Genesis blocks, as a service.

Overview#

Base URL: https://strikeablock.com/api/v1. Every request and response is JSON (Content-Type: application/json); every response carries X-API-Version: 2026-09-10. There is no sandbox: every strike is real work on real hardware, so buy a small pack and use the Genesis tier to integrate.

What a strike is. A block header whose double-SHA-256 hash starts with at least eight hex zeros (Bitcoin's difficulty on 3 January 2009), whose coinbase transaction carries your inscription, mined on a GekkoScience Compac F (Bitmain BM1397) ASIC. The block is a standalone artifact: it is not part of Bitcoin or any public chain, has no monetary value, and is published anonymously in the vault with a page at strikeablock.com/b/<block_id> that re-verifies the proof of work in the visitor's browser.

Shape of an integration.

One physical machine strikes everything, first in, first out. Your strike never gets lost: if the foundry is offline it waits in the queue and is struck when the chip is back.

Quickstart#

1. Get a key. Sign in at the developer console, create an API key, copy it (it is shown once).
2. Buy credits on the same page (a $10 pack is enough for a Genesis strike). 1 credit = $1; a Genesis strike costs 7.
3. Create a strike:

curl https://strikeablock.com/api/v1/strikes \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sab_live_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "For Mom, 1958-2024", "zeros": 8,
       "webhook_url": "https://example.com/strikeablock",
       "metadata": {"order": "A-1042"}}'

# 202 Accepted
{
  "id": "k3Jx9…", "object": "strike", "status": "queued",
  "text": "For Mom, 1958-2024", "zeros": 8, "tier": "genesis",
  "credits_charged": 7, "credits_remaining": 18, "queue_ahead": 0,
  "webhook_url": "https://example.com/strikeablock", "metadata": {"order": "A-1042"},
  "block": null, "url": null, "created_at": "2026-09-10T18:04:11.201Z", …
}

4. Wait for it. Either poll GET /v1/strikes/{id} every few seconds until status is terminal, or handle the strike.done webhook. When it lands:

{
  "id": "k3Jx9…", "status": "done", "credits_charged": 7, "refunded": false,
  "queued_ms": 1840, "mine_ms": 2210,
  "block_id": "lHKO2Epan2YzwndTyFOd",
  "url": "https://strikeablock.com/b/lHKO2Epan2YzwndTyFOd",
  "block": {
    "hash": "000000002bfdd443b79ac22e8abc216d1c055598fb581c42113d8e6c0f69afec",
    "zeros": 8, "zeros_deep": 8, "nonce": 1930422341, "nonce_hex": "0x730fe845",
    "nbits": "0x1d00ffff", "timestamp": 1757527451,
    "header_hex": "01000000…", "coinbase_tx_hex": "01000000…", "merkle_root": "…",
    "target": "00000000ffff0000…", "device": "compacf-GS10061433", "mine_ms": 2210, …
  }
}

That is the whole loop. The rest of this page is detail.

Authentication#

Send your key as a bearer token on every request:

Authorization: Bearer sab_live_Ab3dEf…

• Keys look like sab_live_ + 32 characters. They are stored only as a SHA-256 hash; if you lose one, create another and revoke the old one.
• Up to 10 active keys per account. Keys are created and revoked in the console (or via the keys endpoints with a sign-in token); a key cannot mint other keys.
• Keys never expire. Revocation takes effect on the next request.
• Never ship a key in a browser or mobile app. Anyone holding it can spend your credits.

Requests without a valid key get 401 with error.type = "authentication_error". Two endpoints need no key at all: GET /v1/pricing and the public block endpoints.

Credits & pricing#

Strikes are prepaid in credits. One credit is one US dollar. The price of a strike is its depth, the number of leading hex zeros you ask for. Every extra zero is sixteen times the expected work (the depth ladder has the math).

