After the mystery surrounding the identity of the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, here is another. For almost two weeks, a mysterious user has tirelessly written the same poem into the Bitcoin blockchain. Since the start of the phenomenon, spotted by Galaxy Research, on October 12, 28 messages have been recorded in this public digital register. Researchers have identified 26 identical copies of a three-line poem, as well as two inscriptions from another text, reports the specialist site Clubic.
The poem, in English, is reproduced identically each time: “Thoughtless quartz clocks drift / blocks stack each a strict proof / timechain keeps score.” In French, we could translate: “The quartz clocks drift without thinking / the blocks pile up, each providing rigorous proof / the chain of time keeps the accounts”. The text refers to how Bitcoin works and includes a wink. The term “timechain” was in fact used in the early days of cryptocurrency by Satoshi Nakamoto.
To burn these worms, the user uses the OP_RETURN functionality, which allows data to be added to a Bitcoin transaction. The message thus becomes publicly visible in the blockchain. It is the regularity of the operations that is intriguing: the sender transfers approximately 0.327 bitcoin to addresses linked to a custody service. It then recovers the funds 13 to 18 hours later, according to Galaxy Research.
A poet AI agent?
To explain this phenomenon, the researchers hypothesize an automated process. They put forward several avenues: a computer test carried out directly on the Bitcoin network, an attempt to artificially inflate the activity of a service or, the most surprising of hypotheses, an autonomous AI agent with its own wallet. For the moment, the identity and nature of the mysterious Bitcoin poet are unknown.
