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What you need to know about Bitcoin Ordinals
The latest buzz in the crypto community is all about Ordinals, a new concept that allows data to be inscribed onto each satoshi, essentially bringing NFTs to the Bitcoin blockchain. However, controversy is abound as some believe that this goes against Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision for Bitcoin.
What are Bitcoin Ordinals?
What are Bitcoin Ordinals?
Each Bitcoin is broken into 100,000,000 units called satoshis (or sats).
On January 21, Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals Protocol – a concept that allows Bitcoin node operators to “inscribe” each sat with data.
The inscribed data can include text, images, videos, and even smart contracts, which in turn gets stored on-chain with the corresponding satoshi unit.
They’re called ordinals because they’re identified by their ordinal number.
🔘 Ordinals thread of threads:
— dotta (@dotta) February 17, 2023
- How to buy #Bitcoin NFTs
- How to inscribe (mint) them
- The notable early collections
- and more... 👇
How are these different from Ethereum NFTs?
How are these different from Ethereum NFTs?
Most Ethereum NFTs are off-chain, with usually only the link to the image and its metadata being stored on-chain.
Ordinals are different because all of the data exists on the Bitcoin blockchain.
However, it does mean that the data stored is limited to 4MB.
Ordinals charge a lower transaction fee too because of the Taproot upgrade in 2021.
How do I participate?
How do I participate?
It’s not exactly easy right now.
There’s no marketplace. Everything is OTC right now on Discord or Telegram.
Want to trade? You’ll also need a full Bitcoin node (right now).
Still interested? Download Sparrow Wallet to receive.
I know everyone hates ordinals, but (whether it’s text or images) the ability to publish uncensorable information on the #bitcoin timechain, effectively makes speech uncensorable worldwide forever.
— Bit Paine ⚡️ ⛓ 648 (@BitPaine) January 31, 2023
Wikileaks on steroids.
Few.
Why the controversy?
Why the controversy?
On one hand, some maximalists claim that NFTs in Bitcoin goes against the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto, who wanted Bitcoin to be used for financial transactions only.
Storing data on the chain can also lead to higher network congestion as well. There have been over 100,000 ordinals created in about a month – and an exponential growth rate could seriously clog the network.
tl;dr
tl;dr
Ordinals are Bitcoin ‘digital artifacts’ (NFTs).
They are inscribed (minted) onto each satoshi.
All buying and selling is done OTC mainly through the Ordinals discord.
Be careful not to get scammed.
You are so early.
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