My newest artwork Genesis Days visualizes one of the most unusual periods in Bitcoin’s history: the near-six-day gap between the Genesis block (block 0) and the arrival of the next transaction block (block height 1). While the average Bitcoin block is created every 10 minutes, this significant delay stands out as both a technical anomaly and a foundation. The artwork renders this temporal moment legible, measurable, and experiential.
The animation compresses 7,719.33 minutes, or the equivalent of 128.66 hours, or 5.36 days, into a precisely timed, one-minute animation sequence. Time is not treated as background context but as the artwork’s primary material. Each second becomes a unit of compression, translating a near-week of early Bitcoin history into a condensed visual rhythm.
The composition of Genesis Days is split into two parallel structures:
Left: the first transaction block following the Genesis block forms slowly. White spheres form clouds and serve as symbolic senders and receivers, linked by fine connective lines that gradually draw together. This networked structure merges into the second transaction block (block height 1) as the minute counter and progress bar advance. This section of the artwork focuses on block formation rather than throughput, a system preparing itself to exist.
Right: the animation steps through 772 transaction blocks, the equivalent of the number of blocks usually produced during the same span of time. These blocks draw their data following the fourth Bitcoin halving, when this artwork was initiated. In contrast to the left composition, the counters on the right were calibrated to track the number of transaction blocks created. The contrast between left and right establishes a temporal equivalence: one prolonged genesis moment set against hundreds of blocks produced at protocol speed.
Throughout the animation, vertical colour bars encode different forms of transactional data. On the left, they visualize colour-converted hashes of the Genesis block. On the right, they render the first transaction pairs of senders and receivers. The variety of resulting colour bands reflects the evolution of wallet standards over time, such as SegWit (Segregated Witness) or Taproot (Pay-to-Taproot – P2TR).
The animation incorporates real transaction hashes and Bitcoin wallet addresses from blocks following the fourth halving. Once a block resolves, horizontal bars encode the hash of the newly formed block. Hashes become visible traces of time passing, not as dates or clocks, but as cryptographic states transitioning from potential to permanence.
Embedded within the work are 840 backlit diodes. These diodes reference the 840,000 block height of Bitcoin’s fourth halving and reference the ISO 4217 code 840, the identifier for the U.S. dollar, the global reserve currency Bitcoin was designed to challenge. Subtle, it connects the protocol time with the monetary history.
In a nutshell, Genesis Days presents Bitcoin’s longest period as a choreography. It embeds duration with parallel block systems and renders hashes as visual elements. Time is not just counted, it is constructed.
