Galaxy Research Decodes Three Weeks of Bitcoin "Garbled Inscriptions": Don't Over-Interpret Hidden Messages — Likely a Script Test

October 25 — Galaxy Research has published an explainer on Bitcoin's "garbled inscriptions," noting that over the past three weeks roughly 40 inscriptions made up of random letters have appeared on the Bitcoin network each day, with content that looks like encrypted text but is not ciphertext. Galaxy Research tallied 562 such texts and found that all 26 English letters appear at frequencies between 3.6% and 4.2%, a distribution clearly different from normal English text. On-chain transaction behavior also shows clear signs of automation. The transactions typically contain one input, one new change address and one OP_RETURN data output, with subsequent transactions continuing to spend the previous transaction's change, forming multiple continuous transaction chains, the longest of which reaches 86 transactions.

Galaxy Research calls the operator "Babel Scribe," and considers it more likely to be testing data-publishing tools on the Bitcoin mainnet than attempting to transmit a hidden message. The on-chain transaction structure, the continuous reuse of change addresses and the regular publication times all show the characteristics of an automated script. The related activity also includes test texts, random words in different languages, binary data, and a later inscription of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. By estimate, the project has transferred in a cumulative total of about 3.33 million satoshis, roughly 24% of which went to pay miner fees, with the remaining funds still held in the related addresses. The researchers suggest there is no need to interpret these garbled strings as hidden messages.