5 ms·

I think people have largely missed the point of the article. This is specifically in relation to a "magic hash" on a block that was mined on June 19, 2018 with

by Permit 8y ago

I think people have largely missed the point of the article. This is specifically in relation to a "magic hash" on a block that was mined on June 19, 2018 with the hash: 00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a The leading zeros are the "proof-of-work". The bitcoin mining algorithm tries various nonces and generates many hashes until it finds one with (currently) 18 leading zeros. Surprisingly, much of the Bitcoin community doesn't know this and think that the leading zeros are special. The 21e800 is supposedly 'special' because it relates to the E8 'Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything'. A physics theory proposing a basis for unified field theory. Anyways, people have mistakenly calculated the odds of such an occurrence and believe it to be exceedingly rare. They are claiming that someone must have left it there and that it is either the result of: 1. A quantum computer 2. Time travelling 3. Something related to the Bible This doesn't really make sense and we can calculate the odds ourselves. It works out to roughly 3%. (1 - ((16^6 - 1) / (16^6)) ^ 500,000 blocks) = 0.03. There are 18 hashes with the leading non-zero digits 21e8 There are 3 hashes with the leading non-zero digits 21e80 There are many other "vanity hashes": (57ea1 or steal) https://blockchain.info/block/000000000057ea16558140e0b3995aef6dd2641624e1c790acf78424ce4e4b83 https://blockchain.info/block/000000000057ea16558140e0b3995a... (1055e5 or losses) https://blockchain.info/block/00000000001055e54d1d11bae837d58b1b5887947c0af9147b7418675d5198b5 https://blockchain.info/block/00000000001055e54d1d11bae837d5... These things are not rare, but as mentioned in the article, people have ascribed a sort of religious aspect to them. It's really weird. I also wrote about this today. If you're interested in some of the other weird responses see: https://medium.com/@thisisjoshvarty/lets-talk-about-hashes-or-00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a-b8d8c8fb4e94 https://medium.com/@thisisjoshvarty/lets-talk-about-hashes-o...

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Great comment. My counter for people that may have misunderstood it before your post is that... if these people think 3% and “magic” occurrences of leetspeak are something note these are people I want to keep myself and my money far away from.
- sdrothrock 8y ago
  > if these people think 3% and “magic” occurrences of leetspeak are something note these are people I want to keep myself and my money far away from. The same thing happens with "interesting" serial numbers on money, though. This seems like an equivalent example. To be more explicit: I don't think that mistaken beliefs/superstition on the part of users should necessarily reflect on the usability or practicality of anything they use.
- schoen 8y ago
  The leetspeak part was chosen by the author of the other article as a proof-of-concept. However, it seems like other people reported on by both articles' authors were serious in their excitement or perplexity about the "21e800".
B-Con 8y ago
In this type of scenario (be it bitcoin hashes, serial numbers elsewhere, etc), the real question is how many possible "vanity" hashes exist. The odds of this specific one are not interesting, it's the space of all of them that is. It's pretty much always infeasible to enumerate that space, but generally speaking there are a looooot of things that could qualify as special-looking enough to be included. All forms of english, foreign languages, language abbreviations, leet-speak, slang, pop-culture-inspired references, etc. The odds of randomly tripping across something "special" eventually are pretty good. And bonus points if eventually one of those special coincidences is vaguely time-correlated with a real-world version of itself (eg, the number happens to be in the news, the slang word was recently used by a celebrity, etc).
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox
  - Retric 8y ago
    That actually has an interesting failure. The first interesting number that's interesting because it's not special works. The second might qualify, the 10008 does not.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      How can there be a second one if there isn’t a first one?
      - joveian 8y ago
        How can an arrow move if it needs to get halfway to wherever it going first? Lots of paradoxes you can construct with infinitite recursion or self reference in the absence of time. In this case, interesting is fundamentally a temporal concept and there is only a paradox if you pretend that it isn't.
cup-of-tea 8y ago
The one that actually was quite weird was a block that happened fora fork. I can't remember the details unfortunately but the block had in it the number of the BIP. That was weird because it wasn't just a block with that number but that exact block. Maybe someone else remembers the details.
kraigie 8y ago
Surprisingly, much of the Bitcoin community doesn't know this and think that the leading zeros are special. That's because most of the Bitcoin community is speculators and get rich quick types due to the frothyness of the space, whom neither know nor care to know about the mathmateical and cryptographic underpinnings of bitcoin.
bitL 8y ago
I am wondering how many of those are influenced by the movie Pi: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/
youdontknowtho 8y ago
Oh my. That's way weirder than what I was expecting. I just don't know what to say to that. Is it me or does it seem like this kind of stuff is everywhere now? Maybe I just consume lots of crazy people media.
- mikeash 8y ago
  I think it always has been, it’s just more visible now. It’s a lot easier to find out the random superstitious beliefs of strangers these days.
api 8y ago
Reminds me a lot of "dubs" in the 4chan world. The chans have always struck me as being a bit of a cult to some people. Look up all the weird Pepe/Kek stuff. "Bitcoin is a cult" is click bait. People have been engaging in numeric paradolia with financial systems forever. "Dow hit 666!" Etc.
sudhirj 8y ago
Ascribing a religious aspect to weird things isn’t that weird. Think humans have an innate and slightly flawed sense of probability and statistics, so events that are very rare on the flawed model are often ascribed causation by divine intervention. Mutations might be worshipped, uncommon geological formations considered holy or god-wrought, and uncommonly lucky people being ascribed divine characteristics. Rare hashes are the digital equivalent.
ccajas 8y ago
It seems to be a special case of pareidolia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

