An anonymous Bitcoin user has embedded a provocative on-chain challenge in block 963,629, claiming to have built a wallet puzzle from data contained in Satoshi Nakamoto’s Genesis Block. Galaxy Research identified the transaction on Aug. 23, after block 963,629 was mined by Foundry USA at approximately 19:45 UTC on Aug. 22.
The transaction is 500 bytes and includes a 255-byte human-readable message in an OP_RETURN output. It paid a miner fee of only 250 satoshis, or 0.60 satoshis per virtual byte. Galaxy Research called the OP_RETURN “oversized” because the 255-byte payload accounted for more than half of the transaction’s raw size.
In the embedded text, the unidentified creator said: “I created a Bitcoin puzzle using information contained in the Genesis Block created by Satoshi to generate the wallet. The entropy is extremely low. I didn't even need to make backups—everything required was already in the first block. Good luck!” The author claimed that no private backup was necessary because all needed inputs were already present in the Genesis Block.
Low entropy means the wallet’s private-key generation relies on a deliberately narrowed set of possible values. Instead of standard cryptographic randomness, the key is apparently derived from well-known public data. The Genesis Block, mined on Jan. 3, 2009, contains multiple candidate inputs: its hash 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f, timestamp 1231006505, nonce 2083236893, and Satoshi’s embedded newspaper headline: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”
However, Galaxy Research did not identify the creator or verify the derivation method. No confirmed evidence at publication time showed that the puzzle had been solved or that any associated reward had moved. Some reports also described a paid-clue mechanism linked to the wallet address, suggesting larger Bitcoin transfers could produce more precise clues, but that claim was not verified in Galaxy Research’s initial disclosure.
The next verifiable development would be a signed outgoing transaction from the puzzle wallet. Until that occurs, the event remains a newly published Bitcoin puzzle built around public Genesis Block data rather than a deciphered secret from Satoshi Nakamoto.
