Bitcoin Transactions: Embedding Media Files Over the Years

Bitcoin users have been embedding GIFs and small video files into transaction data for over a decade. According to NS3.AI, archival nodes continue to store this data once it is mined into blocks. The practice dates back to examples like Counterparty in 2016 and includes recent innovations such as Ordinals and Bitcoin Stamps. In 2026, Martin Habovstiak conducted a test that successfully embedded an image into a transaction without using OP_RETURN or Taproot witness data.