Differing opinions – In less than two weeks after the first registrations of Ordinals on Bitcointhere community East divided on the subject. Some wish to censor these transactions which they consider useless while others are jubilant about this use of the protocol. And, there are also those who are just happy to be able to upload media on the most secure blockchain in the world. Difficult to find a happy medium in the discussions, because in spite of the criticisms, certain observers draw positive aspects from it. A brief overview of the various reactions and arguments.
Ordinals and NFTs on Bitcoin
Of the NFT hosted 100% on Bitcoin? This technical feat was made possible on January 29, 2023 by Casey Rodarmor and elicited many reactions.
But what are the Ordinals inscriptions ? In short, it is the possibility of circumventing a technical limitation for to use everything’bitcoin block space in order to enter data up to 4MB. But using Bitcoin as a database rather than a financial exchange instrument is not really a recent idea and has already caused a lot of debate.
Since 2014, a status quo has been established on this issue thanks to the OP_RETURN function which allows writing up to 80 bytes of data in a block. This space is enough to write poems or an external link that hosts a media. This has even allowed the advent of collections such as the RarePepe or the cards of Spell of Genesis.
Then in 2021, the update Taproot took place with the objective of increasing the confidentiality, flexibility and scalability of smart contracts. By interpreting this update in a way that had not been thought of by its developers, Casey would imagine the theory Ordinals on four elements:
- The control field: Place where ” live » the data;
- The inscription: represents what is going to be written;
- The envelope: contains the codes (Opcodes) that give instructions to Bitcoin;
- Ordinal numbers: allows to distinguish each satoshi individually to make digital artifacts.
At the moment, it is necessary to have software compatible with Ordinals to view media or write inscriptions. But this limitation did not prevent a increasing number of transactions until completing the space of a block.
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I’increase in Ordinals registrations
As of February 8, 2023, it is approximately 15,000 cumulative registrations that have been written about bitcoin. Between memes, punks, rocks, animals, gifs or video, the content that can be found on the dedicated Ordinals page is as wide as it is varied.
Admittedly, this increase in the data present in the transactions has led to a increased transaction fees. But this increase also creates a financial barrier and the question of spending your precious satoshis to put an image of little interest online begins to arise.
Even if Ordinals allows you to upload up to 4MB of data, this does not mean that all the blocks have been filled to 100% since January 29. Until then, only the developer Udi Wertheimer succeeded and it represented a world first. Beyond this record, wouldn’t this action also be a response to the debate raging in the Bitcoin community?
Divided reactions from the Bitcoin community
The debate is that of the sulphurous question of the identity of Bitcoin. Because although its code is not in favor of it, its use can divide the opinion of developers and experts. Ordinals was first seen as a new attack vector by Luke Dashjr. According to Adam Black (who is then retracted), it should be censored because it might cause the spread of malware by executing malicious code from the browser.
But, these fears are not the majority within the Bitcoin community. For example, Dan Helda longtime supporter of Bitcoin, notably speculated that Hal Finney would like the ” Bitcoin NFTs “. Dennis Porter meanwhile is pleased that Ordinals is doing raise transaction feesbeneficial for Bitcoin miners among others.
Other players in the ecosystem are optimists compared to these new NFTs with a more elegant name. For example, the entries could be classified documents put online by whistleblowers. Some even speak of a Wikileaks on steroids. However, this enthusiasm should not prevent reflection on the moderation of content to be posted on Ordinals.
Exchanges in full confidence
It is already possible to find collections on Ethereum such as CryptoPunks (became OrdinalsPunks Or bitcoin punk). Only, to be able to exchange them, it has nothing to do with the operation of Opensea. Everything is currently happening on Discord with agreements between anonymous people, sometimes even with orders entered on a shared spreadsheet.
Transactions are visible thanks to bots that report on the various sales on Twitter or a dedicated lounge on Discord. These are indeed peer-to-peer exchanges, but with absolute trust in third parties. Transactions exist of course Bitcoin, no doubt about it. It will therefore theoretically be possible to trace all registrations Ordinals with dedicated software, but the latter has not yet been released.
Do not hesitate to download a Bitcoin node to participate in its decentralization. But if you don’t know what to do to buy a registration, be careful!
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