script – “Genesis” by Satoshi Nakamoto What SigScript Means in Coinbase Trading

adminMay 12, 2024

What is this byte sequence: 04ffff001d0104

Perhaps non-functional data that is only meaningful to miners?

See What is Coinbase? Where Much Answers

Coinbase transactions can have random inputs of size 100 bytes. For example, this is where the Genesis Block included the famous line “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout of Banks”. This is also a field that can be used for extranonces.

And David Schwarz says:

BIP 34 changes this slightly.

Obviously, the Genesis transaction predates the ideas of Extranones and BIP34, but

As we have it working, this part of the unlock script (sigscript) pushes a 4-byte value onto the stack and a 1-byte value onto the stack.

Since it is an input to Coinbase transactions, it has no functional purpose for the rest of the nodes on the Bitcoin network as far as I know. There are no previous transactions with lock scripts that need to be satisfied.

I’m not sure what this data meant to Nakamoto. As far as I know, there are virtually no restrictions on what a miner can put into the unlock script of a Coinbase transaction entry.

It looks like Nakamoto pushed 4 bytes. FFFF001D For the first 30000 or so blocks, the second push was sometimes 1 byte, sometimes 2, which looked a bit like a sequence number, but was not consecutive and was not always incremented.

I wonder if Nakamoto has ever explained this publicly. As I said before, I think it’s random data that has no function in other nodes.

We looked at Coinbase transactions in blocks 1-9, 10,20,…90, 100,200…900, 1000, 2000…9000, etc.

    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0104455468652054696D65732030332F4A616E2F32303039204368
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0104
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D010B
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D010E
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D011A
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0120
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0123
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D012B
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D012C
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0134
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0116
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D010D
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0109
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D013A
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D028300
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02B500
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0103
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0122
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0145
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D029600
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D023801
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D024F02
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D020204
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D029F06
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02B400
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02A500
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02D202
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02A003
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D027802
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02E700
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D020204
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02E606
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02EA04
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02E502
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D023909
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D026606
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02DA03
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D02C30C
    Unlocking Script:.....04FFFF001D0173
    Unlocking Script:.....04C38C001D021801
    Unlocking Script:.....0415112A1C02CC00
    Unlocking Script:.....045C670F1C02ED0D
    Unlocking Script:.....04FD68011C024705
    Unlocking Script:.....04E6ED5B1B028701
    Unlocking Script:.....046332151B026402
    Unlocking Script:.....044C86041B0145

adminMay 12, 2024