{"id":5283,"date":"2023-01-31T21:12:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T21:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci02b6c4021000243d"},"modified":"2023-01-31T21:12:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T21:12:42","slug":"ordinals-launch-nft-on-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/technical\/ordinals-launch-nft-on-bitcoin","title":{"rendered":"Ordinals Project Launches Enabling NFTs Directly On Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><p>A project called <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.ordinals.com\/overview.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ordinals<\/a> has launched on the Bitcoin blockchain, effectively enabling Bitcoin-native on-chain NFTs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Led by former Bitcoin Core contributor Casey Rodarmor, the protocol is a convention for numbering and transferring individual satoshis on the Bitcoin network.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/casey\/ord\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ord<\/a>, a specific implementation of Ordinals, \u201cis a wallet and explorer that allows tracking the location of specific satoshis and their ordinal numbers &#8211; assigned by the Ordinals protocol &#8211; as well viewing, creating, and transferring <a href=\"https:\/\/rodarmor.com\/blog\/inscribing-mainnet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">inscriptions<\/a>, that is, individual satoshis inscribed with arbitrary content,\u201d the press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine states.<\/p>\n<p>The introduction of Ord and inscriptions brings NFTs to Bitcoin, allowing content, such as images, videos and HTML to be included in a Bitcoin transaction and assigned to an individual satoshi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInscriptions, using the ordinals protocol, are fully on-chain, and do not require a sidechain or separate token,\u201d the release reads. \u201cInscriptions inherit the simplicity, immutability, security, and durability of Bitcoin itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since its release, the project has attracted a great amount of debate in regards to the impact of ordinals and inscriptions on Bitcoin. Supporters of Ordinals, like Dan Held, describe it as a net benefit for Bitcoin, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/danheld\/status\/1619763083425230848?s=20&amp;t=HXKQI9FByzcTSsg6pNoaBw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">saying<\/a>, \u201cIt brings more financial use cases to Bitcoin, and drives more demand for block space (aka fees).\u201d <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Why it&#39;s good: <br \/>&#8211; Brings more financial use cases to Bitcoin<br \/>&#8211; Drives more demand for block space (aka fees)<\/p>\n<p>My take: <br \/>&#8211; If you pay a tx fee, it&#39;s not spam. <br \/>&#8211; Bitcoin is permissionless. Can&#39;t stop anyone from building it anyway.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dan Held (@danheld) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/danheld\/status\/1619763083425230848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 29, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, critics of Ordinals like Blockstream CEO and long-time Bitcoiner Adam Back <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adam3us\/status\/1619824591580598272?s=20&amp;t=RtLcZ37Dui_AwlZUtParWA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explained that<\/a> \u201cBitcoin is designed to be censor resistant. This doesn&#8217;t stop us mildly commenting on the sheer waste and stupidity of an encoding. At least do something efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;you can&#39;t stop them&quot; well ofc! bitcoin is designed to be censor resistant. doesn&#39;t stop us mildly commenting on the sheer waste and stupidity of an encoding. at least do something efficient. otherwise it&#39;s another proof of consumption of block-space thingy.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adam Back (@adam3us) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adam3us\/status\/1619824591580598272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 29, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Ongoing debate seems to stem from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BitcoinIsSaving\/status\/1619916042607919105?s=20&amp;t=RtLcZ37Dui_AwlZUtParWA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discussions<\/a> in regards to the potential usage of block space and increase in bandwidth necessary to run nodes as a result of inscriptions. Regardless of the debate, \u201cthe Ordinals project continues unphased,\u201d reads the press release, \u201cwith contributors continuing to add new features, such as provenance, collections, composability and a decentralized marketplace.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Ordinals and inscriptions could prove to be an interesting catalyst for Bitcoiners to re-examine the social dynamics that shape Bitcoin development. While the positive or negative impacts of ordinals specifically may be up for debate, renewed interest in how projects and technical implementations are built on Bitcoin is a healthy sign for the network.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The controversial project has been met with equal parts excitement and criticism in regards to its impacts on Bitcoin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2730,"featured_media":3928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[227,93,1130,705],"class_list":{"0":"post-5283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technical","8":"tag-bitcoin-core","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-nfts","11":"tag-scaling"},"author_data":{"id":2730,"name":"BtcCasey","nicename":"casey","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/jn_tjlo_400x400.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/bitcoin-code.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2730"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}