Starting at tx cbbaa0a64924fe1d6ace3352f23242aa0028d4e0ff6ae8ed615244d66079cfb1 (2011-08-05), Catholic Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr started to inscribe prayers in the miner messages of his mining pool "Eligius pool", usually one verse per message.
Saint Eligius by Petrus Christus
. Source. Off-chain image for illustration. Eligius pool is named after Saint Eligius, patron of goldsmiths and miners[ref]These are some of the earliest inscriptions in the blockchain, and therefore extremelly visible.
Although the prayer verses appear contiguous in ASCII dumps, Eligius was not actually mining every block: it is just that in those early days, miners still hadn't started adding advertisement messages to every block, so only Eligius shows up and appears contiguous.
At some point, opponents noticed these messages, and started adding atheist mockery graffiti replies, which appear interspersed in ASCII dumps with the prayer.
The first prayer is the Latin version of the Divine Praises, a Catholic prayer composed in 1797 in Italian by Luigi Felici for the purpose of making reparation after saying or hearing sacrilege or blasphemy. Luke claims he was referring to anything in particular that came prior in the blockchain: twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1749182637569122434. There arent many earlier inscriptions at all to refer to in any case! The prayer and correspondong interrupts (in transaction outputs, not by other miners) ordered by block are:
- 139690 (2011-08-05) prayer: "Eligius/Benedictus Deus. Benedictum Nomen Sanctum eius."
- 139717 prayer: "Eligius/Benedictus Deus. Benedictum Nomen Sanctum eius.'
- 139758 interruption:
***************************************************. This is not a Coinbase message: www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/23befff6eea3dded0e34574af65c266c9398e7d7d9d07022bf1cd526c5cdbc94. This Bitcoin input script appears to spend a standard P2PKH output, but it first adds an extra value to the stack which contains the***. - 139792 prayer: "Benedictus Iesus Christus, verus Deus et verus homo.'
- 139831 prayer: "Benedictum Nomen Iesu.'
- 139838 (2011-08-06) interruption: "I LIKE TURTLES" (tx 78eb16507b3d3df615e3b474e853db4667f4b11954ec6d918b1ded0fca7ad25a)
- 138898 prayer: "Benedictum Cor eius sacratissimum."
- 139904 prayer: "Benedictus Sanguis eius pretiosissimus."
- 139921 prayer: "Benedictus Iesus in sanctissimo altaris Sacramento."
- 139942 prayer: "Benedictus Sanctus Spiritus, Paraclitus."
- 139954 interrupion: "aC-C-C-COMBO BREAKER" (tx 138c024a76df99ecafd2236d5429cf574b7778a3c6508bd83f116c832f3c6980)
- 139960 prayer: "Benedictus Sanctus Spiritus, Paraclitus."
- 139977 prayer: "Benedicta excelsa Mater Dei, Maria sanctissima."
- 139990 (2011-08-06) prayer: "Benedicta sancta eius et immaculata Conceptio."
Then comes:and various others + output message interruptions.
- 140181 Latin Trinitarian formula
In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
- Act of Contrition
- Act of Hope
Then at last come the first miner message interruptions. Luke explained on Twitter[ref] that they were also made by Eligius pool, as there was a system in which contributors besides Luke could submit their own strings:followed by more prayers and interruptions such as tx ec92d245822fa1ff862f3314b9102f36fe1eb8bc055865674c75323540aedef6:
- 142547: (2011-08-25) tx 8e1e44a48b5e79636675d1476f8e4add075bbeb7f49e00ec743eed56f17feaaa A yandere game is starting in 60 seconds! Please type "]yandere" to join. Yandere Simulator comes to mind, but it can't be because that was pitched 2014.
- 142550: "A yandere game is starting in 60 seconds! Please type "]yandere" to join."
- 142573: (2011-08-25) "Militant atheists, bit.ly/naNhG2 -- happy now?". A Rickrolling link. Perhaps one of the fist.
- 142596: (2011-08-25) "<cjdelisle> ran out of prayers?! That explains the price drop.". Possibly quoting this dude on som twitter.com/cjdelisle Bitcoin IRC channel givesn the
<USERNAME>format? - 142640: "an de ti go su by ra me ni ko hu vy la po fy ton": Tonal system numerals. Interesting.
FFS Luke-Jr leave the blockchain alone!
Oh, and God isn't real
The last Luke prayer appears to be on block 143822 (2011-09-03)
... the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.
Then there is a bit of radio silence, until finally Slush Pool started self advertising for the first time on block 163970 (2012-01-26):They had been mining for a long time by then (December 2010 according to en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Slush_Pool), but this is when they decided to add a human readable ASCII message as well.
/P2SH/BIP16/slush/R,From then on, miner messages would be forever polluted with ads, and Luke's multi-miner message feat would never again be reproduced.
The non-obvious interruptions are all well known memes/anime references:
- "I like turtles": knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-like-turtles
- Combo breaker: knowyourmeme.com/memes/combo-breaker
- "Yukkuri Shiteitte ne": knowyourmeme.com/memes/yukkuri-shiteitte-ne
- "kLhLUKE-JR IS A Pedophile! Oh, and God isn't real, sucka. Stop polluting the blockchain with your nonsense.", tx 9740e7d646f5278603c04706a366716e5e87212c57395e0d24761c0ae784b2c6, block 141460
- "Help me, ERINNNNNN!!": touhou.fandom.com/wiki/Lyrics:_Help_me,_ERINNNNNN!!
