Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Incoming links Updated 2025-07-26
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Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Interesting AtomSea & EMBII uploads Updated 2025-07-16
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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.
This seems to be a novel work uploaded by its creator artist Allen Vandever according to EMBII.[ref].
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
. tx 460ed23bea89176cdfe18e13fce51ad5386ad8e3e1f7d6f5b4711b3be97b0502 block 360565 (2015-06-12). EMBII claimed on Twitter that he took this photo in Auckland, New Zealand. The shop on the right corner has a sign that starts with "Bo" and searching for "Auckland Bo" gave us the "The body shop" on the corner of Queen Street and Darby Street. Some things changed between 2015 and 2024, notably the bench is gone and the shop on the left corner changed, but we can go back in time in Google Street View to 2015 which further confirms the location.
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.
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 2/300 shares to Ciro Santilli. Amen. The transaction list can be seen on the web UI at: p2fk.io/GetObjectByAddress/1KUyhHLrK1ckY8W7Qu31h6gFkXoihWHMzi?mainnet=true&verbose=true It had unfortunately never sold as of 2025, the only activity was EMBII giving off some shares and two listings of 1/300 for 1 BTC. Poor EMBII!
Other possibly novel EMBII street photography:
Audio:
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Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Largest text ordinal inscription Updated 2025-07-16
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Text is the only reasonbly interesting content that Ciro Santilli has seen in the ordinals, as opposed to images which are boring. They haven'g found a way to commercialize it yet it seems, thank God. Glad to have researcehd this a bit!
Shame that the plaintext ones don't show up too well on ordinals.com!
The largest inscriptions with mime text/* are:
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Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Ordinal ruleset inscription Updated 2025-07-16
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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 with the 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. They also started to take up a substatial portion of the available block space.
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:
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Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Raw images Updated 2025-11-18
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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:
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Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain / Text Updated 2025-07-16
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Here are some exceptionally interesting text inscriptions that are not mentioned in other sections:
TODO:
  • 55a5d0c09ad5535711d649fdab394add3bb6e50cc2c49920cf0cb758ff0b69e8 via cryptograffiti.info contains what seems to be a ASCII table tracking train movements? Maybe from a train lover? But also curiously, it is GPG signed:
    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

time    direction    # covered    #uncovered    notes
11/11/2013 6:31pm    E    4    1    csx 6243
11/19/2013 4:46pm    E    3    0    csx 6215
11/19/2013 5:44pm    W    4    0    Amtrak
11/21/2013 4:05pm    E    0    0    csx 6206
    Interesting.
    86c1b7bd8bbdd8903355a8f6a408616621fd2ea4321b9aced778f388afe0b244 has something similar.
  • cc38d740dc1999a803dbba0c48a82af994861e0767f6bcd7d6ceebe4e66b4678 via cryptograffiti.info contains a pipe dream technical proposal idea entitled:
    Attack-resistant decentralized time and location services via Nakamoto chain consensus.
  • 5d9ef37e6beea5342ce1cb2681a7b465a542394aeda2b1e1fed00fab44b17833 via cryptograffiti.info contains a test of every character from 0 to 255, e.g. some of the readable characters are:
    65:              A
66:              B
67:              C
68:              D
69:              E
70:              F
71:              G
72:              H
73:              I
74:              J
75:              K
76:              L
77:              M
    d5f6614b4e3bdc611c8ad15f158163e48e1a1298ea5f5f9832ada8db6e2dd4b2 has something similar.
  • 0f96b2f6e3c4f4b6319efbafd2e7148d507b260b4d7914766e79aec7d9ac9574 via cryptograffiti.info has a long-ish message that looks like a software release note, not sure what it is about:
    Truecrypt 7.1a
==============

