Today, we answer to Alberto. He asks: "Where can I find the famous title of The Times in Bitcoin blockchain? Is the page saved into the blockchain?"
Nice shot Alberto. The title is written in the "genesis block" and it has been created on 3 January 2009. The genesis block is the first block of the blockchain. On the same day, we could read the same title on Times journal "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks".
It's a great title to show Bitcoin to the world! Yes you can find the title inside the blockchain, but not the entire page! Moreover you can find the title inside the coinbase transaction, in the genesis block, just in the block with height 0.
In action!
We know that the message is inside the genesis block, then we can explore the block with height 0
bitcoin-cli getblockhash 0We can use the method getblockhash to retrieve its hash. Now we can use the method getblock in order to get more information.
bitcoin-cli getblock 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26fThere is just one transaction inside tx array. Please get more information about it using getrawtransaction
bitcoin-cli getrawtransaction 4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b 2Whops! We got an error! It's a very particular transaction. To get more information we can use getblockhash method again, with param "2" in order to retrieve more data.
bitcoin-cli getblock 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f 2We can use the method xxd to convert the hex value to ASCII value.
$ echo 04ffff001d0104455468652054696d65732030332f4a616e2f32303039204368616e63656c6c6f72206f6e206272696e6b206f66207365636f6e64206261696c6f757420666f722062616e6b73 | xxd -r -p
??EThe Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks% Unbelievable.The result is the Times's title with the date!
During the lastest halving (11 may 2020, check my article!) the bitcoin community added another cool message! Retrieve the block.
bitcoin-cli getblockhash 629999After retrieve the hash, we can use the getblock method.
bitcoin-cli getblock 0000000000000000000d656be18bb095db1b23bd797266b0ac3ba720b1962b1eWe can retrieve the coinbase. Remember, the coinbase is always the first transaction of the block.
$ bitcoin-cli getrawtransaction aed3754889f65dff83504fd0a8b78e1b69fc22c5396c67df23b0e607bf4e0d67 2 |jq -r '.vin'
[
{
"coinbase": "03ef9c0952f09f909f4e5954696d65732030392f4170722f3230323020576974682024322e335420496e6a656374696f6e2c20466564277320506c616e2046617220457863656564732032303038205265736375652020144d696e6564200500ba5e4800",
"sequence": 0
}
]
We can convert again the hex value into ASCII.
$ printf 03ef9c0952f09f909f4e5954696d65732030392f4170722f3230323020576974682024322e335420496e6a656374696f6e2c20466564277320506c616e2046617220457863656564732032303038205265736375652020144d696e6564200500ba5e4800 | xxd -r -p
? R🐟NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue Mined ?^HAaaand here we are!!! Another amazing message! It's a clear message against the classic economic system!
09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed’s Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue Mined ?^H–––––
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🐙 GitHub: https://bit.ly/2Lj3yeY
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Television isn’t a good idea (Radio Stations)
Email isn’t a good idea (Post offices)
Amazon isn’t a good idea (Retail stores)
Bitcoin isn’t a good idea (Central banks)
In crypto we trust