Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has given proof of life by reading the hash of the most recent block in the Bitcoin blockchain. He did this during an ask-me-anything ?? (AMA) session via the popular discussion forum Reddit.

An AMA is a time when users of the website can ask questions of important or famous people. For example, Elon Musk already did an AMA before and D66 member of parliament Kees Verhoeven held another one yesterday.

The idea behind this way of proof of life is that each block in the Bitcoin blockchain can be identified by a unique sequence of letters and numbers ( hash ), which cannot be guessed in time in advance. Reading this unique sequence of letters and numbers proves that someone was alive at the time the block in question was produced. The idea is similar to taking a picture of the person in question holding up a recent newspaper with the date visible, as is sometimes done in hostage situations.

Assange indicates in the interview that reading the unique block hash is not optimal as proof of life. The reason he gives for this is that it is difficult for the average person to understand exactly how the complicated technology behind Bitcoin works and why a block cannot be counterfeited. This necessitates trusting the experts in this field – shifting evidence from technical verification to trusting the experts.

The block that Assange read had the unique sequence 178374f687728789caa92ecb49b4d850dfc173a7c0351e6 and was number 447506 in the Bitcoin blockchain. The interview with Assange can be seen here, the proof of life section starts at 01:53:00.