What Do Bitcoin Ordinals Mean?
Bitcoin Ordinals is a system that lets each satoshi (SAT) in a Bitcoin blockchain be given a unique identifier and be sent with extra information attached. The smallest piece of bitcoin money is the satoshi, and there are 100,000,000 of them in a bitcoin. This system, which was created by Casey Rodarmor, lets non-fungible tokens (NFTs) be made directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin NFTs are sometimes called Ordinal NFTs as well.
Not long ago, bitcoins were fungible, which means they could be exchanged for other bitcoins. One satoshi on a blockchain could not be told apart from another. That was different with Rodarmor’s system, which used two changes made to the original Bitcoin protocol: Segregated Witness (SegWit) and Taproot. These ordinal methods were used to make Ordi, one of the most well-known BRC-20 tokens.
The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol uses a new type of Bitcoin address code that was made by Taproot to identify specific satoshis.
Because of the Segregated Witness update, witness information (also called witness script) could be kept separate from transaction data on the blockchain in a different data structure. With this change, Bitcoin blocks became bigger, and users could add picture and video data to the witness script along with digital signatures and other proof information.
The Ordinal NFTs
If someone makes an NFT, it is a one-of-a-kind digital object that is verified on a blockchain to protect their intellectual property (IP).
NFTs on the Ethereum or Solana blockchains can only use metadata to show who owns a digital object and that it is real. It is kept in a different file that is not part of the chain.
Ordinal NFTs, on the other hand, can store the digital object itself on the blockchain in the witness data of a transaction.
Before a person can make an Ordinal NFT, they need to send an ordinal SAT to a wallet that works with Taproot and include data and metadata in the transaction. The writing is forever etched onto the first satoshi of the transaction’s first output once it has been mined.
For the first step, you need to run a Bitcoin node, sync the full Bitcoin blockchain, and use command-line interfaces, which can be hard for people who aren’t tech-savvy. But now that there are no-code ordinal mining apps, even people who aren’t very good with computers can upload material for inscriptions and make Ordinal NFTs.
A lot of people in the crypto world are arguing about Bitcoin Ordinals. Some people say that engraved satoshi Ordinals waste block space and will cause Bitcoin transaction fees to go up and transaction times to slow down for everyone on the network. But people who support Bitcoin Ordinals want to know how the protocol can be used to make Bitcoin useful for more than just transfers.
The protocol could be used to do more than just make Ordinal NFTs. It could also be used to link ordinal satoshis to specific security tokens or stablecoins, make Bitcoin smart contracts possible, and bring the cryptocurrency to more people.