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- 🤔 NFTs on Bitcoin?! (Issue #59)
🤔 NFTs on Bitcoin?! (Issue #59)
Ordinals are anything but ordinary.
In this issue:
How a new protocol is upending NFTs and Bitcoin 🙃
Dookey Dash is done but there's plenty more Yuga fun to come ⚔️
Reddit gets ready for Super Bowl LVII 🏈
Right, let's get straight into it!
DYOR 🔬
Ordinals and Inscriptions
There's been one topic and one topic alone dominating Twitter threads, Spaces, and crypto Discord this week: Ordinals and Inscriptions. The TL;DR is this: Open-source Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor created a protocol called Ordinals that makes it possible to track individual Satoshis (SATS are the smallest unit of Bitcoin) and "inscribe" them with images, GIFs, videos, or other data.
Inscriptions are finally ready for Bitcoin mainnet.
Inscriptions are like NFTs, but are true digital artifacts: decentralized, immutable, always on-chain, and native to Bitcoin. 🧵
rodarmor.com/blog/inscribin…
— Casey Rodarmor (@rodarmor)
10:46 PM • Jan 20, 2023
The result has been a rush to try to inscribe all manner of memes, profile pictures, and other digital content (including, in one instance, a playable version of DOOM, and in another, an infamous pornographic image) because, like the first 999 numbered ENS domains, many people believe the first 10,000 (or 100,000) inscribed Satoshis could one day be extremely valuable. Also, early movers have been making a killing
Just acquired these 7 @OrdinalPunks for a total of 15.2 BTC (211 ETH)
Punk 27 (inscription #444)
Punk 48 (ins #483)
Punk 73 (ins #599)
Punk 80 (ins #606)
Punk 88 (ins #614)
Punk 91 (ins #617)
Punk 92 (ins #618)If you haven't looked into Ordinal NFTs on BTC yet, you should, now
— dingaling (@dingalingts)
5:33 PM • Feb 8, 2023
Alongside the rush to chalk up early inscriptions, in some corners of crypto land, people are also trying to inscribe what they deem historically or numerically significant SATS. Those with rare serial numbers, so to speak, or those produced at critical junctures like forks or halvenings (when the Bitcoin network doubles the difficulty of mining new coins, which happens at certain intervals by design to slow the creation of the finite currency).
Two of the most notable Ordinals projects to date are Ordinal Punks (100 pixelated Punk images derived from CryptoPunks) and OCMs (OnChainMonkeys) — because derivatives are easier when you're in a landgrab... and crypto folk love punks and apes.
Because there's no OpenSea for Ordinals yet — though there might be by the time you read this, given how fast people are building new services to take advantage of the hype, speculation, and oodles of cash to be had — so trading has to date been OTC (over-the-counter) and, I shit you not, largely managed via Google Sheets.
new opensea competitor lookin sharp
— 113 ♖♖♖ (@0x113d)
9:27 PM • Feb 8, 2023
If this sounds like the Wild West... well, it's exactly that, albeit without the saloons, horses, or shootouts. Scammers are having a field day, and you're encouraged to proceed with extreme caution, frens.
Painted pennies
As my colleague, Wilfred Odero, explained to me this week (along with most of the rest of what you'll read here, thank you, Wilfred!), you can think of SATS as pennies and inscriptions as paintings on the back of them. That means they're not exactly NFTs, because they retain an element of fungibility... but Inscriptions are commonly being called Bitcoin NFTs nonetheless.
Bounty for an exotic ordinal!
I am looking for a satoshi who's ordinal number is in the range 570548.0-570548.1249999999. Or in the range 1763185000000000-1763186249999999. I will pay 500,000 sats to the first person who sends me a sat in that range. ... 1/3— Rijndael (@rot13maxi)
3:55 PM • Jan 8, 2023
Just like you could accidentally spend a painted penny if the teller only looked at the coin's face, a Bitcoin node can't tell the difference between an inscribed SAT and a regular one. Just as you could easily spend your painted penny by mistake if you're not paying attention, you could accidentally send an inscribed SAT in a transaction, or it could go to a miner instead of the intended recipient if you're not careful.
Unlike the spent penny, you could always look up where your inscribed SAT winds up... but this being crypto, where transactions are irrevocable, you wouldn't be able to retrieve it if you transferred it by mistake. The recipient would have to send it back to you.
How-to verify Ordinals in an @EmblemVault ⚪️
Sales of Ordinals are starting to take off on Opensea using Emblem Vault, so I wanted to make a quick thread to ensure you get the Ordinal you pay for.
👇
1/11
— adammcbride.og 🔎 NFT Archaeologist (@adamamcbride)
3:51 PM • Feb 10, 2023
A common solution right now is to set up separate wallets (Sparrow Wallet is a popular choice) to store or trade inscribed SATs, and as Rodamor explains, you can think of Ordinals as a lens of sorts. Using the Ordinals block explorer, those who want to participate can view inscribed SATS, but the underlying Bitcoin network is effectively oblivious.
While the network may be oblivious, Bitcoin Maximalists are not, and plenty have expressed indignation at this use of their beloved blockchain for purposes for which it was never intended. One reason Maxis don't approve is they don't want demand on, or volatility in, the network that isn't tied to Bitcoin's core, financial purposes. Of course, we've seen this play out before with Rare Pepes.
It's always been possible to assign arbitrary data to Bitcoin. Where Rare Pepes took advantage of a soft fork/upgrade called SegWIT (Segregated Witness) to attach content to Bitcoin, Ordinals are helped by a more recent one called Taproot which makes the process simpler and more cost-effective (inscribing costs $10-20). That means a future hard fork could, in theory, remove the unspent transaction loophole that makes Inscriptions possible.
tl;dr after digging into the Ordinals "spam" debacle:
1) This has been possible since SegWit
2) Taproot didn't enable this, it just made it (very) slightly easier and cheaper
3) Prepare for the FUD as proponents of Bitcoin's early ossification try to weaponize this w/o nuance— Seth For Privacy (@sethforprivacy)
6:57 PM • Feb 3, 2023
Building the plane in the air
In the early days of Ordinals (i.e. the first week of February), if you wanted to inscribe SATS you needed to be running your own Bitcoin node (the blockchain equivalent of running your own email service)... but already someone's built a tool to get around that.
Elsewhere, some people are offering inscription as a service, creating projects that bridge ETH NFTs to BTC NFTs, and replicating popular ETH projects. There's even a regularly updated OrdinalHub rounding up all related services, sites, and other related initiatives.
By this time next week, Ordinals may have numerous marketplaces, hugely popular profile picture collections, and inscriptions from big-name artists. They may inspire all sorts of new Bitcoin use cases and drive up interest in the OG cryptocurrency again. Or... the sector might find the Next Big Thing and move on.
Further reading:
The official Ordinal Theory Handbook
Rodarmor's "Ordinal Theory" blog post
CoinDesk's Ordinals explainer
Dennis Porteaux's Maxi-riling take
To the moon 🌛
Jack Butcher's Checks VV experiment had been dominating NFT news before Ordinals. Now delightful projects referencing it are creating web3 history in real-time. NFTnow's got a great explainer on the rapid rise of Check derivatives.
Nike chose the first four [dot]swoosh collaborators who'll get to help design digital wares for the brand and will get a share of the revenue from their sale.
Yuga Lab's toilet-humor game, Dookey Dash, came to an end. Despite anti-cheat measures, it's clear some people still managed to get around them. But before the dust has even settled, Yuga's already announced its next interactive event:
After we return from Second Trip…
Otherside: Legends of the Mara. A stand-alone 2D experience powered by @apecoin.
— Othersidemeta (@OthersideMeta)
5:00 PM • Feb 7, 2023
Creature World creator Danny Cole announced he's launching a fashion label.
In non-Ordinal news, Rug Radio's 20,000 PFP project sold out (with minor hiccups).
Luxury brand Hermès won its lawsuit surrounding the MetaBirkins NFTs it argued infringed its copyright.
Reddit released Super Bowl LVII-themed Collective Avatars:
Ready to score? We’re teaming up with the @NFL to bring you #SBLVII Collectible Avatars. And they’re free. Get yours today: bit.ly/3wWIfYr
— Reddit (@Reddit)
6:31 PM • Feb 6, 2023
Web3 game company Limit Break will give away thousands of its DigiDaigaku Dragon NFTs during the Super Bowl via a QR code in an advertisement.
Digital artist pplpleasr directed a music video for a previously unreleased Linkin Park track.
The Pompidou Centre in Paris added a CryptoPunk to its collection:
Le Centre Pompidou fait l’acquisition d’un ensemble d’œuvres traitant des relations entre blockchain et création artistique, dont ses premiers NFT ! 👾
Ce sont 18 projets de 13 artistes français et internationaux qui entrent en collection.
Plus d'infos 👉 bit.ly/CP_MagNFT— Centre Pompidou (@CentrePompidou)
11:57 AM • Feb 10, 2023
NFT marketplace LooksRare has signed a deal with payments company MoonPay that enables LooksRare uses to buy NFTs using a credit card.
Bueno, the no-code NFT creation tool, is adding a service called Bueno Drops to make it easy to create open editions.
Sounds rare 🖼
On Monday, you can catch Metaversal’s own Matt Miller and his co-hosts VonMises and ayybee in conversation with Flamingo Dao's @jdh and @ChrisF.
Please join me and my co-host @_ayyybee_ and @balon_art for our twitter spaces @ArtIsUnfiltered this upcoming Monday Feb 13. Welcoming the sharp insights of legendary collectors @jdh and @ChrisF_0x from @FLAMINGODAO. Looking forward to this one!
twitter.com/i/spaces/1BdxY…
— VonMises (@VonMises14)
8:32 PM • Feb 10, 2023
You can set a reminder here to tune in to the Spaces.
IYKYK 💪
NFT mfs preparing to reply GM all day:
— MinisterOfNFTs 🔮 (@MinisterOfNFTs)
3:32 PM • Feb 11, 2023
🤝 Connect for more from Metaversal 🔌
You can find more rapid-fire updates, insights, memes, and other procrastination fodder from the Metaversal team on any of your preferred platforms, we’re on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon, and TikTok.
This week’s edition was compiled by Metaversal’s content director, Craig Wilson. You can find him on Twitter or Mastodon.
Until next time, see you in the metaverse!