Determining what really is the blockchain depends on the way you look at it. It is a tool for making money and buying a ‘lambo’, if you are a trader. It is a wonderful piece of tech if you look at it as a nerd. It is still astonishing how Satoshi Nakamoto (whenever who or they are) combined like a puzzle different technologies that already existed (cryptography, digital signatures, hashing, p2p…) and created an incredible, brilliant new tech masterpiece. It is a source of common created shared truth if you feel a philosopher. Could be a tool that helps fighting censorship, if you are an activist or a libertarian, as what is written can’t be changed or censured. It is a tool to defend our economic freedom from dictatorship and authoritarian governments. Not the keys, not the money. Whoever you are, you can’t grab my bitcoins. Well, if you don’t lose your own keys. 🙂
Everything above is true at the same time. And somebody thought it would be a good idea to store in the Blockchain some, well, someone have called them “Graffiti”. And they nailed it. It is a sort of misuse of the transactional blockchain protocol. It is a very high tech kind of graffiti on the electronic wall of the Blockchain. An unintended and not expected use? Maybe not really as the first to abuse it was Satoshi Nakamoto in the genesis block, that contains “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”, a political commentary on Bitcoin against insolvency of traditional financial institutes: banks.
You can expect to find really awkward and really heterogeneous ‘posts’. One that I like is this one, contains a pic of Nelson Mandela and a tribute text:
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.”
In many transactions you can find something less important, such as the bitcoin logo:
The range of things you can find is really wide: you can find the original Bitcoin Paper, simple photos of common people, 1000 digits of pi, poems, prayers, a 2.5 Megabytes Wikileaks files and instructions on how to access it, the source code of Python tools to use to insert data on the blockchain, Valentine’s day messages, an email text of Satoshi Nakamoto, a creature simulator written in Basic, a tribute to the cryptographer Len Sassaman…
And if you feel adventurous and skilled…
Satoshi Nakamoto is believed to have mined in the early days roughly from 750.000 to 1.1 million BTC. They are still there, divided in many wallets. It looks like nobody touched them. Somebody thinks that Satoshi Nakamoto left in the blockchain signs to trace a treasure hunt map towards such big hunting treasure.
Here you can find some hints to start the treasure hunt: https://ncfacanada.org/did-satoshi-nakamotos-plan-a-blockchain-btc-treasure-hunt/
Maybe using PlutoHash Services you could find the key. Who knows?
Have a nice week and don’t forget to smile!