Editing Spaceuk (section)

==History==
===The rise===
spaceuk joined YouTube in December 2015 but became active in August 2020 with his first video, completing [[Wasureta]], his first Extreme Demon and fourth Demon, after [[DeCode]], [[Windy Landscape]], and Leyak. Some initially doubted his legitimacy due to his unprecedented leaps in skill. However, when he beat The Golden, his fifth Demon and #2 on the [[Demonlist (Pointercrate)|Demonlist]] at the time, in December 2020, his fame skyrocketed.

spaceuk swiftly beat the top hardest Demons in record time, averaging one per day. He joined the Slaughterhouse verification race in October 2021 and completed it in just over a week, on 24 October. He later completed the entire main list, as marked by completing Sephiroth on 7 May 2022, becoming the second player after [[nSwish]] to do so. However, on 19 June, spaceuk privatised most of his videos, deactivated his Twitter account, and requested the removal of his Pointercrate profile, claiming that he had become disinterested in the game.<ref name=":0">https://twitter.com/grandma6759/status/1539030315414564864</ref> Following the backlash, he reinstated his videos and reactivated his social media accounts the day after, with Pointercrate restoring his profile two weeks later.<ref name=":0"/>

In the following nine months, he beat many of the hardest levels in impressively low attempt counts, reportedly becoming the first victor of [[Aerial Gleam]], [[Abyss of Darkness]], and [[Acheron]]. He also claimed to hold the record for the lowest attempt count on [[Kyouki]] with roughly 13,500 attempts. In early 2023, he was chosen to verify the Top 1 level Banshee, an old impossible level built by Komp in 2014 that was picked up by nikrodox and revamped. On 28 March 2023, he posted a 60% run, showing rapid progress. However, on 1 April, his progress videos were unlisted, and he declared his abandonment of Banshee on social media.<ref>https://twitter.com/spadeuk/status/1642178805824462848</ref> This left followers questioning whether it was an April Fools' prank or a genuine exit from the verification.

===Hacking allegations===
In April 2023, an unknown individual approached spaceuk and claimed to know him, stating that spaceuk knew an undetectable hacking method. This claim led paqoe, who is a head list moderator, and the Demonlist team to detect the supposed hacking method in spaceuk's recordings. However, they found no signs of this hacking method.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYGLIYH6OM&t=3331s</ref> Despite the unsatisfactory examination, during this investigation, they detected suspicious activity in at least one of spaceuk's recordings, particularly in Acheron, where the sounds of his clicks mismatch his onscreen inputs.<ref name=":1">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2RTFwn_zho</ref> Initially, they removed his records, but they reinstated them hours later due to a lack of evidence.<ref name=":2">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ggq6F7vWBNsTaISNc7a4dut6uqf1jz6F_SBH-GaMVDg/</ref> However, paqoe continued investigating and found the same issues in his other recordings, like The Hallucination and [[Oblivion]]. She exposed these findings in a video titled 'Exposing SpaceUK' on 25 April 2023.<ref name=":1" /> Afterwards, spaceuk confessed via Twitter that he used zBot for every completion after Sephiroth in May 2022, stating that he wanted to see 'how far he could go' after becoming disinterested in the game.<ref name=":3">https://web.archive.org/web/20240403175757/https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss9laj</ref> He removed many hacked completions from YouTube and relabelled others as 'showcases'.

paqoe later shocked the community by revealing zBot usage in all of spaceuk's recordings, not just since May 2022, as claimed, but back to March 2021.<ref name=":2"/> After these findings emerged, spaceuk finally admitted to cheating on practically every record since The Golden.<ref name=":3"/> Usually, the Demonlist had a mechanism to identify bots such as zBot within records; however, spaceuk utilised a tactic so straightforward that it slipped past the entire team: making clicking noises over the bot. Additionally, the team found a watermark in spaceuk's completions that indicates zBot use, as the 'Level Complete' text was slightly smaller (940 pixels) than usual (1004 pixels). The watermark, known only to the creators of zBot, went completely unnoticed in spaceuk's records because of the presumption that such skilled individuals would never resort to using a bot for their records. According to [[MindCap]] and Blitzer, Kenos was spaceuk's alleged hardest level, and he only began hacking after reaching 96% on The Golden, where he used noclip to finish.<ref name=":2"/> It was later confirmed in an interview between him and Secret Way.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYGLIYH6OM&t=3216s</ref>

