In a peculiar turn of events, a day following the transfer of a substantial 26.9 BTC, valued at $1.17 million, to Bitcoin’s Genesis wallet on January 5, the cryptocurrency community has been abuzz with various speculations and theories.
An anonymous Bitcoin enthusiast has recently spent approximately $64,000 in transaction fees to embed nearly 9 megabytes of unprocessed binary data into the BTC blockchain. As reported on January 7 via X (formerly Twitter) by the Ordinals explorer Ord.io, a Bitcoiner used over 1 BTC, equivalent to around $43,994 to create 332 inscriptions at approximately 11:20 am UTC on January 6.
These inscriptions comprise “raw binary data”. Curiously, the content and meaning of the embedded data remain unknown, with attempts, including the utilization of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, thus proving unsuccessful in deciphering it.
BREAKING: Someone just spent >1 BTC to inscribe 8.93 MB of raw binary data into Bitcoin.
Can anybody decode it to find out what it is?
→ https://t.co/PAaKCWVDus pic.twitter.com/wIpOsgwmhF
— Ord.io (@ord_io) January 6, 2024
In a post dated January 7, Leonidas, the host of The Ordinal Show, commented on the recent occurrence of inscribing encrypted data onto the Bitcoin blockchain. He further stated that some speculate the data to be encrypted, making decryption potentially impossible or extremely challenging.
The identity of the individual or entity behind the inscription remains a subject of speculation among users. Also, the Bitcoin address associated with this enigmatic inscription spree “bc1pnp…zwd0th” has a label as “Unnamed” on Ord.io.
Notably, the encrypted data comprises a mix of English, Greek, and mathematical symbols. Intriguingly, within the 332 inscriptions, two of them have a digital depiction of a pepperoni pizza. According to Ord.io, this signifies that the data contains satoshis from the 10,000 BTC used in the historic transaction where early Bitcoin contributor Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two Papa John’s pepperoni pizzas on May 22, 2010.
Bitcoin Whale Movements
In a peculiar turn of events, a day following the transfer of a substantial 26.9 BTC, valued at $1.17 million, to Bitcoin’s Genesis wallet on January 5, the cryptocurrency community has been abuzz with various speculations and theories. The Genesis wallet, being the first-ever created Bitcoin wallet, has garnered attention from industry observers.
Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, expressed curiosity about the origin of the significant BTC transfer, wondering if it was an awakening of Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, or if someone intentionally chose to “burn a million dollars”.
Jeremy Hogan, a prominent lawyer advocating for XRP, proposed an intriguing theory suggesting that the transaction might have aimed to flush out the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. According to Hogan, this move would compel the individual to either report the funds to the United States Internal Revenue Service or act in violation of the law.
However, skeptics noted that Hogan’s theory would only be relevant if Satoshi Nakamoto were subject to US tax laws. The enigmatic nature of the Genesis wallet activity continues to fuel speculation and discussions within the cryptocurrency community.