Nine zeros is not for sale: one in sixteen Genesis strikes lands a ninth zero by luck, and the block keeps it (zeros_deep reports what actually landed). GET /v1/pricing returns this table as JSON so you never hard-code it.

Returns {"object": "balance", "credits": 18}.

Buying credits#

The simplest way is the console. From code, create a Stripe Checkout session and send the buyer to its URL:

{
  "object": "checkout_session", "id": "cs_live_…",
  "url": "https://checkout.stripe.com/c/pay/cs_live_…",
  "credits": 25, "amount_cents": 2500, "currency": "usd",
  "expires_at": "2026-09-10T19:04:11.000Z", "status": "open"
}

Credits are added the moment Stripe reports the session paid, three ways, each safe to overlap: a Stripe webhook into this API, the buyer returning to success_url, and a periodic reconciliation by the foundry. If your own success_url receives the buyer, call claim to credit immediately rather than waiting for reconciliation:

{"session_id": "cs_live_…"}

# →
{"object": "credit_claim", "session_id": "cs_live_…", "applied": true,
 "reason": null, "credits": 25, "balance": 43, "payment_status": "paid"}

applied is false with reason "already_applied" (harmless) or "unpaid" (try again in a moment). A session bought by a different account is refused with 403.

Every balance change, newest first: kind is purchase, strike, refund or grant, with delta, balance_after, and strike_id where relevant. Paginated with limit (≤ 200) and starting_after=<entry id>.

Refunds#

Credits are deducted when a strike is created and given back automatically when it does not land: status rejected (content, junk, or a duplicate of a block that landed first) or failed (the chip exhausted its search budget without a solution; rare, and never charged). The strike then shows "refunded": true and the ledger gets a refund row. Credits themselves are not refundable to cash except as required by law; see the terms.

Strikes#

Create a strike#

On success the response is 202 Accepted with a Location header pointing at the strike, the strike object, plus two create-time extras: credits_remaining and queue_ahead (strikes in front of yours across all customers). Validation and moderation happen before any credits move: a 4xx never charges you.

The strike object#

Lifecycle & timing#

queued. Waiting for the single ASIC, first in first out across all customers. Usually seconds; longer if a deep strike is ahead of you (queue_ahead tells you how many). Moderation runs again here as a backstop.

mining. The chip sweeps all 4.3 billion nonces of a header in about 21 milliseconds. A header only contains a solution part of the time, so the foundry rolls the timestamp and tries fresh headers until one lands. Expected durations once mining starts:

Mining is a lottery; a strike can land early or late. Design for done arriving any time from seconds to hours, and never block a user-facing request on it.

done. The block is published to the vault, its page and social image exist, the certificate email (if requested) is queued, and the webhook fires. rejected and failed refund the credits before the webhook fires, so refunded is already true in the event.

Retrieve & list#

The strike, with block joined once done and queue_ahead while queued. Strikes belong to the account that created them; any other account gets 404.

Your strikes, newest first. Query parameters: limit (default 20, max 100), status (filter to one status), starting_after=<strike id> for the next page. The list omits block; fetch a strike for the full block.

{"object": "list", "data": [ …strikes… ], "has_more": true, "next_cursor": "k3Jx9…"}

Idempotency#

Send an Idempotency-Key header (any unique string per intended strike, an order id works well) with POST /v1/strikes. A retry with the same key and the same account returns the original strike with 200 and the header Idempotent-Replayed: true, and charges nothing. Keys are scoped per account and kept indefinitely. Because the vault also refuses duplicate inscriptions, a retried strike without the header would be rejected (and refunded) rather than struck twice, but the header spares you the round trip.

Polling#

Polling works well for genesis and gold strikes and as a fallback for the rest. Guidance:

• Poll GET /v1/strikes/{id}; stop when status is done, rejected or failed.
• Intervals: every 3–5 s for 8 zeros, 10 s for 10, 30 s for 11, 60 s or more for 12. Add jitter. A few hundred polls per strike is fine; a poll every second across many strikes will hit the rate limit.
• While queued, queue_ahead is a good progress hint to show users.
• Honor 429 with its Retry-After header, and treat 5xx as transient.