The community later discovered that a player named Kolo had expressed concerns about inconsistencies in spaceuk's Slaughterhouse verification video as far back as October 2021. He identified click delays and suspected video cuts in two videos he uploaded.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5DLImhaeZE</ref><ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJInicacHbg</ref> Despite his efforts, the community dismissed his findings. The Demonlist team denied his claims, citing insufficient evidence. A Demonlist moderator even explicitly told him, 'You are wrong 👍', in a Twitter message. In hindsight, the Demonlist acknowledged the validity of Kolo's observations and apologised for their initial dismissal.<ref name=":2"/>

spaceuk deleted his YouTube channel and deactivated his Twitter account after being exposed. He did, however, reactivate his Twitter account and issued the following message:<ref name=":2"/>
{{Quote
 |quote      = 
I'm not making this for sympathy or pity or anything like that. I’m writing this because to clear everything up, apologize and put a conclusion to this. This will address how and why I hacked achievements, apologies to players that I’ve held back and what I’ll do moving forward. These will include only the truth, there’s no reason to lie anymore and the community deserves a response at the very least.

I started playing [[Geometry Dash]] during late March early April and beat levels such as decode, windy landscape and leyak. During the period of beating these levels I’d also gotten 77% on [[Cataclysm]] which I would drop. After this I decided on beating my first extreme which was [[Wasureta]]. My completion of Wasureta as a jump from leyak is legitimate. After this I’d set my eyes on my next extreme demon being [[The Golden]]. To this day I still have 96% on the level and haven’t finished it legitimately since. My completion of The Golden was accidentally noclipped and I hadn’t realized it was noclipped until around 20 minutes after I actually beat the level. I then decided to submit the record anyways with the mindset of “oh well if it gets caught whatever i'll just quit”. To my surprise the record was accepted and then I never looked back. My next extreme demon would end up being [[Kenos]] which is my hardest demon. I had originally gotten a 97% fail on the level with many more fails at the ending to then beat the level legitimately with an obs bug which made it so the screen was frozen. After trying to rebeat it afterwards I then hacked it for a record on the list as I already knew that it already had a good chance of passing through after a noclipped run of the golden was put on the list. How did I hack it? I bought zbot and recorded a macro and clicked over it. That's it, nothing complicated just a simple clicking over a macro. This method of hacking was used for about 90% of all my hacked completions. Everything that followed afterwards was mostly hacked with a few exceptions. Most top levels I was already good enough to play so whenever I got bored I would just pathetically hack them. I lied to all the friends I had made online and betrayed their trust. The more hacked levels the harder it was to say anything about it to the point where I just stopped caring. Just complete loser behavior. I’d then go on to hack slaughterhouse but instead of just clicking over I spent a short time terribly just aligning clicks which turned out to be terrible but uploaded it anyway. Fast forward to the recent records. They were just simply hacked by clicking over a macro but with a handcam.

I'd like to formally apologize to:<br>
[[Crisis]]<br>
[[Wolvez]]<br>
-[[Doggie]]<br>
-[[Icedcave]]<br>
-[[RG]]<br>
-Spirtex<br>
-Snowballerr<br>
-<br>
-Bigthunder<br>
-[[Zoink]]<br>
-[[Trick]]<br>
-Skzyl<br>
-Cobrablitz<br>
-[[Cursed]]<br>
All the close friends I've made online<br>
The Geometry Dash community as a whole

What does this mean for me? I want to try to still make things right even if it's only a little thing. For all the first victor titles I’ve robbed I’ll be giving the money made from the monetization from those videos back to players who actually deserve it. I know saying sorry or doing this isn't even close to making up for everything I’ve done but it's the least I can do. You can ask any questions you want on the quote tweet of this and I’ll reply to all the relevant questions for as long as I can.
 |originator = spaceuk
}}