2015-07-19

I am setting the filesizes and checksums of the last Truecrypt version (7.1a) in stone.
  • 206a0edb11ba0677248709d9bc5210b35e8a03710d9bb19c6f1e4e254bf21f5e via cryptograffiti.info has a letter to AGI:While cute, the author clearly underestimates the magnitude of singularity!
  • cdbeb50c11b788fa4e67e00fb2e2607b129492a4a38bed0a9e31443a42e272a4 via cryptograffiti.info contains a semi-philosophical text that starts with:
    When in the course of cosmic evolution,
  • b55c3312ceeeb4ab422b658f5f4d5884775a498ddde6a527fca7b67752e1b044 via cryptograffiti.info contains some wedding vows starting with and GPG-signed:
    Zachary Thomas Smith,
    I give myself - Jenna Marie Vaziri - to you, to be your wife, your best friend, and your home - just as you are to me.
  • 3620da027df2e2e34ac9abe0123dcd7217fc5b8dec9921cbae258c640c7a6591 via cryptograffiti.info contains a neatly formatted UTF-8 ad with a link to: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033773.0
    ╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│    B&C EXCHANGE:  A decentralized cryptocurrency exchange for everyone    │
┝━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┥
│             https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033773.0             │
│                                                                           │
│ B&C Exchange will be an open-source decentralized exchange that completes │
│ cryptocurrency  trades between  users by utilizing multisig signers  that │
│ compete for blockchain  rewards based on their effectiveness and honesty. │
├╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
┆          ▷▶▷▶    There are 10 days  left in the auction!    ◀◁◀◁          ┆
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    The thread links to bcexchange.org/ which is dead as of 2024.
    f93e128c59b357ca2d1b256eb1c4d991c488da460527ca0898dc789210073bd2 has another one:
    ┏━━ UTF-8 is coming to CryptoGraffiti.info!!! ━━┓
┠╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┨
┃ I love you.                          Σ΄αγαπώ. ┃
┃               Ma armastan sind.               ┃
┃ Aš tave myliu.               Mä rakastan sua. ┃
┃                 Я люблю тебя.                 ┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  • 140562ceb42fc8943fa52ccc0ddbb11ca2d88dae9b5240d7a4b46864538c515aTODO understand this part:
    The "Address" you see above is more than a bitcoin address? For example, the web address to this

reddit thread is: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3cdxep/reddit_on_the_blockchain_test/

Which converts to the bitcoin address of:
12uPLj6PSz6ULnZi1jXo7Ch1Je1SuqxRcE

How? Because any text, like a web address, can be converted into a bitcoin address.