# Python
import time, requests
H = {"Authorization": "Bearer sab_live_…"}
s = requests.post("https://strikeablock.com/api/v1/strikes", headers=H,
                  json={"text": "For Mom, 1958-2024"}).json()
while s["status"] in ("queued", "mining"):
    time.sleep(4)
    s = requests.get(f"https://strikeablock.com/api/v1/strikes/{s['id']}", headers=H).json()
print(s["status"], s.get("url"))

Webhooks#

A webhook is an HTTPS POST from the foundry to you the moment a strike reaches a terminal status. Every delivery is signed with your account's secret, retried for about a day, and inspectable afterwards.

Configuring#

Two levels, and you can use both: an account webhook receives every strike's events unless the strike names its own webhook_url, which then receives that strike's events instead. Both are signed with the one account secret.

{"url": "https://example.com/strikeablock", "rotate_secret": false}

# →
{"object": "webhook", "url": "https://example.com/strikeablock",
 "secret": "whsec_…", "events": ["strike.done", "strike.rejected", "strike.failed"],
 "signature_header": "X-SAB-Signature", "updated_at": "…"}

The secret is created on first use and returned by GET /v1/webhook whenever you need it. Pass "rotate_secret": true to replace it; deliveries queued after that moment use the new one.

Removes the account URL (the secret stays, so per-strike URLs keep working).

Queues a strike.test event carrying a sample done strike (Satoshi's block 0) to your account URL, or to a {"url": …} you pass. It goes through the same signing and retry machinery as a real event, so use it to prove your verifier end to end. Returns 202 with a delivery_id.

Events & payload#

POST /strikeablock HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json
User-Agent: StrikeABlock-Webhooks/1.0 (+https://strikeablock.com/docs.html#webhooks)
X-SAB-Event: strike.done
X-SAB-Strike-Id: k3Jx9…
X-SAB-Delivery-Id: 7Qm…
X-SAB-Attempt: 1
X-SAB-Signature: t=1757527456,v1=5f8c…e21a

{
  "id": "evt_…", "object": "event", "type": "strike.done",
  "api_version": "2026-09-10", "created": 1757527456, "livemode": true,
  "data": { "strike": { …the strike object, with block… } }
}

Respond with any 2xx within 10 seconds. Do your real work after acknowledging (queue it); a slow handler is retried as a failure and you will see the same event twice.

Verifying signatures#

X-SAB-Signature is t=<unix seconds>,v1=<hex> where v1 is HMAC-SHA256 with your secret over the string <t>.<raw body>. Verify against the raw request bytes, not a re-serialized object, and reject timestamps older than a few minutes to blunt replays. This is the scheme Stripe uses, so an existing verifier ports in one line.

import hmac, hashlib, time

def verify(secret: str, header: str, body: bytes, tolerance=300) -> bool:
    parts = dict(p.split("=", 1) for p in header.split(","))
    t = int(parts["t"])
    if abs(time.time() - t) > tolerance:
        return False
    expected = hmac.new(secret.encode(), f"{t}.".encode() + body, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
    return hmac.compare_digest(parts["v1"], expected)

# Flask
@app.post("/strikeablock")
def hook():
    if not verify(SECRET, request.headers["X-SAB-Signature"], request.get_data()):
        return "", 400
    event = request.get_json()
    if event["type"] == "strike.done":
        mark_struck(event["data"]["strike"]["metadata"]["order"],
                    event["data"]["strike"]["url"])
    return "", 200

const crypto = require("crypto");

function verify(secret, header, rawBody, tolerance = 300) {
  const parts = Object.fromEntries(header.split(",").map(p => p.split("=")));
  const t = parseInt(parts.t, 10);
  if (Math.abs(Date.now() / 1000 - t) > tolerance) return false;
  const expected = crypto.createHmac("sha256", secret).update(`${t}.`).update(rawBody).digest("hex");
  return parts.v1.length === expected.length &&
    crypto.timingSafeEqual(Buffer.from(parts.v1), Buffer.from(expected));
}

