Bitcoin Forum

#00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a

This is a hashtag, but not just any hashtag. In all likelihood, it's the longest and most confusing one you'll ever come across trending in the crypto community.

Posted on June 19 by Mark Wilcox, the hashtag actually represents a cryptographic code known as a hash that's produced each time new transactions are validated and written onto the bitcoin blockchain. There are several of these written each day, so at first glance, it seems strange that this particular one produced on Tuesday at 19:32:37 (UTC) would be of any groundbreaking importance.

That's where you'd be wrong.

Well, actually, that's where you might be wrong.

Some background: There is a theory in physics that attempts to explain the interactions and dynamics of all forces, including gravity, in the universe with one simple mathematical structure known as the E8. Presented in a paper titled, "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" by Garrett Lisi in 2007, it still remains unproven.

Couple the unsolved status of the E8 theory with the equally unsolved mystery of the exact identity of the person(s) who brought bitcoin – with its supply cap of 21 million coins – into existence, and you get the hypothesis that "21e800" isn't just some random string of numbers and value. In fact, the theory seems to suggest, it is a "vanity hash" purposefully placed by the creator of bitcoin himself/herself/themselves, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Starting to get goosebumps yet?

If this hash is indeed a "vanity hash" or, in other words, one deliberately created as some kind of sign, the computing power to create it is not only magnitudes greater than is currently capable by the average computer, but the time needed to create it is somewhat jaw-dropping, as shown in a chart posted by developer Andrew DeSantis.

See more: https://www.coindesk.com/21e800-bitcoin-satoshi-mystery-twitter-obsessing/

I don't see any meaning in 21e800, because I don't see any clear connection between Bitcoin and E8 theory, so this all seems like quite a stretch to me. Also this sequence is quite short, so it is very likely that it is just a coincidence. To me this looks like crypto analogue of people seeing holy signs in ordinary objects or those crazy conspiracy theorists seeing marks of Illuminati. If someone wanted to leave a message through this method, they would have chosen something more obvious than this.

i don't under or care about this in the slightest. and it looks like a few people who know their stuff have told others not to care either.

that'll do for me.

A hash that begins with "21e8" (after the zeroes) is rare, but not unusual. It is expected to occur in 1 out of every 65k blocks on average. In the 529206 blocks so far, we would expect to see 8 blocks whose hash begins with "000...21e8". In fact, the first one occurred in 2009.