Some very strange things have been going on in the Bitcoin network since the use of Bitcoin inscriptions became widespread.
One of them is how someone sent nearly 30 $BTC worth more than $1 million to the network's Genesis wallet last week.
This week, we have an instance of someone who has spent more than $60,000 in fees, to write an enormous amount of data onto the BTC network.
However, the bogus fees aren't the issue. The issue is what this individual wrote.
Nearly nine megabytes (MB) of data were "inscribed" on the Bitcoin network on January 6, 2024, by someone who paid more than 1 BTC in fees.
This individual sent out a staggering 332 transactions with fees ranging from 14 to 2,500 satoshis.
What is interesting, however, is how this information was encoded in raw binary format (a bunch of zeros and ones that can be used to represent any type of data), and has remained a complete mystery.
Analysts and enthusiasts have been trying since Sunday this week, to decode or decrypt the data, which included a mix of English, Greek and mathematical symbols.
One user even tried to use the popular AI tool, ChatGPT to decode this enigmatic message, and ran into the issue:
"the attempt to decode the image has been automatically interrupted because it took too long to process"
This has led to commentators wondering if the data was encoded with a strong encryption algorithm, or whether it contains a hidden message, a puzzle, a challenge, or a prank.
What is even more interesting is how nobody knows who (or what) wrote this data.
When we take a look at the transaction on the ORD.io website, we can see that the Bitcoin address that was used to send the transactions is marked as "Unnamed."
Even stranger is how apart from the 332 inscriptions, this mysterious address has not been associated with any other transactions.
This might be a nod to the scenario in 2010 when someone spent about 10,000 Bitcoin (worth billions today) on two Papa John's pizzas.
Since it was the first instance of using Bitcoin to pay for a tangible object, this event is well-known in the history of the cryptocurrency.
Additionally, the pizza icon being sent with several encoded inscriptions suggests that the data's writer has access to some of the rarest and most valuable Bitcoin that is currently in circulation.
The Satoshi used to inscribe this one, for example, was from 2012 (three years after Bitcoin was created).
This begs the question: Who is this person, how did they get this Bitcoin, Are they Satoshi Nakamoto (or connected to them), and why are they using this "old Bitcoin" to inscribe data to the blockchain?
The new Bitcoin inscriptions are only the latest new developments on the Bitcoin network.
For example, a day before all of this happened 26.9 BTC (worth more than $1 million) was transferred to the Bitcoin Genesis wallet, also known as the first-ever Bitcoin wallet created by Satoshi Nakamoto himself.
Speculation is starting to fly around, about Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly waking up, and moving his/their Bitcoin around.
However, others have also speculated that whoever is doing all of this is attempting to lure Satoshi Nakamoto from hiding, because they would have to report all of the money received to the IRS or risk breaking the law.
However, this theory assumes that Satoshi Nakamoto is subject to US tax laws, which may not be the case.
Overall, the origin of these strange transfers will either remain unknown for all time or will become clear as time flies by.
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