Theus on Nostr: Happy Genesis Block Day! Here are some facts and curiosities about the Genesis Block: ...
Happy Genesis Block Day!
Here are some facts and curiosities about the Genesis Block:
- The Genesis Block, also known as Block 0, is the very first block of Bitcoin's blockchain. Unlike all subsequent blocks, it does not reference a previous block, making it truly unique;
- Satoshi Nakamoto included a now-famous message in the Genesis Block: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” This headline from The Times serves both as a critique of centralized banking systems during the 2008 financial crisis and as a timestamp, since the hash could not have been generated before that date;
- The Genesis Block contains a reward of 50 bitcoins (a coinbase transaction), but due to the way it was coded, these bitcoins can never be spent;
- The second Bitcoin block was mined on January 9th, a full six days after the first. Normally, Bitcoin blocks are designed to be mined every 10 minutes. This delay for the second block can be attributed to several reasons. The algorithm responsible for adjusting mining difficulty to maintain the 10-minute interval only activates approximately every two weeks. Satoshi may have deliberately waited before mining more blocks to see if others would join the network—he didn’t want to pre-mine everything for himself.
Another theory suggests that since Satoshi was the only one mining at the time and still needed to make adjustments to the code while using his computer daily, there was limited time available for mining, which naturally led to delays.
Yet another theory posits that Satoshi’s original Bitcoin version required at least one additional node before mining could begin. It’s possible that Satoshi’s node was running when he released the software but only started mining once a second node joined the network. Bitcoin version 0.1 was announced on January 8th at 19:27 UTC via an email list. The second node would have appeared on the network sometime after this announcement, when someone became curious enough to download and run the software. Block 1 (the second block) has a timestamp of 2009-01-09 02:54 UTC—7 hours and 27 minutes after the software release announcement.
However, one of the most intriguing theories suggests that Satoshi deliberately mirrored the six days it took God to create the world, as described in the Book of Genesis.
#bitcoin
#nostr
Here are some facts and curiosities about the Genesis Block:
- The Genesis Block, also known as Block 0, is the very first block of Bitcoin's blockchain. Unlike all subsequent blocks, it does not reference a previous block, making it truly unique;
- Satoshi Nakamoto included a now-famous message in the Genesis Block: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” This headline from The Times serves both as a critique of centralized banking systems during the 2008 financial crisis and as a timestamp, since the hash could not have been generated before that date;
- The Genesis Block contains a reward of 50 bitcoins (a coinbase transaction), but due to the way it was coded, these bitcoins can never be spent;
- The second Bitcoin block was mined on January 9th, a full six days after the first. Normally, Bitcoin blocks are designed to be mined every 10 minutes. This delay for the second block can be attributed to several reasons. The algorithm responsible for adjusting mining difficulty to maintain the 10-minute interval only activates approximately every two weeks. Satoshi may have deliberately waited before mining more blocks to see if others would join the network—he didn’t want to pre-mine everything for himself.
Another theory suggests that since Satoshi was the only one mining at the time and still needed to make adjustments to the code while using his computer daily, there was limited time available for mining, which naturally led to delays.
Yet another theory posits that Satoshi’s original Bitcoin version required at least one additional node before mining could begin. It’s possible that Satoshi’s node was running when he released the software but only started mining once a second node joined the network. Bitcoin version 0.1 was announced on January 8th at 19:27 UTC via an email list. The second node would have appeared on the network sometime after this announcement, when someone became curious enough to download and run the software. Block 1 (the second block) has a timestamp of 2009-01-09 02:54 UTC—7 hours and 27 minutes after the software release announcement.
However, one of the most intriguing theories suggests that Satoshi deliberately mirrored the six days it took God to create the world, as described in the Book of Genesis.
#bitcoin
#nostr