===Aftermath===
After the exposure, spaceuk's profile on the Pointercrate ''Stats Viewer'' was banned, and the verifier and first-victor titles he had robbed were given to the rightful people. These include, but are not limited to:
*Doggie's verifier title for Slaughterhouse.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULqLnV5Rfk0</ref>
*Laniakea's first victor title for [[Trueffet]].
*Crisis' first victor title for Firework.
*Zoink's first victor title for Aerial Gleam.
*skzyl's first victor title for Oblivion.
*Trick's first victor title for Abyss of Darkness.

Many consider spaceuk's hacking scandal to be the largest hacking controversy in the game's history, surpassing that of [[Andromeda (Player)|Andromeda]], [[Cyclic]], or [[Noctalium]], due to his severely negative impact on many community members by stealing the spotlight on numerous occasions, such as stealing first victor titles and the 'Best Player' award in [[The Geometry Dash Awards]] on two occasions. Two levels ([[Firework]] and [[Hard Machine]]) would also have never gotten the Top 1 spot for any extensive time on the Demonlist due to his opinion and influence. Many well-known players such as fnm04,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPZmTVWPhWI</ref> [[Technical]],<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n167ytwzW1I</ref> EricVanWilderman,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxcY3wrqEsk</ref> [[AeonAir]],<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AucJzr9YW9A</ref> [[Samifying]],<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uLNjFiV1Is</ref> and many more created videos expressing their reaction and thoughts regarding the impact of his hacking controversy. spaceuk's hacking controversy has even reached outside [[Geometry Dash|Geometry Dash's]] community, as two well-known YouTubers, [[Wikipedia:Karl Jobst|Karl Jobst]] and Abyssoft, who frequently discuss cheaters in video games, made videos regarding spaceuk's hacking situation.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJTTDjxzcaM</ref><ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwC0A2Fe2t4</ref> [[Wikipedia:Cr1TiKaL|MoistCr1TiKaL]], a popular commentary YouTuber, also reacted to [[Vortrox|Vortrox's]] video about the situation.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XgEl4HO0Sg</ref> [[npesta]] also responded, expressing his extreme anger about spaceuk hacking.

The Demonlist team later apologised for allowing spaceuk to slip through their systems for over two years. They stated that the exposure enhanced their requirements for submitting records.<ref name=":2"/>

Despite most of the community being aware of spaceuk's hacking, spaceuk returned to YouTube with a new channel (his original channel had lost nearly all of its subscribers). On his new one, he uploaded a legitimate completion of The Golden, including the full stream footage, and it was edited by [[Denni]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLDsfM3jU2Q</ref> The description also stated that his actual Top 5 achievements are The Golden, Kenos, [[Arctic Lights]], Eternal Moment, and Wasureta. He legitimately beat [[Tartarus]] on 14 May 2023, making it his hardest legitimate completion at that moment.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTSWPJtEzFM</ref> Three months later, after seldom uploading any Geometry Dash-related content, spaceuk beat [[Crimson Planet]] on 28 August.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7IxQd1vjJs</ref>

On 21 June 2024, spaceuk legitimately achieved 33% on Kyouki,<ref>https://twitter.com/zbirduk/status/1804143050140139967</ref> sparking controversy as some called for resignation,<ref>https://twitter.com/BranyiSamir/status/1804261115511345632</ref><ref>https://twitter.com/Kaza_GD/status/1804188329010778602</ref> while others, including the Top player [[wPopoff]], supported his comeback.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69d6btd0-EE</ref> He had unlisted all his Geometry Dash-related videos,<ref>https://twitter.com/zbirduk/status/1697742859229630641</ref> but he returned in January 2025 and completed Down Bass and [[Sonic Wave]], relisting a few of his previously unlisted videos.

