
where:
* `54` is `T`
* the `04ffff001d0104` part just doesn't show up on the terminal because it is not made of any printable characters.
The initial `04` is `OP_RETURN`.
TODO what is actual the meaning of the `ffff001d010445` part? `@defango` https://twitter.com/defango/status/1642750851134652417 comments:
\Q[
04ffff001d0104 is a hexadecimal string. It is commonly used in the Bitcoin network as a part of the mining process. Specifically, it is used as the target value for a block to be considered valid by the Bitcoin network.
This value represents the level of difficulty required for a miner to generate a block that meets the network's criteria. The first four bytes, 04ffff, represent the maximum possible target value. The next three bytes, 001d01, represent the current difficulty level
while the final byte, 04, is a padding byte. In summary, this value sets the difficulty level for mining a new block in the Bitcoin network.
]
TODO the `output` of the transaction has a jumbled script, likely just a regular output to get things going, can't be arbitrary like input.