www.reddit.com = 1MZCEUCtyJCDkNSLYbPVvAgf9V3CsEw3t
www.google.com = 1JEZLaFciACHDEMVd3RXZzPmGcsWEwYQLr
www.voat.com = 1JvCp9X5Bvvt2kz3EqP5ppkzX62sKgKbqr
www.paystamper.com = 14wgeaWz2rKax8iVSWNFSrSsAYNeGyNdkt
Duriel@paystamper.com = 1HcuhfTAiQCt6KdMG2rZLXsTcKYj9nLDhS
  • 940f41f5cc96182c1392c239d7570f94bd524e141ca0a88fdb154bd817049f83.bin via cryptograffiti.info contains some links to profiles controlled by a "Daniel Michael Abraham" www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-abraham-9432a798/. Other messages by him:
    • 3d39024fa0cddfc529d4a41501df7a076f5bcf9a7a43f88f54a717e6df7f4770
    • 088ebf7ffdef96b8fcac7eafa2ff6d04f295ea24f159e1ce4b7d47ed7b91b1f9
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C++ format print containers Created 2025-05-26 Updated 2025-07-16
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Cryogenic electron microscopy Updated 2025-07-16
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This technique has managed to determine protein 3D structures for proteins that people were not able to crystallize for X-ray crystallography.
It is said however that cryoEM is even fiddlier than X-ray crystallography, so it is mostly attempted if crystallization attempts fail.
By looking at Figure 1. "A cryoEM image", you can easily understand the basics of cryoEM.
We just put a gazillion copies of our molecule of interest in a solution, and then image all of them in the frozen water.
Each one of them appears in the image in a random rotated view, so given enough of those point of view images, we can deduce the entire 3D structure of the molecule.
Ciro Santilli once watched a talk by Richard Henderson about cryoEM circa 2020, where he mentioned that he witnessed some students in the 1980's going to Germany, and coming into contact with early cryoEM. And when they came back, they just told their principal investigator: "I'm going to drop my PhD theme and focus exclusively on cryoEM". That's how hot the cryo thing was! So cool.
Figure 1.
A cryoEM image
. Source. This is the type of image that you get out of a raw CryoEM experiment.
Video 1.
The structure of our cells by Matteo Allegretti
. Source. The start is useless. But the end at this timestamp shows an interesting technique where they actually cut up cells in fine slices and image them, that's cool.
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Csound Updated 2025-07-16
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XML file format (but with 99% of the action of interest in a domain-specific language on the CsInstruments and CsScore elements) that can be played and the reference implementation. Offers complex effects out-of-box apparently.
Allows you to easily define instruments with seemingly arbitrary mathematical functions, and then use them to play notes at given time intervals.
The instrument functions can be parametrized, and each note played can have different parameters.
The instrument definition actually defines a block diagram graph, much like a hardware synthesizer would.
Csound is so not-bloated that it contains an UI system. And it includes an interactive virtual MIDI keyboard that interacts with parameter knobs: www.csounds.com/manual/html/MidiTop.html
But hey, it's fun. And like any other good domain-specific language, debugging it is barbaric of course.
If only it had been written in Python... the array manipulation boilerplate would be likely perfect for NumPy, and this would have been exactly what Ciro Santilli wanted!
CSound states that one of its design goals is backward compatibility, and it shows. Some of the stuff is utterly arcane, e.g. you have to remember what GEN10, GEN11, etc. mean instead of having named enums.
It just worked on Ubuntu 20.04 no questions asked:
sudo apt install csound
git clone https://github.com/csound/csound
cd csound
git checkout 92409ecce053d707360a5794f5f4f6bf5ebf5d24
csound examples/xanadu.csd
which runs this file: github.com/csound/csound/blob/92409ecce053d707360a5794f5f4f6bf5ebf5d24/examples/xanadu.csd and this plays a relly cool sound demo:
Video 1.
Xanadu Csound demo
. Source.
Save to file instead of playing:
csound -o xanadu.wav xanadu.csd
or direct ogg output:
csound --ogg -o xanadu.ogg xanadu.csd
or pipe to stdout to FFmpeg TODO: stackoverflow.com/questions/64970503/how-to-pipe-csound-output-to-ffmpeg-for-conversion-without-an-intermediate-file
TODO find the most amazing set of songs made with it on GitHub? Some examples:
Documentation-wise, it's a bit lacking. The only dude who can explain it really well, Dr Richard Boulanger, made the "The Csound Book" closed source, so, congrats, this will forever hurt the popularity of Csound.
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Cult Updated 2025-07-16
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Cult leader Updated 2025-07-16
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Cultured meat Updated 2025-07-16
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This is something worth investigating!
Video 1.
Inside the Quest to Make Lab Grown Meat by WIRED (2018)
Source.
Interviews with a few startups in the area, most of the time with Eat Just.
youtu.be/QO9SS1NS6MM?t=217 taught Ciro Santilli something he really appreciated: uncanny valley.
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Cycling Updated 2025-07-16
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Daisy chain Bitcoin inscription Updated 2025-07-16
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This is a term invented by Ciro Santilli, and refers to a loose set of uncommon Bitcoin inscription methods that involve inscribing one or a small number of payloads per Bitcoin transaction.
These methods are both inefficient and hard to detect and decode, partly because Bitcoin Core does not index spending transactions: bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/61794/bitcoin-rpc-how-to-find-the-transaction-that-spends-a-txo. This makes finding them all that more rewarding however.
