One of the most striking myths for many in the community is related to the impossible blocks of Bitcoin. These are a series of blocks that contain certain details that make them unique and even seem impossible to create without some kind of inexplicable external intervention.
En the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies there are many Myths and legends, starting with the creator Satoshi Nakamoto of which absolutely nothing is known. But one of the strangest myths in the community has to do with the «impossible bitcoin blocks”, and behind them there is an enormous amount of theories and myths that give much to talk about.
Some of these theories are very logical, but others are a bit conspiratorial. However, they all seek to explain something that is certainly puzzling. How is it possible that these blocks exist? Why do certain patterns repeat in certain hashes at more or less regular rates? And that is the reason why we have created this new article, one that will help you understand the mystery behind the “impossible Bitcoin blocks”.
What are the impossible blocks in Bitcoin?
The impossible blocks of Bitcoin, according to many bitcoiners, They are a series of blocks whose Block ID or block hashes were generated in somewhat unknown ways or that share a more or less regular pattern, in what would be a series of very unlikely events.
The first case, for example, is applicable at the moment only to genesis block of Bitcoin. And, the generation of this block is still a mystery for the community. While the seconds should not pose any problem. In other words, it is a random hash and that a chain appears as a pattern in several different blocks, it should not surprise us according to the laws of probability.
However, the latter is surprising for one very specific thing. Most of these blocks share the chain “21E8«. This is such an unlikely chain to spawn that its occurrence should be a once-a-year event.
This is because these hashes "21E8", are difficult to find, especially since the hexadecimal construction (the way in which hashes are generated) of that string is complex and requires large amounts of computational power. Of course, the Bitcoin network has a very high power, in fact, it is the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, leaving far behind the 500 most powerful supercomputers on the planet. But still, it is a fairly unlikely event, and that it repeats on a regular basis, makes it even less likely.
So we basically have a series of hashes that theoretically and probabilistically cannot exist, and yet exist. Quite striking the truth, so striking that the community has turned to get a meaning to them. However, the mystery of the impossible blocks is just beginning. And it is that the history of the same ones, it initiated the own Satoshi Nakamoto, and that we will examine it next.
The first impossible block: the genesis block of Bitcoin
If you ask anyone in the crypto world about the genesis block of Bitcoin, they will tell you that the block is an unsolved puzzle. And you are correct in your answer, because the genesis block of Bitcoin is an impossible block.
In fact, the truth is that the Bitcoin genesis block is a “manipulated block”. Many believe that Satoshi Nakamoto, being the only miner in the network, was able to manipulate the Bitcoin software to mine this block and create it at his whim. A research projects. de Daniel Larimer at Bitcointalk it tells us that; Nakamoto certainly manipulated the genesis block to create it in a special way.. The question is, what did he do to make it so special? Nobody knows, not even Craig Wright that he claims to be Satoshi, and that he proves that he is not what he says.
The problem is that generating that block required a very large computational power due to the difficulty of active mining at that time. The difficulty value of the block is so great that a powerful computer of the time should take at least 6 days to achieve it with a 17% probability. A user of Bitcointalk set about performing these calculations on a 4 AMD Phenom II X2008 CPU. His conclusion? Generating that block using that computer would have taken 58 days.
However, it took Nakamoto only 4 minutes to mine it, with rather little computational power, as demonstrated by the scriptNext of said block. Did Nakamoto have a more powerful computer? It was lucky? We do not know exactly. The truth is that everything seems to indicate that if he had a very powerful computer, or simply, he was too lucky.
But the mystery grows bigger. Block 1 came out 6 days later, with similar difficulty. Immediately after, the production of blocks was accelerated while maintaining the same level of difficulty. Did Nakamoto have a personal mining pool? We will not know either, but there are indications that the initial Bitcoin network was very limited in its genesis, in fact, the mining difficulty did not change in a long period of time, so only Satoshi Nakamoto was the one who mined on the network. Also, the first features for mining pools came much later, because the early Bitcoin software did not have that possibility.
Hence the mystery of the genesis block is even greater, and we will probably never know how the block was actually generated. But on the other hand, this opens the doors to the different theories of the impossible blocks, especially of the 21E8 blocks.
