A mysterious individual has made an intriguing move in the world of Bitcoin, spending a significant sum of $66,000 to inscribe undisclosed data onto the cryptocurrency’s blockchain. This enigmatic act involved a series of 332 transactions, resulting in almost 9 megabytes of encrypted information being permanently etched onto the digital ledger.
Interestingly, these transactions came with hefty fees, with some costing thousands of dollars each. However, most of the transactions carried a fee closer to $200. Despite the considerable investment, the true content of the inscribed data remains a complete enigma, as it remains encrypted and unreadable to anyone.
News about this peculiar incident was initially shared by the X account of Ordinals explorer, Ord.io. Naturally, this sparked jokes, speculation, and even Rickrolls from X users, each theorizing about the possible motivations behind this cryptic undertaking.
The technique employed to accomplish this feat is known as the Ordinals protocol, which assigns data to specific satoshis, the smallest unit of a Bitcoin. While Ordinals are often utilized to store artwork directly on the blockchain, any form of data can be inscribed, including encrypted text.
Interestingly, this is not the only recent unusual utilization of the Bitcoin blockchain. In a separate incident, an anonymous wallet sent a substantial sum of $1.2 million to the Genesis wallet mined by the enigmatic figure, Satoshi Nakamoto. These funds have not been moved since 2010, and it is highly unlikely they will ever be retrieved, adding to the mystique and intrigue surrounding Bitcoin’s origins.