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Title: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Sergio_Demian_Lerner on April 10, 2013, 03:41:55 AM Who created the Genesis Block?
Where in the world was the computer that mined it running ? How many computers did Satoshi used to mine the genesis block? Why did it take 6 days to be created? Did Satoshi rested for one day afterwards? If you keep reading, I will lead you to a quest to find the answers to these questions using software archeology. The Genesis Block Genesis block header hash is this (hex): 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f Note that it starts with 43 zero bits. Why? The block target difficulty was much lower (around 32 bits), so we can assume Satoshi did this on purpose. At that time (2009) GPU mining was probably not already implemented (although maybe Satoshi did think about it). GPU mining began to be used around 2011. The first Google trends reference is on April 2011 (http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=GPU%20mine%20Bitcoin) So Satoshi was doing mining on a CPU. How many CPUs did Satoshi used to mine the first block? The Genesis Miner The Satoshi client source code version 0.1 does not have a special routine nor a command line switch to mine a Genesis block. In fact, the Genesis block was hard-coded, which probably means it was generated by another application whose source code is unknown. Nevertheless, since BTCs were essentially worthless at that time, and there was no competition between miners, we can assume he was mining with his own (and just one) personal computer. The Satoshi PC A good PC CPU in 2009 could do approximately 2^22 double-hashes/second. (Taking into account NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=2, so two threads mine together). Satoshi client 0.1 did not have an optimization of these double-hashes, by backing up and restoring the intermediate state of the second hash application, so we can assume that the routine that created the genesis block did not had such optimization. Lets estimate how much time it takes for Satoshi PC to solve the genesis block with 43 zeros: Initial 22 bits (nonce test/second) Add approximately 16 bits for a whole day (86400 ~= 2^16) Add approximately 2.5 bits to make it 6 days Total bits: 41.5 So after 6 days there is approximately 17% change he may have found the genesis block. Was he lucky? So did he let the miner working for 6 days on purpose? The day Satoshi rested Let's check the genesis block date/time and block 1 date/time Block 0: 2009-01-03 18:15:05 Block 1: 2009-01-09 02:54:25 (6 days later!) Did Satoshi intent was to relate the six days the miner "worked" to create the genesis block to the time God took to create the world in the Genesis book of the old testament? I don't think so, but the relation is interesting! One thing that we must note is that the block time seems to have been fixed, instead of being continuously updated, as the Satoshi client does. Since the coinbase transaction in the genesis block relates to this date (by the embedded message: The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks), I assume that Satoshi wanted the block date to be identical than the news on The Times. The nonce mismatch Now we'll try to check all these conjectures by analyzing the nonce size. The nonce size in the block header is only 32 bits. Too short to try 2^43 possibilities. Then to achieve 43 bits zero bits in the block header hash, the miner app must have overflowed the nonce approximately 2^11 times, incrementing the bnExtraNonce each time the 32 bit nonce overflowed. Now let's look at the scriptsig in the coinbase: 04 ff ff 00 1d (1d00ffff, the Compact representation of Difficulty or nBits) 01 04 (Extra nonce) 45 5468652054696d6573203.... So the extra nonce is only 4, which means that the block was found only after 4 overflows, which means the genesis miner worked for only 4.2 minutes (estimated mean time). I haven't the slightest idea why these two values (2^11 and 4) differ by 500x. The explanation that Satoshi did have 500 computers while mining the genesis block is unsatisfactory, since the the number of initial zero bits in block 1 is only 32. Why acquire such computing power to and then never use it again? One of the possible explanations is that the Genesis Miner did not increment the extra nonce when the nonce overflowed, but changed the destination address of the coinbase transaction. This in turn could mean that the destination address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa is not a valid address, but a nonce. Can you solve the mystery? Best regards, Sergio. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: kjj on April 10, 2013, 03:58:01 AM Or maybe he just got lucky.
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Sergio_Demian_Lerner on April 10, 2013, 04:03:08 AM Or he stopped and restarted mining just 5 minutes before he found the genesis block, so the extra nonce was reset...
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: bb113 on April 10, 2013, 05:15:55 AM Sounds interesting. Can you explain for non-techies? For example, perhaps he performed this procedure multiple times.
