Bringing NFTs to Bitcoin: The Innovation of Casey Rodarmor’s Ordinals Protocol

In a recent interview, Casey Rodarmor, creator of the Ordinals project, shared his thoughts on one of the hottest projects in the crypto space.

According to a report by George Kaloudis, a senior research analyst and columnist for CoinDesk who recently interviewed Rodarmor, the Bitcoin developer began working on Ordinals in 2022, drawing inspiration directly from Bitcoin’s pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. The Ordinals protocol is apparently based on Satoshi’s original inclusion of references to something called “atoms” in the Bitcoin codebase. By sequentially numbering satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, users can write data on these satoshis to create digital artifacts.

Unlike most other types of NFTs, which tend to store the actual image or text file somewhere else and then add a link to that data on the blockchain, inscriptions on Ordinal NFTs are always immutable, which Rodarmor observes as an upgrade to the immutability of NFTs.

While some in the Bitcoin community have criticized Ordinals as a threat to the sovereignty of Bitcoin users and holders, Rodarmor believes that engaging in one-on-one conversations with critics can lead to finding common ground.

Kaloudis is unsure whether Ordinal NFTs will solve Bitcoin’s security budget problem, so the CoinDesk analyst and writer asked Rodarmor what he thought.

Rodarmor’s response was, “YOLO. Let’s find out.”

The Ordinals creator said in a blog post published on January 20, 2023 that the Ordinals protocol supports putting “inscriptions” on the Bitcoin blockchain, then went on to explain how inscriptions differ from NFTs:

“Inscriptions are digital objects native to the Bitcoin blockchain. They are created by entering sentences with content using words, and can be viewed with the ordinal explorer. They do not require a separate token, a sidechain or change of Bitcoin. Inscriptions are created by including content, such as 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. Along with the content, the inscription transaction contains a content type, also known as a MIME type, which identifies the type of content to be inscribed…

“Inscriptions are digital artifacts, and digital artifacts are NFTs, but not all NFTs are digital artifacts. Digital artifacts are NFTs held to a higher standard, closer to their ideal. For an NFT to be a digital artifact, it must be decentralized, immutable, on-chain and unlimited. The vast majority of NFTs are not digital artifacts. Their content is stored off-chain and can be lost, they are on centralized chains, and they have backdoor admin keys. What’s worse, because they are smart contracts, they must be audited on a case-by-case basis to determine their properties. Inscriptions are not plagued by such errors. Inscriptions are immutable and on-chain, on the oldest, most decentralized and most secure blockchain in the world. They are not smart contracts, and do not need to be examined individually to determine their properties. They are real digital artifacts.“

On February 7, 2023, Binance Research said that “in recent weeks, the Ordinals protocol has gained widespread popularity, with users experimenting with embedding JPEGs, videos, and even PDFs into the blockchain. It also mentioned that while some Bitcoin community members have raised concerns that the Ordinals protocol could potentially increase transaction fees by consuming block space on the Bitcoin network, there is an ongoing debate as to whether this is a positive or negative development for the blockchain.

On the same day, independent developer and consultant Udi Wertheimer listed some of the benefits of Bitcoin NFTs: