A project called Ordinals has been launched on the Bitcoin blockchain, effectively enabling Bitcoin’s original on-chain NFT.
Led by former Bitcoin Core contributor Casey Rodarmor, the protocol is a convention for numbering and transferring individual satoshis on the Bitcoin network.
Ord, a specific implementation of Ordinals, “is a wallet and explorer that allows tracking the location of specific satoshis and ordinal numbers – assigned by the Ordinals protocol – as well as viewing, creating and transferring inscriptions, that is, individual satoshis written with arbitrary content,” a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine stated.
The introduction of Ord and inscription brings NFT to Bitcoin, allowing content, such as images, videos and HTML to be included in Bitcoin transactions and assigned to individual satoshi.
“Inscription, using an ordinal protocol, is fully on-chain, and does not require a separate sidechain or token,” the release read. “Inscription inherits the simplicity, immutability, security, and durability of Bitcoin itself.”
Since its launch, the project has attracted a lot of debate about the impact of ordinals and inscriptions on Bitcoin. Proponents of Ordinals, like Dan Held, describe it as a net gain for Bitcoin, said“It brings more financial use cases for Bitcoin, and drives more demand for blockchain space (aka costs).”
Meanwhile, critics of Ordinals like Blockstream CEO and longtime Bitcoiner Adam Back explained that “Bitcoin was designed to withstand censorship. This does not prevent us from lightly commenting on the garbage and stupidity of the encoding. At least do something efficient.”
The ongoing debate is evident from talk about the potential use of block space and the increase in bandwidth required to run nodes as a result of inscriptions. Regardless of the debate, “the Ordinals project continues unphased,” reads the press release, “with contributors continuing to add new features, such as provenance, collections, composability and decentralized markets.”
Ordinals and inscriptions could prove to be an interesting catalyst for Bitcoiners to re-examine the social dynamics that shaped the development of Bitcoin. While the positive or negative impact of custom ordinals can be debated, the renewed interest in how projects and technical implementations are built on Bitcoin is a healthy sign for the network.