LightningNetwork+ on Nostr: The Bitcoin genesis block was mined 16 years ago. š«” An interesting and less known ...
The Bitcoin genesis block was mined 16 years ago. š«”
An interesting and less known fact about the Genesis block of Bitcoin is that the 50 BTC reward from this block is effectively unspendable. This is due to how the transaction is encoded in the block; it uses a non-standard scripting language which does not include spending instructions, making the initial 50 BTC locked and inoperable. Satoshi didn't even want to premine the first bitcoin block.
Another lesser-known fact about the Bitcoin Genesis block is the hidden message embedded within it by Satoshi Nakamoto. In addition to the well-known text from The Times newspaper headline (āThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banksā), the block contains the value 486604799 in its coinbase parameter. This number, when interpreted as a hexadecimal string (0x1D00FFFF), represents the easiest possible mining difficulty for the Genesis block.
One final, lesser-known aspect about the Bitcoin Genesis block is that it wasn't actually broadcast to the network in the conventional sense since there was no network at that time. Satoshi Nakamoto mined this block on a single computer, and it only became part of the blockchain when other nodes joined the network later. This means the Genesis block was essentially a solitary event, unique in that it didn't need validation from other nodes to confirm its existence. This underscores the unique, bootstrapped nature of Bitcoin's initial implementation, where the blockchain started from a single point of origin before growing into a distributed network.
An interesting and less known fact about the Genesis block of Bitcoin is that the 50 BTC reward from this block is effectively unspendable. This is due to how the transaction is encoded in the block; it uses a non-standard scripting language which does not include spending instructions, making the initial 50 BTC locked and inoperable. Satoshi didn't even want to premine the first bitcoin block.
Another lesser-known fact about the Bitcoin Genesis block is the hidden message embedded within it by Satoshi Nakamoto. In addition to the well-known text from The Times newspaper headline (āThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banksā), the block contains the value 486604799 in its coinbase parameter. This number, when interpreted as a hexadecimal string (0x1D00FFFF), represents the easiest possible mining difficulty for the Genesis block.
One final, lesser-known aspect about the Bitcoin Genesis block is that it wasn't actually broadcast to the network in the conventional sense since there was no network at that time. Satoshi Nakamoto mined this block on a single computer, and it only became part of the blockchain when other nodes joined the network later. This means the Genesis block was essentially a solitary event, unique in that it didn't need validation from other nodes to confirm its existence. This underscores the unique, bootstrapped nature of Bitcoin's initial implementation, where the blockchain started from a single point of origin before growing into a distributed network.