On the other hand, they do have the advantage of not depending on any block size limits, as their individual transactions are very small.
Inscribing anything large would however take a very long time, as you'd have to wait until the previous payload chunk is confirmed before going to the next one. This alone makes the format impractical perhaps.
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Dan Abramson Updated 2025-07-16
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Dan, if you ever Google yourself here, please contact Ciro Santilli: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli" to do something with OurBigBook.com. Cheers.
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Dan Dascalescu Updated 2025-07-16
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This dude is interesting. Quite crazy type. It is hard to differentiate genius from mad.
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David Tong Updated 2025-07-16
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A charismatic, perfect-English-accent (Received Pronunciation) physicist from University of Cambridge, specializing in quantum field theory.
He has done several "vulgarization" lectures, some of which could be better called undergrad appetizers rather, a notable example being Video "Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe by David Tong (2017)" for the prestigious Royal Institution, but remains a hardcore researcher: scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=felFiY4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate. Lots of open access publications BTW, so kudos.
The amount of lecture notes on his website looks really impressive: www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html, he looks like a good educator.
David has also shown some interest in applications of high energy mathematical ideas to condensed matter, e.g. links between the renormalization group and phase transition phenomena. TODO there was a YouTube video about that, find it and link here.
Ciro Santilli wonders if his family is of East Asian, origin and if he can still speak any east asian languages. "Tong" is of course a transcription of several major Chinese surnames and from looks he could be mixed blood, but as mentioned at www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=tong it can also be an English "metonymic occupational name for a maker or user of tongs". After staring at his picture for a while Ciro is going with the maker of tongs theory initially.
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De-banking should be illegal Created 2024-11-26 Updated 2025-07-16
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Courts of law should decide if your money is legal or not. Not private entities such as banks. This is actually a case for cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies.
Ciro Santilli had a fun mini-case of this with his Barclays account frozen for a few days in 2024 in the UK after receiving a large anonymous cryptocurrency donatio: Barclays regulation.
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DeepMind Updated 2025-07-16
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They seem to do some cool stuff.
They have also declined every one of Ciro Santilli's applications for software engineer jobs before any interview. Ciro always wondered what does it take to get an interview with them. Lilely a PhD? Oh well.
In the early days at least lots of gamedev experience was enough though: www.linkedin.com/in/charles-beattie-0695373/.
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Deep tech Updated 2025-07-16
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Ciro Santilli is a fan of this late 2010's buzzword.
It basically came about because of the endless stream of useless software startups made since the 2000's by one or two people with no investments with the continued increase in computers and Internet speeds until the great wall was reached.
Deep tech means not one of those. More specifically, it means technologies that require significant investment in expensive materials and laboratory equipment to progress, such as molecular biology technologies and quantum computing.
And it basically comes down to technologies that wrestle with the fundamental laws of physics rather than software data wrangling.
Computers are of course limited by the laws of physics, but those are much hidden by several layers of indirection.
Full visibility, and full control, make computer tasks be tasks that eventually always work out more or less as expected.
The same does not hold true when real Physics is involved.
Physics is brutal.
To start with, you can't even see your system very clearly, and often doing so requires altering its behaviour.
For example, in molecular biology, most great discoveries are made after some new technique is made to be able to observe smaller things.
But you often have to kill your cells to make those observations, which makes it very hard to understand how they work dynamically.
What we would really want would be to track every single protein as it goes about inside the cell. But that is likely an impossible dream.
The same for the brain. If we had observations of every neuron, how long would it take to understand it? Not long, people are really good at reverse engineering things when there is enough information available to do so, see also science is the reverse engineering of nature.
Then, even when you start to see the system, you might have a very hard time controlling it, because it is so fragile. This is basically the case of quantum computing in 2020.
It is for those reasons that deep tech is so exciting.
The next big things will come from deep tech. Failure is always a possibility, and you can't know before you try.
But that's also why its so fun to dare.
Stuff that Ciro Santilli considers "deep tech" as of 2020:
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