// Express: keep the raw body
app.post("/strikeablock", express.raw({ type: "application/json" }), (req, res) => {
  if (!verify(SECRET, req.get("X-SAB-Signature"), req.body)) return res.sendStatus(400);
  const event = JSON.parse(req.body);
  if (event.type === "strike.done") markStruck(event.data.strike.metadata.order, event.data.strike.url);
  res.sendStatus(200);
});

Handle events idempotently: key on data.strike.id (or the event id) and ignore a repeat. Retries and the test endpoint can both deliver the same event more than once.

Retries & deliveries#

A delivery that does not get a 2xx within 10 seconds (timeouts, connection errors, redirects and 4xx/5xx included) is retried on this schedule after the previous attempt: 1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, 12 h. Eight attempts in all, about a day; after that the delivery is failed and the strike is still there to poll. Deliveries are sent from the foundry itself (not from a cloud IP range), so allow-listing by IP is not supported; verify signatures instead.

{"object": "list", "data": [{
  "id": "7Qm…", "object": "webhook_delivery", "strike_id": "k3Jx9…",
  "event": "strike.done", "url": "https://example.com/strikeablock",
  "state": "delivered",              // pending · delivered · failed
  "attempts": 2, "next_attempt_at": null,
  "last_attempt_at": "…", "delivered_at": "…",
  "last_status": 200, "last_error": null, "created_at": "…"
}], "has_more": false, "next_cursor": null}

Blocks & verification#

Any public block, by id, or the vault newest first (limit ≤ 100, starting_after). Cacheable for a minute. The block object:

Verify it yourself. Trust nothing you have not hashed: the proof is two SHA-256 calls away.

# Python
import hashlib
b = requests.get("https://strikeablock.com/api/v1/blocks/lHKO2Epan2YzwndTyFOd").json()
header = bytes.fromhex(b["header_hex"])
digest = hashlib.sha256(hashlib.sha256(header).digest()).digest()[::-1].hex()
assert digest == b["hash"]
assert int(digest, 16) <= int(b["target"], 16)
assert b["text"].encode() in bytes.fromhex(b["coinbase_tx_hex"])

The same check runs in every visitor's browser on the block page, which is also what the Block Coin's NFC chip opens.

Account & keys#

{"object": "account", "id": "…", "email": "you@example.com",
 "credits": 18, "strikes_total": 12, "pending_strikes": 1,
 "webhook": {"url": "https://example.com/strikeablock", "configured": true},
 "created_at": "…", "auth": "key", "pricing": { …the pricing object… }}

Key management is meant for the console, which calls these endpoints with a Google sign-in token rather than an API key. An API key cannot create or revoke keys (403 portal_only).

A created key returns key exactly once; listings show only prefix (sab_live_Ab3dEf…), name, created_at, last_used_at (updated at most once a minute) and revoked_at.

Errors#

Errors are JSON with a stable machine-readable code and a human message:

{"error": {"type": "insufficient_credits", "code": "insufficient_credits",
           "message": "This strike costs 10 credits; your balance is 3. …",
           "required": 10, "balance": 3}}

Rate limits & quotas#

• 60 requests per minute per account, sustained, on authenticated endpoints. Public endpoints are not counted. Over the limit you get 429 and Retry-After.
• 25 pending strikes per account (queued + mining). A 26th is refused with 409 queue_full until some finish. This protects one physical chip; if you need more throughput, write to us.
• Request bodies are limited to 16 KB. Inscriptions to 90 characters. Metadata to 10 keys.
• Purchases: 10 to 1000 credits per checkout, as many checkouts as you like.

Every strike you queue is a promise of real hardware time, so the API is generous with reads and careful with writes. Cache GET /v1/pricing; it changes rarely and any change lands here in the changelog first.

