Anonymous user etches U.S. Constitution onto Bitcoin blockchain

An anonymous user inscribed the full text of the U.S. Constitution onto the Bitcoin blockchain late Thursday using the OP_RETURN output field. The transaction totaled 44.4 kilobytes and a blockchain explorer recorded the fee at about $83.41. No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the entry.

The OP_RETURN field allows users to attach data to Bitcoin transactions. A byte limit on that field was removed last year, enabling larger pieces of data to be embedded directly on-chain. Developers debated the change for months, and proposals have since been discussed to address arbitrary data on the network.

The Constitution inscription is large for a Bitcoin transaction. Typical simple transfers around the same time were about 227 bytes; the 44.4 KB entry is roughly 200 times that size. A simpler transfer recorded at the same time, even when overpaying for speed, showed a fee of about $17-around one-fifth of the fee paid to place the Constitution text on-chain.

Inscriptions and the Ordinals standard previously drove a spike in on-chain data use in 2023, when images, text, games and audio were placed on Bitcoin. That activity coincided with periods of high mempool congestion and rising transaction fees.

A social post about the recent inscription read, “Nothing says freedom like paying 83 bucks to etch the constitution into a blockchain forever.” No confirmation has been provided about the reasons for the inscription.

The episode follows an earlier interaction between the Constitution and crypto communities: in 2021, a group known as ConstitutionDAO raised more than $45 million in an effort to buy a rare physical copy of the document at auction but did not win the sale. The full text placed in the recent transaction will remain accessible on-chain for as long as the Bitcoin network exists.