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.