spaceuk's return to the community sparked mixed reactions about his legitimacy. Some people in the comment sections of his videos wrote cynical comments, such as 'This is your new easiest, and is not nearly as easy as crimson clutter. Congrats!' while others would support his decision and give him a chance, 'I believe Spaceuk isn't trying to do a redemption arc and is just having fun with the game'. From spaceuk's perspective, it seemed as if he was not overly serious about his comeback, even mocking a few people in the comment section, suggesting that he wants to play the levels for his own good time and not for respect or acceptance: 'this game is actually pretty fun when you don't cheat in it'. It is highly unknown whether he would remain in the community, but it is safe to say that most people gave him this support and respect. His recent videos received positive feedback. Those being the completion of Planet Circles<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1vgsauOuRM</ref> and progress of Subterminal Point,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo3ad9nW7v8</ref> accumulating a huge like-to-dislike ratio.

===Regaining the reputation===
spaceuk quit playing the game for some time, not uploading any videos onto his YouTube channel for over five months. Before the initial quitting, spaceuk was trying to beat Acheron, achieving 66% and 36-100%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qcb929V_aA</ref> However, he returned and uploaded a 79-100% run on newly rated [[Thinking Space II]] on 22 September 2025.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX-RMpUNcWc</ref> On 26 September, he started playing Acheron again, announcing that he had gotten a new keyboard.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmiCLoro8-U</ref> On the stream, he got a new best of 68%, as well as 30-100% on 4 October.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XX4v6hA9mo</ref> He provided a 24-100% run the next day, mentioning his ~88,000 attempt count.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NoTFi4Qm9s</ref> He achieved a new record of 72% on 16 October.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EqYPiwyrXY</ref> spaceuk considers himself average-skilled in the light of other top players, mentioning that while Tartarus is his hardest completion, he thinks it does not reflect his true skill, and that is the reason he has decided to go for Acheron.

On 12 September 2025, the former host of the Secret Way YouTube channel, BenCar, hosted an interview with spaceuk. During their conversation, spaceuk answered various questions, including ones about controversial topics, such as the entire hacking scandal.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYGLIYH6OM</ref> spaceuk admitted that he felt guilty for hacking. When asked what he regrets most besides cheating, spaceuk answered that he regrets noclipping The Golden the most, as he genuinely thought he beat it at first. However, when he discovered it, he did not bother trying to beat it legitimately; instead, he uploaded the noclip completion of The Golden, setting off the chain of events.

In the interview, spaceuk also mentioned that paqoe, the verifier of [[Silent clubstep]], could have potentially hacked the level. However, before answering the question, he said that what he was about to say would very likely be simply untrue. A YouTuber ItsCakes made a video discussing the matter.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpoP7W_Mm2U</ref> paqoe has since responded to the situation.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxGaES7bxYAhlEiwu24viu2UQsheQumyyu</ref><ref>https://twitter.com/zoe_bve/status/1971631207248285789</ref>

On 3 January 2026, spaceuk legitimately beat Acheron after around 125,000 attempts.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CSFakL3Hl8</ref> After that, he would start playing Subterminal Point, achieving runs such as 61% twice, 60%, 16-77%, 43-100%,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkOGmH-rShg</ref> 74% twice, and 16-100%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifYVn9Z3CaQ</ref><ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2nys6U4Pmk</ref> He would later temporarily drop the level. He then streamed himself playing [[Tidal Wave]] on 7 March<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lMjWZomri8</ref> and the next day.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daie_eei9WA</ref> After that, he would take a three-month break from the game. He returned to Subterminal Point on 25 June and achieved 85%,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CEtWT4sQAE</ref> and the next day, he failed at the last click, getting 94%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c15A_9JgXV0</ref> Two days later, he managed to beat Subterminal Point as his second hardest level after 36,704 attempts, describing it as mentally harder to beat than Acheron.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCoXzxUjVJQ</ref>

spaceuk's next goal is to return and beat Slaughterhouse, the infamous hacked-verification achievement. In his first stream on 1 July, he achieved 52% and 23-63%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MFerV4UnMw</ref> After nearly a three-week break, on 24 July, he achieved 77% and 45-100%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGKhcLGlsW0</ref>