Carved in Bitcoin
A small stone for the moments that matter: a birth, an engagement, a wedding, a graduation, a first bitcoin, a letter to the future, a memory.
It started with a single line
On 3 January 2009 Satoshi Nakamoto mined the very first Bitcoin block. Hidden next to the first coins is a short line of text, a newspaper headline of the day:
“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”
It works as a timestamp (the block cannot be older than that morning's paper) and as a quiet comment on why Bitcoin was born. Almost two decades later, nobody has changed a single letter of it. Nobody can.
That is the trick Timestone borrows: a few words, written once, kept by the whole world.
Why write it into Bitcoin?
Almost everything we write lives on someone else's computer: a social network, a cloud drive, a company that can change its rules, run out of money or simply disappear. Bitcoin's ledger is different. Thousands of independent computers hold identical copies, and its rules make rewriting the past practically impossible.
A short text stored there inherits the same durability, and a timestamp nobody can fake. The block that contains your message proves it existed at that moment, no matter who you ask.
Moments carved into Bitcoin
3 Jan 2009 · Block 0
The genesis message
Satoshi embeds the Times headline in the first block: Bitcoin's birth certificate and its most famous sentence.
12 Jan 2009 · Block 170
The first transfer between two people
Satoshi sends 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney, an early cryptographer and one of the first people to run the software. It is the first time bitcoin moves from one person to another.
22 May 2010
Two pizzas
Programmer Laszlo Hanyecz pays 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas: the first widely known purchase of a real-world thing with Bitcoin. The date is still celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day.
2014 onwards
A proper place for a note
Bitcoin Core 0.9 makes OP_RETURN an official, tidy way to attach a short note to a transaction: 40 bytes at first, 80 later. Timestone is built on exactly this feature.
Your date here
Your moment
A birth, an engagement, a wedding, a milestone, a memory. The next entry on this timeline is yours to write.
What Timestone does
Timestone is a small, plain tool that makes this possible for anyone, without technical knowledge. You choose what you want to record, write a short message (or start from a template) and sign it with your own wallet.
- 1
Write
Choose an event and a short message, or start from a template.
- 2
Sign
Approve the transaction in your own wallet. We never hold your keys or funds.
- 3
Keep
Your words are carved into Bitcoin: readable by anyone, forever.
Only the message itself is written: a short header, an event type and up to 75 bytes of text, roughly one sentence. No name is required and no account exists.
TS1B: A new life begins: Ema, born 4 Oct 2026.
The format is called TS1 and is deliberately simple, so any developer can read it without Timestone.
What it costs, and why
Two separate payments, both shown before you sign.
Network fee
Goes to Bitcoin miners, not to us. Depends on how busy the network is; you pick slow, normal or fast.
Service fee: $2.50
Keeps Timestone running. One payment per message, no account, no subscription.
The price is deliberate too: in the range of a paper greeting card, a small cost turns writing into a decision and keeps the public register of paid messages free of spam.
The fee is fixed in US dollars and converted to satoshi when you prepare your message, with the price checked against two sources. Every payment goes to one public address: see the public record
Public, permanent, yours
- Everything you write is public and readable by anyone, forever. Think of it as engraving, not as a diary.
- We do not recommend using full names, especially for children. A first name and a date say enough.
- Timestone is non-custodial: it never holds your keys or your coins. You approve every transaction in your own wallet.
Questions
What if Timestone disappears one day?
Your message stays in Bitcoin. Any block explorer shows it by transaction ID, and the certificate you download says so. The format is simple and documented, so anyone can read it or build another viewer.
Can I edit or delete a message?
No, and that is the point. Check the preview carefully before you sign.
Which wallets can I use?
Leather or Xverse (browser extensions) and the Trezor and Ledger hardware wallets.
Does the message carry a date?
The block that contains it proves when it was written, to within minutes. A date inside your text (a birthday, say) is simply what you wrote; Bitcoin does not verify it.
Ready to leave a mark?
It takes a few minutes. Your words will outlive the app you wrote them in.
Write a message