
Hidden surprises in the Bitcoin blockchain and how they are stored (2014) - astdb
http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-photographs.html?m=1
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russellsprouts
> Along with the standard data, the original transaction also contains the
> message: 'The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for
> banks'[3]. Presumably this is a political commentary on Bitcoin compared to
> the insolvency of "real" banks.

While it may be political commentary, including a headline from a widely known
newspaper also proves that the block was created sometime after that date.

~~~
ATsch
Yes, afaik this was the purpose... to prove the creator had not pre-mined a
bunch of coins and was then going to cash then in later.

Which is incredible foresight, because that's what ended up happening with
some altcoins.

~~~
flashmob
There wasn't any competition to mine it for a long time, so post-mining would
have been just as effective as pre-mining. We know that Satoshi ended up
mining a lot of Bitcoin. Of course, all well deserved. Further reading on this
topic: [http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-
hashra...](http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2014/08/167-satoshis-
hashrate.html?m=1)

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Twisell
Doesn't that mean that a whole blockchain could possibly be deemed illegal in
some country due to copyright infringement or other liability of publications
laws?

I mean if you can't erase the data and keep publishing it, some would say you
are liable.

I see that as a particularly twisted legal argument, but couldn't some country
use that against blockchain infrastructure if they feel like it?

~~~
FrozenVoid
Interesting twist if bitcoin blockchain would be found to distribute illegal
porn or private/secret/classified data(it already stores some wikileaks
content). # How does government stop/censor a global p2p network? I guess they
would put pressure on developers and bitcoin foundation to remove the
offending data and update the (official) software to block/reject/deny any
upload of it. I assume it would have to employ heavy filtering to prevent
rogue actors from spamming illegal content and some functionality to revoke
bad blocks(will probably require major changes in ledger code). If there is no
change in client software it becomes exponentially harder to censor the data
if not impossible: at some point this could be used as legal reason vs anyone
hosting the full blockchain. The blockchain would have to be hard-forked to
point to the censored version. (I have no idea how this suppose to work since
each block depends on previous one: any incident will require to create a new
blockchain fork from the start of offending block and this probably won't
scale to dedicated attackers inserting illegal content into every block).

~~~
blunte
That's the beauty of a blockchain (and the rules that dictate how it is
written) - one does not simply "remove the offending data".

There are enough different parties involved that acquiring consensus to make
historical changes is practically impossible. The data that is there, at least
several blocks prior to the current block, is permanent.

An attempt to do this would scare the market, affecting the value of bitcoin.
The miners don't want that, so they will act in their greedy self-interest -
which means they won't attempt to do such a thing.

~~~
Twisell
Sorry if I'm naive but another thing I've always wondered about that is the
exponential size of the blockchain.

I mean if Bitcoin ever gain real traction isn't it pretty inefficient to store
all the data and replicate it around? Storage now seem infinite but
practicality it is not, won't current blockchain be saturated to the point of
uselessness when/if it reach usage level of an actual banking network?

"Let think about scaling later" is maybe not a good idea for a currency
implementation...

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Govindae
There's a new block every X minutes. Where's the exponential growth?

~~~
Twisell
Well as far as I know X already tend to grow since Bitcoin introduction and
it's a big point of discord between developers ("should we increase block
size" argument as far as I know).

Now to be more accurate it might rather be a growth according to a logistic
curve. Right now Bitcoin is used only by early adopters, but should Bitcoin
usage diffuse among general customers it will growth quasi exponentially
before plateauing.

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amingilani
I once used the OP_RETURN to do the nerd equivalent of carving a heart in a
tree.

Tx `26c5ca404cc37abf77fc722a11f56b34a481f7879b1c11fe68fcdcdf2a15626f`[1] it
contains the following hex data in the OP_RETURN:

    
    
      40616d696e67696c616e69203c332040697a7a617368616869642023536179497457697468426974636f696e2023466c6f6f64546865426c6f636b636861696e
    

Which when converted to a string says:

 _@amingilani <3 @izzashahid #SayItWithBitcoin #FloodTheBlockchain_

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1ba9115454
These days getting a 4kb image into the blockchain would cost you around 44
USD.

i.e. 4096 x 200 satoshi fee = 819200 satoshis about .00819200 BTC.

Add approximately a 50% overhead in the way you would need to store that image
and you're looking at about .016 BTC.

~~~
glebedel
transactions have been going through for a several weeks with 1-20 satoshi per
byte. Unless you're in a hurry to get that image in a block, you can do it for
10 to 200 times cheaper than quoted price.

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Tutankamon
A map to find treasure or secret passwords or the end of the world
plans...Just imagine what could end up in the blockchain. Part time capsule
part safe part invisible ink part James bond part infinity. Just think of all
the craziness..I need to put something in the blockchain. But what...

~~~
cassetti
[https://proofofexistence.com/](https://proofofexistence.com/)

~~~
amingilani
Or my favorite: stamp.io

If you have an Estonian ID, Stamp.io lets you sign it too!

Full disclosure: I know the Stamp.io team, and they're awesome.

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RustyRussell
BTW, please don't use this address-spamming technique! You can simply put data
after an OP_RETURN, which, while permanently encoding it in the blockchain,
ensures that nodes know it can't be spent.

~~~
1ba9115454
That's fixed to 80bytes, perhaps space for a few smileys.

~~~
RustyRussell
But the encode-in-address method is limited to 20 bytes.

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comex
(2014). Wonder how much other stuff has been added since then.

~~~
amingilani
Well, if you check out tx
`26c5ca404cc37abf77fc722a11f56b34a481f7879b1c11fe68fcdcdf2a15626f`[1] it
contains the following hex data in the OP_RETURN:

    
    
      40616d696e67696c616e69203c332040697a7a617368616869642023536179497457697468426974636f696e2023466c6f6f64546865426c6f636b636861696e
    

Which when converted to a string says:

 _@amingilani <3 @izzashahid #SayItWithBitcoin #FloodTheBlockchain_

Clearly I love my wife (fiance actually but give it few months)

[1]:
[https://blockchain.info/tx/26c5ca404cc37abf77fc722a11f56b34a...](https://blockchain.info/tx/26c5ca404cc37abf77fc722a11f56b34a481f7879b1c11fe68fcdcdf2a15626f?show_adv=true)