- "EASY MODO? How lame!F?": knowyourmeme.com/memes/kimoi-girls
Bibliography:
- 2011-08-19 bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=38007.0 "Eligius miners aware of prayers in block headers?" from on bitcointalk.org by user "Graet" who quotes prior discussion from a Bitcoin IRC channel:<luke-jr> cosurgi: by design, it contains "random" data-- I've just been setting some of that "random" data to prayers<Graet> mm interesting luke-jr i understand you are strong in your faith but you dont think putting prayers in might alienate some ppl - after all btc is multidenominational<luke-jr> Graet: Catholics do not believe in freedom of religion.<Graet> and you make your non catholic miners aware of this?
- 2011-11-02 bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52979.0 "Mysterious transaction spotted in blockchain!"
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain Len Sassaman tribute by 
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16Tribute 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.
Present at tx 930a2114cdaa86e1fac46d15c74e81c09eee1d4150ff9d48e76cb0697d8e1d72. It does not show well on Bitcoin Inscription Indexer however with rationale described at: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer/tree/3f53e152ec9bb0d070dbcb8f9249d92f89effa70#smart-newline-joining
But it can be seen at on bitcoinStrings.com at: bitcoinstrings.com/blk00003.txt.
Transaction: www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/930a2114cdaa86e1fac46d15c74e81c09eee1d4150ff9d48e76cb0697d8e1d72 from 2011-07-30, a few weeks after the suicide.
Discussion: bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3370/in-which-block-was-len-sassaman-memorialised/101276#101276
Created by famous computer security researcher Dan Kaminsky and Travis Goodspeed, presumably this other security researcher, evidence:
- signature on the tribute
- the art is highlighted at Video 1. "Black OPS of TCP/IP by Dan Kaminsky (2011)", which happened very few days after the art was uploaded to the blockchain, thus making it exceedingly unlikely that someone else could have done it
"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
. 
Official portrait of Ben Bernanke (2008)
Source. Reference image from Wikipedia for the ASCII art.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:So it is really encoded one line at a time in the
"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"
}script of the transaction outputs.You read the name and think: hmm, neural cords!
But then you see that his is one of its members:
Yup. That's your cousin. And it's a much closer cousin than something like arthropods, which at least have heads eyes and legs like you.
Convergent evolution is crazy!
How an atomic clock works, and its use in the global positioning system (GPS) by EngineerGuy (2012)
Source. Shows how conceptually an atomic clock is based on a feedback loop of two hyperfine structure states of caesium atoms (non-radioactive caesium-133 as clarified by the Wikipedia page). Like a quartz clock, it also relies on the piezoelectricity of quartz, but unlike the quartz clock, the quartz is not shaped like a tuning fork, and has a much larger resonating frequency of about 7 MHz. The feedback is completed by producing photons that resonate at the right frequency to excite the caesium.Inside the HP 5061A Cesium Clock by CuriousMarc (2020)
Source. A similar model was used in the Hafele-Keating experiment to test special relativity on two planes flying in opposite directions. Miniaturization was key.
Contains a disposable tube with 6g of Caesium. You boil it, so when it runs out, you change the tube, 40k USD. Their tube is made by Agilent Technologies, so a replacement since that opened in 1999, and the original machine is from the 60s.
Detection is done with an electron multiplier.
youtu.be/eOti3kKWX-c?t=1166 They compare it with their 100 dollar GPS disciplined oscillator, since GPS satellites have atomic clocks in them.
Quick presentation of the atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory (2010)
Source. Their super accurate setup first does laser cooling on the caesium atoms.This chick is hardcore.
Beautifully argued at: Can't get you out of my head by Adam Curtis (2021).
- The Quantum Story by Jim Baggott (2011) page 10 mentions:and the footnote comments:
Early examples of such cavities included rather expensive closed cylinders made from porcelain and platinum.
- 1859-60 Gustav Kirchhoff demonstrated that the ratio of emitted to absorbed energy depends only on the frequency of the radiation and the temperature inside the cavity
- 1896 Wien approximation seems to explain existing curves well
- 1900 expriments by Otto Lummer and Ernst Pringsheim show Wien approximation is bad for lower frequencies
- 1900-10-07 Heinrich Rubens visits Planck in Planck's villa in the Berlin suburb of Grünewald and informs him about new experimental he and Ferdinand Kurlbaum obtained, still showing that Wien approximation is bad
- 1900 Planck's law matches Lummer and Pringsheim's experiments well. Planck forced to make the "desperate" postulate that energy is exchanged in quantized lumps. Not clear that light itself is quantized however, he thinks it might be something to do with allowed vibration modes of the atoms of the cavity rather.
- 1900 Rayleigh-Jeans law derived from classical first principles matches Planck's law for low frequencies, but diverges at higher frequencies.
Black-body Radiation Experiment by sciencesolution (2008)
Source. A modern version of the experiment with a PASCO scientific EX-9920 setup.This situation is the most bizarre thing ever. The dude was fired in 2020, but he refused to be fired, and because he has the company seal, they can't fire him. He is still going to the office as of 2022. It makes one wonder what are the true political causes for this situation. A big warning sign to all companies tring to setup joint ventures in China!
Near Los Angeles.
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