The mystery of the 21E8 hashed blocks
The 21E8 blocks have very peculiar characteristics and to see them we show you one of these hashes:
00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a
As you can see, the string "21e8" is located just after the "0" string of the hash. Said chain of 0, indirectly indicates the level of difficulty of mining. And it is that, as more "0" are added to the beginning of the hash, the more difficult and complex the mining of Bitcoin is. So getting that string (21E8) to always appear right after these "0s" and at regular rates is a pretty unlikely event.
However, it is precisely the unlikely, what has happened. The above hash, for example, belongs to block 528249, dated 6/19/18. But before them, there were the blocks 26284, 83434, 187323, 259695, 304822, 349158, 437039, 475118, according to data given by Emin Gün Sirer.
If we look at each of these blocks, they are separated by times that go on average to 393 days. A pattern that does not repeat with other chains. However, as Emin Gün Sirer, has said very clearly, the generation of these chains is possible and has shown it mathematically. The fact that they are repeated periodically responds to the fact that the power of Bitcoin and its network is enormous, humanity has never generated a machine as powerful as this and there are the fruits, making the almost impossible possible.
However, there are people who like mystery, and for that reason a flood of additional theories have been created, of which we will name a few.
Some other theories generated about the impossible blocks
Bitcoin is a self-generated god
Bitcoin is the uniqueness of artificial intelligence in a world ruled by machines that traveled in time to our days and created the blockchain to allow men to give a lot of computational power for their own creation, Bitcoin is a self-generated god.
This is one of the theories that are put forward on the fact of how Bitcoin has worked since its inception. And it is that many people think that Bitcoin is a technology brought from the future by Satoshi Nakamoto, and that his disappearance is due to the fact that he was captured for using an illegal temporary portal.
A quite creative hypothesis but this theory is totally out of line, because the truth is that all the Bitcoin bases have been created during the last 100 years, so this theory falls due to the tremendous historical weight and evidence against it. Another thing is that "Bitcoin is a self-generated god", which has been taken jokingly in the community.
Bitcoin has applications beyond those imagined
Another very common theory to explain this kind of thing is that Bitcoin, its enormous computational power, the generation of hashes for everything, has a use beyond what we can see, and that Satoshi Nakamoto is collecting all this information to achieve his goal. final, which is unknown.
The idea is also fueled by something that many ask regularly So much computing power and power consumption just to generate hashes whose sole function is to keep a cryptocurrency running? It certainly seems to many to be a waste of computing power and energy. Although it is also true that Bitcoin as a network and form of money is worth that and much more.
Despite that, many people have used this theory and have used to generate variations, some more striking than others, and of which we will comment on some:
- Bitcoin and its network is actually the basis for building a computational network to artificially increase the intelligence of human beings. The question is how would that be done? No one knows the answer and it is actually unlikely to be true.
- Bitcoin is the building block of a much larger network of knowledge and economy. As for example, the one devised by the Xanadú Projectby Ted Nelson. This man is a visionary to whom we owe the creation of the hypertext Internet as we know it now. For those who do not know the Xanadú Project, it was a project for an information and exchange network very similar to the Internet, but by far it was much better and above all, it was decentralized. The project was born in 1960, and even today, Ted continues to develop his idea. This idea is quite possible, because Bitcoin could certainly be the basis for building such a network.
- The appearance of the hashes "21E8" has a cosmic significance with which it seeks to unveil the Theory of Everything in Physics. Perhaps the craziest theory at this point, and it is supported, is that "21" refers to the emission limit of Bitcoin. While "E8" mentions the Lie Group, an algebraic set with which symmetries are studied and which is the origin of one of the Theories of Everything with which they seek to create a single equation that explains everything in the Universe.
Conclusions
How do you see the idea of “impossible Bitcoin blocks”It is not as realistic as many try to make it seem. The appearance of patterns like that of “21E8” does not mean that there is an invisible hand that manipulates Bitcoin from the shadows and in violation of all the laws of the physical world. Or if…. 😛
On the other hand, the generation of the genesis block responds more to a riddle left by Satoshi Nakamoto. A riddle that maybe can give us an answer about who he really is, and it's there waiting for someone to figure it out. OR Maybe the riddle does not say who he is, but if you have access to Nakamoto's private keys and that they could make you the owner of a fortune ... start dreaming ... 🙂
In the world of perhaps, many things can be, but the truth is that logically, the impossible blocks of Bitcoin are only the breeding ground of legends, like many others that have been generated in the community and are part of its rich history. and culture.
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