// Immutable Text Storage on the BSV Blockchain
BIBLE1 is an application-layer protocol for storing structured text documents permanently on the BSV blockchain. The protocol enables books, manuscripts, and literary works to be inscribed on-chain with a hierarchical index system, allowing complete works to be accessed via a single transaction ID.
The reference implementation—the complete King James Bible with Apocrypha—demonstrates the protocol's capability to store 80 books, 1,362 chapters, and 36,822 verses for approximately $0.75 USD in transaction fees.
Published content faces three fundamental threats in the digital age:
The historical precedent is clear: in 1825, Protestant publishers removed 14 books from the Bible—the Apocrypha—without broad public consent. These books, present in Christian scripture for over 1,500 years, were simply deleted from future printings.
BIBLE1 uses a two-tier storage model:
Each chapter or section is stored as an individual transaction with an OP_RETURN output containing:
BIBLE1A master index transaction contains a JSON object mapping every chapter key to its transaction ID. This single "master txId" provides access to the entire work.
cf53cae0cf36ffe8333c7ada3416e897ae8ff11d6acc7c1905cabd725a089157
Standard BSV transactions with two outputs:
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| protocol | string | "BIBLE1" identifier |
| book | string | Book name (e.g., "Genesis") |
| chapter | integer | Chapter number |
| verses | array | Array of verse strings |
The master index is a JSON object where keys are {Book}_{Chapter} and values are transaction IDs:
{
"Genesis_1": "282bf8d6dd543b9573e0c47bec3bc1c4...",
"Genesis_2": "a1b2c3d4e5f6...",
...
"Revelation_22": "ffe41b344fd166928ddb4594c32ef433..."
}
Every BIBLE1 transaction is secured by Bitcoin's cryptographic infrastructure:
Each transaction is hashed and included in the block's Merkle tree—a binary tree structure where each leaf node is a transaction hash, and each non-leaf node is the hash of its children. The Merkle root, included in the block header, cryptographically commits to every transaction in the block.
This means any alteration to a single verse would change the transaction hash, which would change the Merkle root, which would invalidate the block header's proof-of-work. Tampering is mathematically impossible without re-mining the entire blockchain from that point forward.
Transaction IDs are computed as SHA256(SHA256(raw_tx)), providing 256-bit collision resistance.
The probability of two different texts producing the same txId is approximately 1 in 2256—effectively zero.
Any transaction can be verified against the block header using a Merkle proof—a compact path of hashes from the transaction to the Merkle root. This allows lightweight clients to verify content authenticity without downloading the entire blockchain.
Reading content from the blockchain requires:
The reference viewer at bsvbible.club implements this flow using the WhatsOnChain API, with local caching for performance.
BSV's low transaction fees make large-scale text storage economically viable:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total transactions | 1,363 (1,362 chapters + 1 index) |
| Total data stored | ~4.5 MB |
| Fee rate | ~0.5 sat/byte |
| Total cost | ~$0.75 USD |
| Cost per chapter | ~$0.00055 |
The BIBLE1 protocol serves as the foundation for a broader publishing platform:
BIBLE1 demonstrates that meaningful, large-scale document storage on the blockchain is not only possible but economically practical. For less than a dollar, an entire religious text spanning thousands of years of human history has been preserved in a form that cannot be censored, altered, or destroyed.
This is the promise of Bitcoin fulfilled—not as a speculative asset, but as a utility for permanent, verifiable information storage.
// The Word made chain.
BSV Bible — bsvbible.club
Master Index: cf53cae0cf36ffe8333c7ada3416e897ae8ff11d6acc7c1905cabd725a089157