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: jimbobway on April 10, 2013, 05:33:29 AM Here is info on that address. Looks like Satoshi was sending satoshis.
https://blockchain.info/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa Wow, people are paying homage to Satoshi by sending him bitcoins. Bitcoin is now a religion. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: wumpus on April 10, 2013, 05:43:01 AM Amusing write-up! maybe you should write a mystery novel a la Dan Brown :)
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: jaime on April 10, 2013, 06:44:53 AM "Genesis Block" makes a great title for such a novel.
Could have computed that hash on a powerful computer, maybe in his University Campus, or rented computers in Amazon EC2. But why such a difficulty? Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: zeroday on April 10, 2013, 06:57:28 AM "Let there be Bitcoin!
.... By the seventh day Satoshi had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work." Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: gmaxwell on April 10, 2013, 07:06:42 AM Since the genesis block was generated with some external code it may well have been rolling the public key... Even with valid ones— though the output of block 0 is not spendable in any case.
I was aware of the suspiciously high difficulty... and when Bluematt last brought it up in #bitcoin-dev I suggested that perhaps he just left it running, saving the best result, while he did the final preparation for the release. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Shevek on April 10, 2013, 11:19:45 AM Isn't time a variable of the block header to be hashed? If yes, after 2^32 calculation the header changes, and a new round of nonces makes sense.
Other option: after an unsuccess round, he could try a transaction to a different address, so the header also changed. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: apetersson on April 10, 2013, 12:19:57 PM wow, this makes an interesting story. SDL always comes up with all kinds of in-depth bitcoin knowledge.
that makes me think -> SDL==SN Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Remember remember the 5th of November on April 10, 2013, 12:36:25 PM I would really appreciate if my question on the genesis block is also answered https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171355.msg1782000#msg1782000
I basically ask in the thread how it's made, and how one could also create a genesis block from scratch. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: pc on April 10, 2013, 02:53:55 PM I suggested that perhaps he just left it running, saving the best result, while he did the final preparation for the release. Didn't he need to mine both block 0 and block 1? And unless he knew the Times headline before it was printed, that means he mined 2 blocks within 6 days, right? Isn't that the point of the headline, to prove that he hadn't premined more than that? Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Mike Hearn on April 10, 2013, 03:41:49 PM Interesting, thanks Sergio.
Knowing how Satoshi operated it was unlikely to be a genuinely separate application. More likely it was just a hacked up version of the app. He wasn't big into modularity or internal APIs. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: deepceleron on April 12, 2013, 03:35:44 AM >>> d=int("00000000FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",16) >>> g=int("000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f",16) >>> print (float(d)/float(g)) 2536.42629845 The difficulty equivalent of the genesis hash is 2536.42629845 Looking up old hashing results: AMD Phenom II X4 3GHz Bitcoin Version 0.3 (Win 32-bit) 4 cores - 2300 khash/s Difficulty: 2536.4263 Hash Rate: 2.30 Time to generate one block ~54.8 days The genesis hasher could have been looking for just > difficulty 1, and it spit this lucky hash out, so Satoshi used it to show his awesomeness. He could have been changing the headline every day looking for a Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: CasinoBit on April 12, 2013, 06:47:57 AM ..."By the seventh day Satoshi had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested his miner from all his work. And Satoshi blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it his miner rested [or ceased] from all the work of creating that he had done." (Bitcoin 2:2-3)
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: opticbit on April 12, 2013, 07:04:06 AM Here is info on that address. Looks like Satoshi was sending satoshis. https://blockchain.info/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa Wow, people are paying homage to Satoshi by sending him bitcoins. Bitcoin is now a religion. sent my sacrificial Satoshi good luck and or something. fba606d3b48b66c52bb7e6597fe65c976d2da300ff57865c56c60b8840e9fa0b Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Bitobsessed on April 12, 2013, 07:41:02 AM Here is info on that address. Looks like Satoshi was sending satoshis. https://blockchain.info/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa Wow, people are paying homage to Satoshi by sending him bitcoins. Bitcoin is now a religion. sent my sacrificial Satoshi good luck and or something. fba606d3b48b66c52bb7e6597fe65c976d2da300ff57865c56c60b8840e9fa0b fef5386ffa462507127b3e315d46567d84858827cee2f8e102788e4064d255c1 Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: apetersson on April 12, 2013, 09:34:02 AM fef5386ffa462507127b3e315d46567d84858827cee2f8e102788e4064d255c1 RAmen! Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: grau on April 13, 2013, 01:08:35 AM I suggested that perhaps he just left it running, saving the best result, while he did the final preparation for the release. Didn't he need to mine both block 0 and block 1? And unless he knew the Times headline before it was printed, that means he mined 2 blocks within 6 days, right? Isn't that the point of the headline, to prove that he hadn't premined more than that? He wanted the headline in the genesis. He needed a few days to patch and run the client for a strong POW on it, then deleted the superfluous code and started over with block 1,2... Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: zakoliverz on April 14, 2013, 09:06:27 AM Just cross your fingers , maybe it will bring good luck.
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: phatsphere on April 14, 2013, 10:47:53 AM I think everyone can safely assume that he had access to a larger multiprocessor machine. His rationale might have been that the first block should be a bit "harder" than the consecutive ones. That's all.
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Bitobsessed on August 28, 2013, 06:56:36 PM Sergio, if you are still around, have you investigated this anymore and if so what are your findings?
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: lavalampoon on September 01, 2013, 05:50:01 AM Code is not created all at once. He would have been determining the best rules to use by testing them. He likely had a computer crunching away for months to prove the difficulty that he later decided was best. His computer would have kept the lowest hash, and that was the best one to use for the genesis block.
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Sergio_Demian_Lerner on September 03, 2013, 04:37:42 AM Sergio, if you are still around, have you investigated this anymore and if so what are your findings? Yes, and all the mystery regarding Satoshi computing power has been solved. Satoshi did one more joke on us before fading away. Tomorrow, I will tell. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: maaku on September 03, 2013, 06:36:07 AM Code is not created all at once. He would have been determining the best rules to use by testing them. He likely had a computer crunching away for months to prove the difficulty that he later decided was best. His computer would have kept the lowest hash, and that was the best one to use for the genesis block. I suppose he then planted the 1/3 article in The Times?Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Micky25 on September 03, 2013, 08:39:30 AM Hi,
do you guys have an explanation for these transactions? That genesis block address has received 848 transactions! Is this a deliberate "feature" in the standard bitcoin client which has the first used address as a default somewhere and therefore collecting loads of smallish payments? All these 0.000055 BTC transactions are really strange. Satoshis pension payments, built into the protocol? ;) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=286847.msg3070309#msg3070309 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=286847.msg3070309#msg3070309) Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: jackjack on September 03, 2013, 01:52:00 PM Hi, do you guys have an explanation for these transactions? That genesis block address has received 848 transactions! Is this a deliberate "feature" in the standard bitcoin client which has the first used address as a default somewhere and therefore collecting loads of smallish payments? All these 0.000055 BTC transactions are really strange. Satoshis pension payments, built into the protocol? ;) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=286847.msg3070309#msg3070309 Maybe it's people sending 5500 satoshis to Satoshi? Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Micky25 on September 03, 2013, 02:05:55 PM you mean like a kind of sacrificial offering? :D
Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Stephen Gornick on September 03, 2013, 11:07:17 PM Satoshi did one more joke on us before fading away. Tomorrow, I will tell. A new mystery about Satoshi hidden in the Bitcoin block-chain - http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/new-mystery-about-satoshi/ by Sergio Demian Lerner, @SDLerner on Twitter. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: garlonicon on January 31, 2022, 07:33:58 PM Quote Genesis block header hash is this (hex): There is more: if you use a different extraNonce value of 1, 2, 3 and 4, you will notice that there are more headers starting with 40 zero bits or more:000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f Note that it starts with 43 zero bits. Why? The block target difficulty was much lower (around 32 bits), so we can assume Satoshi did this on purpose. Code: extraNonce: 0x01, time: 0x495fab1d, offset: 0x0c, nonce: 0x3429da6f, hash: 00000000 00052ab4 78b6f8a2 dcaba26a 189361c9 030b5d56 c524cb7b ddf00d0c Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: mynonce on January 31, 2022, 09:30:20 PM Quote Genesis block header hash is this (hex): There is more: if you use a different extraNonce value of 1, 2, 3 and 4, you will notice that there are more headers starting with 40 zero bits or more:000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f Note that it starts with 43 zero bits. Why? The block target difficulty was much lower (around 32 bits), so we can assume Satoshi did this on purpose. Code: extraNonce: 0x01, time: 0x495fab1d, offset: 0x0c, nonce: 0x3429da6f, hash: 00000000 00052ab4 78b6f8a2 dcaba26a 189361c9 030b5d56 c524cb7b ddf00d0c Can you explain the purpose? Satoshi wanted exactly this ExtraNonce? Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: garlonicon on January 31, 2022, 10:14:36 PM Quote Can you explain the purpose? I don't know. I just noticed it is quite unlikely to get something like this randomly. You can try producing some 40-bit block hashes and then check how far from that you will get blocks with other extraNonces. Some people thought Satoshi was just very lucky. But why he used a block with more than 40 leading zero bits, where there were a lot of blocks with 32 leading zero bits? And why there are other hashes with more than 40 leading zero bits, that are so close to the block he included in the current chain? You can try for example using extraNonce equal to four and find another 40-bit block with some earlier timestamp: you will find the nearest block 537 seconds before. And here you have four nonces, where each timestamp exist just a few seconds before!Satoshi wanted exactly this ExtraNonce? TLDR: I just found a pattern. I don't know yet, what is the meaning of this, we can only write some code and guess what happened, how the Genesis Block was mined and why it was mined in that way. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: mynonce on January 31, 2022, 10:46:50 PM ... That could be interesting ... ... but on the other hand, they just need to move on and forget about it cause it's part of the game where some will win and some will lose. We don't know Satoshi's game and the plan for the lost coins, but this is also possible: https://news.bitcoin.com/online-sleuths-believe-satoshi-nakamotos-bitcoin-stash-is-a-blockchain-treasure-hunt-meant-to-be-found/ (https://news.bitcoin.com/online-sleuths-believe-satoshi-nakamotos-bitcoin-stash-is-a-blockchain-treasure-hunt-meant-to-be-found/) 'Lastly, the online detectives also discussed Satoshi’s famous lost coins quote: “Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.” Maybe, Satoshi wasn’t talking about coins lost over time, but the creator’s stash hidden inside the blockchain via text or a myriad of messages. “Whoever is able to solve it, is the chosen person that Satoshi expects to succeed,” an individual wrote in the bitcointalk.org conversation. “It’s like a place to determine Satoshi’s legacy for us in the future. Is this a contest? A pirate treasure?” he asked.' Maybe you discovered something ... (read the link) Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: BlackHatCoiner on February 01, 2022, 04:15:02 PM And here you have four nonces, where each timestamp exist just a few seconds before! Which means... what? The only thing I can conclude is that Satoshi had a lot more computational power than imagined, and was searching for a block with these specific details you've covered for a reason.Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: pooya87 on February 02, 2022, 04:42:37 AM There is more: if you use a different extraNonce value of 1, 2, 3 and 4, you will notice that there are more headers starting with 40 zero bits or more: Isn't what you did here true about any other block with difficulty = 1?Code: extraNonce: 0x01, time: 0x495fab1d, offset: 0x0c, nonce: 0x3429da6f, hash: 00000000 00052ab4 78b6f8a2 dcaba26a 189361c9 030b5d56 c524cb7b ddf00d0c You are computing the hash 4 billion times then increment the time then compute it another 4 billion times, and repeat this multiple times. That is more than enough to find a hash for block with difficulty = 1 almost all the time. In other words you can do what you did to any of the subsequent early blocks. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: garlonicon on February 02, 2022, 05:33:04 AM Quote Isn't what you did here true about any other block with difficulty = 1? I am not looking for difficulty=1. That would be 32 leading zero bits (to be precise, lower than 00000000ffff0000...00). Here you have 40 leading zero bits, so something like difficulty=256 (or even higher difficulty). Of course it also meets difficulty=1, but it is always true that if a block meets some difficulty, then that block also meets all lower difficulties.Quote You are computing the hash 4 billion times then increment the time then compute it another 4 billion times, and repeat this multiple times. That is more than enough to find a hash for block with difficulty = 1 almost all the time. There are a lot of blocks with difficulty=1 (leading 32 zero bits). But if you want to get any block with difficulty>=256 (leading 40 zero bits), then you can for example use extraNonce=4 and you will find it with 537 seconds earlier timestamp. For extraNonce=3 it will be 696 seconds earlier. On average, you have to check 256 seconds to reach 40-bit blocks. Here you have four such blocks, where each has a difference of a few seconds, when compared to the block in the chain.Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: pooya87 on February 02, 2022, 08:05:03 AM Quote Isn't what you did here true about any other block with difficulty = 1? I am not looking for difficulty=1. That would be 32 leading zero bits (to be precise, lower than 00000000ffff0000...00). Here you have 40 leading zero bits, so something like difficulty=256 (or even higher difficulty). Of course it also meets difficulty=1, but it is always true that if a block meets some difficulty, then that block also meets all lower difficulties.Quote You are computing the hash 4 billion times then increment the time then compute it another 4 billion times, and repeat this multiple times. That is more than enough to find a hash for block with difficulty = 1 almost all the time. There are a lot of blocks with difficulty=1 (leading 32 zero bits). But if you want to get any block with difficulty>=256 (leading 40 zero bits), then you can for example use extraNonce=4 and you will find it with 537 seconds earlier timestamp. For extraNonce=3 it will be 696 seconds earlier. On average, you have to check 256 seconds to reach 40-bit blocks. Here you have four such blocks, where each has a difference of a few seconds, when compared to the block in the chain.I checked the first 32256 block headers meaning from block 0 until first time difficulty changes and here are some blocks that had more than 40 zero bits. 40 was chosen since that is the number of zero bits in genesis block otherwise block #22 has 36 leading zero bits. The following are the list of block hashes and their respective heights on mainnet, the first 6 have "smaller difficulty" that Genesis block: Code: 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f block#0 Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: garlonicon on February 02, 2022, 06:34:19 PM Quote There is nothing special about having more leading zeros than needed (or being more smaller than the target than needed). Quote I checked the first 32256 block headers So on average you could expect something like 32256/256=126 block headers with leading 40 bits. And you have 124 blocks (except the Genesis Block), so nothing special here. But if you try to re-mine those blocks with similar extraNonce values and with similar time, usually you won't get four 40-bit headers around those blocks. For example you can take block 1430, it has 0x70 extraNonce, you can take 0x6f, 0x6e and 0x6d, then try to find another 40-bit block with such nonce and an earlier timestamp. I guess for a typical block you will get them 200, 300 or maybe 400 seconds before (or even more, but on average it will be something around 256 seconds before).Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: mynonce on February 02, 2022, 07:21:49 PM ... it seems to be done on purpose. @garlonicon, maybe you have an answer for this: Satoshi did one more joke on us before fading away. Tomorrow, I will tell. A new mystery about Satoshi hidden in the Bitcoin block-chain - http://bitslog.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/new-mystery-about-satoshi/ by Sergio Demian Lerner, @SDLerner on Twitter. They couldn't solve that. It's about the nonce values (not extraNonce). The largest miner back in 2009 (my opinion: it is Satoshi) has certain values [0 - 9] and [19 - 58] as nonces in the mined blocks what is unusual. Maybe it has something to do with your findings in block 0? Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: vjudeu on February 03, 2022, 06:36:50 AM Quote maybe you have an answer for this: They already have an answer for this: https://bitslog.com/2020/08/22/the-patoshi-mining-machine/The only remaining question is how many hashes per seconds Satoshi had, and I think garlonicon is trying to get only that. Because it is quite unlikely to get any private keys in this way, just because you first create a private key, then compute the public key, and then mine blocks. You cannot first mine a block and then change your private key. Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: mynonce on February 03, 2022, 11:26:37 AM Quote maybe you have an answer for this: They already have an answer for this: https://bitslog.com/2020/08/22/the-patoshi-mining-machine/They haven't solved why Satoshi chose these unusual ranges [0 - 9] and [19 - 58] instead of [0 - 255]. They have only theories ... eg. lots of computers with these specific numbers . ... you first create a private key, then compute the public key, and then mine blocks. You cannot first mine a block and then change your private key. That's exactly what could have happened. Satoshi first generated (created) lots of private keys and mined the blocks with the info on the private key, so we have these strange Nonces and extraNonces and time deltas... just a theory :) Title: Re: A mistery hidden in the Genesis Block Post by: Kakmakr on February 06, 2022, 09:22:23 AM Imagine how strong your believe must be ..if you waited 6 days for your technology to mine 1 Block! Yes, he knew that a combined effort with better computing hash rate, would speed up this process significantly... but this is still astonishing.
We know GPU mining only came in a while after CPU mining was used. https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/crypto-mining-rig-bitcoin-mining-calculator-asic-miner (Around 2010) Thank you OP, for this thread.... it is just amazing how intriguing this whole history of this technology is. ;) |