by Permit 8y ago

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Great comment. My counter for people that may have misunderstood it before your post is that... if these people think 3% and “magic” occurrences of leetspeak are something note these are people I want to keep myself and my money far away from.

sdrothrock 8y ago
> if these people think 3% and “magic” occurrences of leetspeak are something note these are people I want to keep myself and my money far away from. The same thing happens with "interesting" serial numbers on money, though. This seems like an equivalent example. To be more explicit: I don't think that mistaken beliefs/superstition on the part of users should necessarily reflect on the usability or practicality of anything they use.
schoen 8y ago
The leetspeak part was chosen by the author of the other article as a proof-of-concept. However, it seems like other people reported on by both articles' authors were serious in their excitement or perplexity about the "21e800".

B-Con 8y ago

In this type of scenario (be it bitcoin hashes, serial numbers elsewhere, etc), the real question is how many possible "vanity" hashes exist. The odds of this specific one are not interesting, it's the space of all of them that is. It's pretty much always infeasible to enumerate that space, but generally speaking there are a looooot of things that could qualify as special-looking enough to be included. All forms of english, foreign languages, language abbreviations, leet-speak, slang, pop-culture-inspired references, etc. The odds of randomly tripping across something "special" eventually are pretty good. And bonus points if eventually one of those special coincidences is vaguely time-correlated with a real-world version of itself (eg, the number happens to be in the news, the slang word was recently used by a celebrity, etc).

ForHackernews 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox
- Retric 8y ago
  That actually has an interesting failure. The first interesting number that's interesting because it's not special works. The second might qualify, the 10008 does not.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    How can there be a second one if there isn’t a first one?
    - joveian 8y ago
      How can an arrow move if it needs to get halfway to wherever it going first? Lots of paradoxes you can construct with infinitite recursion or self reference in the absence of time. In this case, interesting is fundamentally a temporal concept and there is only a paradox if you pretend that it isn't.

cup-of-tea 8y ago

The one that actually was quite weird was a block that happened fora fork. I can't remember the details unfortunately but the block had in it the number of the BIP. That was weird because it wasn't just a block with that number but that exact block. Maybe someone else remembers the details.

kraigie 8y ago

Surprisingly, much of the Bitcoin community doesn't know this and think that the leading zeros are special. That's because most of the Bitcoin community is speculators and get rich quick types due to the frothyness of the space, whom neither know nor care to know about the mathmateical and cryptographic underpinnings of bitcoin.

bitL 8y ago

I am wondering how many of those are influenced by the movie Pi: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/

youdontknowtho 8y ago

Oh my. That's way weirder than what I was expecting. I just don't know what to say to that. Is it me or does it seem like this kind of stuff is everywhere now? Maybe I just consume lots of crazy people media.

mikeash 8y ago
I think it always has been, it’s just more visible now. It’s a lot easier to find out the random superstitious beliefs of strangers these days.

api 8y ago

Reminds me a lot of "dubs" in the 4chan world. The chans have always struck me as being a bit of a cult to some people. Look up all the weird Pepe/Kek stuff. "Bitcoin is a cult" is click bait. People have been engaging in numeric paradolia with financial systems forever. "Dow hit 666!" Etc.

sudhirj 8y ago

Ascribing a religious aspect to weird things isn’t that weird. Think humans have an innate and slightly flawed sense of probability and statistics, so events that are very rare on the flawed model are often ascribed causation by divine intervention. Mutations might be worshipped, uncommon geological formations considered holy or god-wrought, and uncommonly lucky people being ascribed divine characteristics. Rare hashes are the digital equivalent.

ccajas 8y ago

It seems to be a special case of pareidolia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia