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Bitcoin NFTs 🚀

There is no second best… NFT chain?

William M. Peaster's avatar
William M. Peaster
Jan 31, 2023
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❎ Across.to is the bridge you deserve ❎

Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles


Dear Bankless Nation,

Bitcoin is a digital currency that’s mostly just traded these days. 

This dynamic comes in no small part from Bitcoin’s development being conservative and narrow by design. The idea? Go all-in on singularly optimizing for the status of censorship-resistant, decentralized money. 

Ethereum’s obviously taken a wider approach by focusing on moneyness and decentralized applications, like NFTs. 

Yet Bitcoin’s strict design doesn’t actually prevent NFT-like creations. 

In fact, lately a growing wave of experimenters have been using Bitcoin’s constraints in creative ways to make new types of non-fungible creations on the OG blockchain, much to the chagrin of some hardcore Bitcoiners who have blasted the works as spam. 

For today’s post, then, let’s get you up to speed on what’s going down in the Bitcoin NFT scene right now. 

-WMP


🙏 Thanks to our sponsor ACROSS

👉 Across.to is the bridge you deserve!


Behind the Bitcoin NFT buzz!

What’s in a Bitcoin block? More than a few NFTs lately, and it’s driving up revenues for miners

The 101 🆕

The Bitcoin community has been grappling with a recent rise in Bitcoin NFT mints after Ordinals — a protocol that converts individual satoshis, the smallest bitcoin denomination, into non-fungible digital artifacts — launched earlier this month. 

Ordinals has been met with derision by the “old guard” hardliner Bitcoiners, not unlike how some of these very same folks argued against Bitcoin-based Counterparty NFTs as spam back in 2014. 

Twitter avatar for @BennettTomlin
@BennettTomlin@mstdn.social @BennettTomlin
Someone minted Luke Dash complaining about ordinals (NFTs) as an ordinal (NFT) on Bitcoin ordinals.com/inscription/9f…
Image
7:07 PM ∙ Jan 28, 2023
74Likes8Retweets

In contrast, Counterparty veterans and new and old experimenters alike are hailing Ordinals’s approach as potentially revolutionary for Bitcoin’s NFT scene going forward. Moreover, these new NFTs are noticeably driving up transaction fee revenues for Bitcoin miners, potentially pointing the way to a future in which cultural activity comes to help replace the ever decreasing block subsidy on Bitcoin. 

Twitter avatar for @FanisMichalakis
Fanis 'FM' Teamunhostedalakis @FanisMichalakis
Wow, this ordinals thing is really inflating blocks size and weight. And it definitely generates a lot of fees for miners!
Image
Image
2:33 PM ∙ Jan 31, 2023
15Likes1Retweet

How Ordinals NFTs work 🧠

Twitter avatar for @rodarmor
Casey Rodarmor @rodarmor
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…
rodarmor.comInscribing Mainnet – Casey Rodarmor’s Blog
10:46 PM ∙ Jan 20, 2023
324Likes82Retweets

Ordinals is centered around a newly developed, Bitcoin-native mechanism called Inscriptions. Per the Inscriptions mainnet announcement post:

“Inscriptions are digital artifacts native to the Bitcoin blockchain. They are created by inscribing sats with content using ord, and can be viewed with the ordinals explorer. They do not require a separate token, a side chain, or changing Bitcoin.

Inscriptions are created by including content, like an image, text, SVG, or HTML, in an inscription transaction. The content is included in the transaction witness, which normally contains signatures and other data proving that a transaction is authorized.

[...] When mined, the inscription is made on the first sat of the first output of the transaction, permanently and inexorably marking it, distinguishing it from its fellows. It is no longer just a sat, it is an intertwined component of the long and confusing tale that is human art and culture.

Using ordinal theory, the unspent output containing an inscribed sat can be found, and its movements and ownership tracked across time and transactions, allowing inscriptions to be traded, gifted, bought, and sold.”


The onchain factor 🔗

The media in Ordinals mints are stored entirely on the Bitcoin blockchain, meaning there are no external dependencies, e.g. private servers or IPFS. These NFTs will be forever retrievable from Bitcoin.

Twitter avatar for @notsofast
notsofast @notsofast
looks like all EtherRocks were transposed to Bitcoin Blockchain via ordinals
Image
7:55 PM ∙ Jan 30, 2023
55Likes4Retweets

Of course, it’s possible in a different manner to mint totally onchain Ethereum NFTs, though onchain minting on Ethereum is expensive. Interestingly, then, Ordinals allows for onchain Bitcoin NFTs to be minted much more affordably than onchain Ethereum NFTs. 

Twitter avatar for @ercwl
Erica Wall @ercwl
@Crypto_Lion888 A byte of CALLDATA in ETH L1 is 16 gas. 360kb = 5,760,000 gas. Current gas cost is 15 gwei. 5,760,000 * 15 = 86,400,000 gwei = 0.0864 ETH = 140 bucks. $20 vs $140, 7x difference.
Twitter avatar for @ercwl
Erica Wall @ercwl
Total price = 20 bucks.
12:19 PM ∙ Jan 29, 2023
33Likes1Retweet

In the Ethereum ecosystem, onchain NFTs are celebrated by many for being the highest quality and most resilient metadata storage avenue possible. In kind, there’s reason to believe onchain digital artifacts on Bitcoin may come to be similarly celebrated thanks to their robustness, too. 


What people are saying 🗣️

1. Dennis Porteaux wrote an awesome, balanced deep dive on the technical and factional contexts around Ordinals:

Twitter avatar for @pourteaux
dennis @pourteaux
Illegitimate bitcoin transactions: the longstanding compromise on transaction sizes, how Taproot accidentally blew it up, and the nascent NFT protocol emerging in its wake (new from me)
read.pourteaux.xyzIllegitimate bitcoin transactionsThe longstanding compromise on transaction sizes, how Taproot and SegWit inadvertantly blew it up, and the nascent NFT protocol emerging in its wake
9:43 PM ∙ Jan 25, 2023
409Likes121Retweets

2. Eric Wall highlighted the irony of hardline Bitcoiners being okay with censoring Bitcoin NFTs:

Twitter avatar for @ercwl
Erica Wall @ercwl
Bitcoin maxis roflcoptered at Ethereum validators censoring OFAC transactions (it wasn’t actually the case, primarily it was a popular but optional MEV block builder that the validators defaulted to use) and are now themselves deliberating ways of censoring Bitcoin NFTs.
Image
3:34 PM ∙ Jan 29, 2023
666Likes95Retweets

3. Casey Rodarmor argued against Bitcoin Essentialism:

Twitter avatar for @rodarmor
Casey Rodarmor @rodarmor
I understand the argument that NFTs are lame and stupid, but I don't understand the argument that NFTs are somehow *illegitimate*. Bitcoin has transcended its original creator and purpose. Bitcoin is not *for* some things and *not for* other things. It just is.
2:04 AM ∙ Jan 29, 2023
112Likes11Retweets

The big picture 💡

The rise of Ordinals isn’t some flash in the pan in the Bitcoin ecosystem, as the Bitcoin NFT scene has been blossoming anew since last year. 

For example, artist, data scientist, and NFT historian Chainleft minted PEPERMANENT, a totally on-chain Bitcoin NFT experiment, in Nov. 2022 prior to the current Ordinals buzz. 

Twitter avatar for @ChainLeftist
Chainleft @ChainLeftist
- My first creation on Bitcoin - Also my first 100% on-chain stored NFT on Bitcoin - Also. Was Pepe ever stored on Bitcoin before 2022-11-23? Don't tell me this is the first 100% on-chain Pepe on Bitcoin... It surely isn't? Drop mechanics 👇
Twitter avatar for @FAKERARES_XCP
🐸🐸🐸FAKE RARES🐸🐸🐸 @FAKERARES_XCP
Series 12 Card 33 PEPERMANENT @ChainLeftist https://t.co/MOoP2jYB7N
3:58 PM ∙ Jan 4, 2023
113Likes30Retweets

This blooming NFT activity is really interesting when you can consider the fact that Bitcoin desperately needs a teeming blockspace market to develop in the years ahead if miners are to earn enough to stick around and want to keep securing Bitcoin as the BTC block subsidy keeps halving every four years. 

Ordinals, then, is such a step in the direction of a teeming blockspace market on Bitcoin, even though hardliners want to preserve blockspace for only currency use cases. We’ll have to see how things shake out from here, but either way Ordinals NFTs are here to stay.


Action steps

  • Check out Bitcoin NFTs: review the Ordinals site and docs 🔥

  • See my previous weekly recap if you missed it: Doubling Down on NFT Security 🔏


Author Bio

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal—a Bankless newsletter focused on the emergence of NFTs in the cryptoeconomy. He’s also recently been contributing content to Bankless, JPG, and beyond!


Subscribe to Bankless. $22 per mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge.


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👉 If you have questions, check Twitter or the Discord!


Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.


Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.


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Zora V3 is 🔥
Zora’s new protocol infra is a step forward for the NFT space!
Jan 25, 2022 • 
William M. Peaster
47

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Bored Ape Mutation Madness! ⚗️
BAYC introduces Mutant Apes, leading to a fun NFT mutation frenzy!
Aug 31, 2021 • 
William M. Peaster
25

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Bored Ape Mutation Madness! ⚗️
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Why Right-Click Savers Flunk NFTs ❌
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard would tell right-click savers they have NFTs all wrong!
Sep 8, 2021 • 
William M. Peaster
24

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