Bitcoin Transaction Records a 100-Byte Message in Block 971,914

A Bitcoin (BTC) transaction placed a 100-byte plaintext message in block 971,914, illustrating how text can be recorded on the network through an unspendable data output.

The transaction was included at 7:15:22 p.m. ET (23:15:22 UTC) on Oct. 17 and paid a fee of 253 satoshis. Its text refers to quartz clocks drifting, blocks stacking and the timechain keeping score. The sender was not identified.

The message used an OP_RETURN output, which can carry data but cannot be spent. In this transaction, the output held a 100-byte text payload rather than a spendable output.

The payload is longer than the 83-byte data-carrier default used by older Bitcoin Core versions. That limit was a software policy setting, rather than a universal rule for every Bitcoin node.

Bitcoin Core 30.0 raised the default data-carrier size to 100,000 bytes and allowed multiple OP_RETURN outputs in a transaction for relay and mining. Node operators can configure a different limit, including setting it to 83 bytes. The 100-byte message therefore exceeds the older default but is below the Bitcoin Core 30.0 default.