Strike a Block
Write yourself into a genesis block.
Every blockchain begins with a single block, and every genesis block carries an inscription that can never be edited out. Satoshi wrote a newspaper headline. This page lets you write yours, then mine it for real, right here in your browser.
The original
It began with a headline.
Billions may be needed as lending squeeze tightens. The Chancellor will decide within weeks whether to pump billions more into the economy as evidence mounts that the £37 billion part-nationalisation has failed to keep credit flowing.
On 3 January 2009, someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto mined block 0, the genesis block, and inscribed that day's Times headline into it. Every one of the billion-plus Bitcoin transactions since traces its ancestry to this one block.
The block below is the real thing: its actual hash, nonce, and inscription, exactly as they sit at the root of the chain today.
Plain terms
Three ideas, no jargon.
A genesis block is simpler than it sounds. It's made of three things you already understand, or take the 5-minute interactive lesson and learn it by breaking one.
The first page of a ledger
A blockchain is a book of records where each page references the page
before it. The genesis block is page one, the only page with nothing
before it. Its “previous page” field is just zeros:
000…000. Every chain, including Bitcoin, has exactly one.
Words carved in, forever
The miner of a block gets to include a short message. Change a single letter of it, and the block's fingerprint (its hash) changes completely, breaking every page that follows. That's why Satoshi's headline can never be quietly edited. Inscriptions are permanent.
Work you can verify at a glance
Mining means retrying the block with different “nonce” numbers until its hash starts with enough zeros. Finding one takes billions of tries; checking one takes an instant. The zeros at the front of a block hash are the receipt for the work.
Then & now
What took a CPU its evenings takes silicon a blink.
A block at Bitcoin's original difficulty needs about 4.3 billion hash attempts on average. Here's what that costs, by machine:
| Machine | Hash rate | One genesis-difficulty block, on average |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 desktop CPU (what Satoshi used) | ~2–4 MH/s | ~20–35 minutes of steady hashing |
| Your browser, this page (JavaScript) | ~0.5 MH/s | ~2½ hours |
| One USB stick miner, 2026 (BM1397 ASIC, 672 cores) | ~200 GH/s | 21 milliseconds, about 47 blocks per second |
The demo below uses a friendlier target (a hash starting with four zeros, about 65,000 attempts) so your browser can strike a block in around a second. Same mechanism, smaller mountain. (Curious about block 0 itself? The six-day gap between it and block 1 remains one of Bitcoin's small mysteries.) For the full ladder, from milliseconds to 68,000 years, see the depth ladder.
Your turn
Strike a block with your own words.
Type an inscription. Your browser will hash it with a timestamp and a counting nonce (double SHA-256, the same algorithm as Bitcoin) until the hash starts with the zeros you asked for. Nothing leaves this page.
The vault
Recently struck on real silicon.
Blocks below were mined not by a browser but by a GekkoScience Compac F, a thumb-sized ASIC with 672 hash cores, at Bitcoin's original genesis difficulty. Full 32-zero-bit proof of work, the same bar Satoshi's block cleared.
The vault is public and anonymous. Inscriptions appear without any information about who requested them. The six most recent strikes show here; browse the complete archive →
Pricing
Pick your depth. Every plate is real.
Every real block is struck on the same ASIC and lands in the same public vault with a verifiable certificate. What you choose is the depth: every extra zero is sixteen times the work, and the plate wears its metal forever. See the depth ladder for the full math.
Genesis · 8 zeros
- Bitcoin's original 2009 difficulty bar
- Struck in seconds, certificate by email
- No account needed — inscribe at checkout
- 1 in 16 gets a lucky 9th zero. Luck is not for sale
Coming soon
The toy miner above is free, no account at all.
Gold · 10 zeros
- 256× the work of block 0
- The chip hunts under a minute for you
- Gold plate in the vault, gold certificate
Coming soon
Platinum · 11 zeros
- 4,096× the work of block 0
- Several minutes of live suspense
- Platinum plate, platinum certificate
Coming soon
Prismatic · 12 zeros
- 65,536× the work of block 0
- The chip labors up to an hour or two, just for you
- The rarest plate the forge can strike
Coming soon
Paid strikes need no account: pay, type your inscription at checkout, and the certificate arrives by email. Blocks are standalone artifacts, not tokens; nothing here is an investment.
The foundry queue
Mine a real one, live.
Sign in, write a one-line inscription, and watch the ASIC strike it into a genesis block in real time.
signed in as · sign out
Straight answers
Three questions people actually ask.
What is a genesis block?
The first block of a blockchain — the only one with no predecessor. Its previous-hash field is all zeros, and it carries an inscription chosen by whoever mines it. Bitcoin's genesis block, mined on 3 January 2009, contains a newspaper headline that can never be edited out. Every chain has exactly one.
Can I put my own message in a block?
Yes — that is exactly what this site does. Your line goes into the coinbase field, the same field where Satoshi wrote the Times headline into block 0. Mine a toy block free in your browser, or have a real one struck on ASIC silicon at Bitcoin's original genesis difficulty.
Is this real Bitcoin? Do I get a coin?
No. Blocks struck here clear the same difficulty bar as Bitcoin's block 0 — about 4.3 billion hashes of genuine proof-of-work — but they are standalone artifacts, not part of Bitcoin or any public blockchain. There is no coin and no token; nothing to trade or invest in. A strike is a one-time craft purchase, like an engraving.