End-to-end examples#

Python: strike, wait by webhook, verify

import hashlib, hmac, time, requests
from flask import Flask, request

API = "https://strikeablock.com/api/v1"
H = {"Authorization": "Bearer sab_live_…"}
SECRET = requests.get(f"{API}/webhook", headers=H).json()["secret"]   # after PUT /v1/webhook once

def strike(order_id: str, text: str, zeros: int = 8) -> dict:
    r = requests.post(f"{API}/strikes", headers={**H, "Idempotency-Key": order_id},
                      json={"text": text, "zeros": zeros, "metadata": {"order": order_id}})
    if r.status_code == 402:
        raise RuntimeError("top up: " + r.json()["error"]["message"])
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.post("/strikeablock")
def hook():
    sig = dict(p.split("=", 1) for p in request.headers["X-SAB-Signature"].split(","))
    expected = hmac.new(SECRET.encode(), f"{sig['t']}.".encode() + request.get_data(), hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
    if not hmac.compare_digest(sig["v1"], expected) or abs(time.time() - int(sig["t"])) > 300:
        return "", 400
    ev = request.get_json(); s = ev["data"]["strike"]
    if ev["type"] == "strike.done":
        b = s["block"]
        h = hashlib.sha256(hashlib.sha256(bytes.fromhex(b["header_hex"])).digest()).digest()[::-1].hex()
        assert h == b["hash"] and int(h, 16) <= int(b["target"], 16)
        fulfil(s["metadata"]["order"], s["url"], b["hash"])
    elif ev["type"] in ("strike.rejected", "strike.failed"):
        notify_customer(s["metadata"]["order"], s["reason"] or "unlucky")   # credits already back
    return "", 200

Node: strike and poll

const API = "https://strikeablock.com/api/v1";
const H = { Authorization: "Bearer sab_live_…", "Content-Type": "application/json" };

async function strikeAndWait(text, zeros = 8) {
  let r = await fetch(`${API}/strikes`, { method: "POST", headers: H, body: JSON.stringify({ text, zeros }) });
  if (!r.ok) throw new Error((await r.json()).error.message);
  let s = await r.json();
  const every = { 8: 4000, 10: 10000, 11: 30000, 12: 60000 }[zeros];
  while (s.status === "queued" || s.status === "mining") {
    await new Promise(res => setTimeout(res, every + Math.random() * 1000));
    r = await fetch(`${API}/strikes/${s.id}`, { headers: H });
    if (r.status === 429) { await new Promise(res => setTimeout(res, 1000 * (+r.headers.get("retry-after") || 5))); continue; }
    s = await r.json();
  }
  return s;   // done (with s.block, s.url) · rejected · failed
}

Content policy#

The vault is public and permanent, so every inscription is gated twice: at POST time (a 422 that costs nothing) and again by the foundry before the chip spends a hash (a rejected strike, refunded). The gate is a wordlist, not a judge: slurs, strong profanity and sexual terms are refused (content); filler like test, keyboard mashes and repeated characters are refused (junk); an inscription already in the vault is refused (duplicate). Mild language, any script, dates, names and numbers are all fine. Do not inscribe other people's personal data, anything you do not have the right to publish, or anything illegal; blocks can be hidden from the vault after the fact for those reasons, and the terms govern. If your use case needs private (unlisted) blocks, tell us.

Versioning & changelog#

The API is versioned by date; the current version is 2026-09-10 and is echoed in X-API-Version and in every webhook's api_version. Additive changes (new fields, new event types, new endpoints) ship without a version bump; anything that would break a correct client gets a new dated version and notice by email to every account with an active key. The full machine-readable contract is the OpenAPI 3.1 document.

• 2026-09-10: first public version. Strikes, credits, webhooks, public blocks.

Questions, higher limits, private blocks, or a use case we should hear about: hello@strikeablock.com.