Ordinals is a new method of accessing and acquiring content material. They are allowing creators to use the utility of NFTs, non-fungible tokens, straight from the blockchain. This is the equivalent of native NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. Some people are discussing the potential for this to be the optimal way to go. This could have an effect on the cost of Bitcoin and nodes in the future.
Ordinals Enable Bitcoin NFTs Thanks To Taproot
A new use case for the Bitcoin blockchain is currently being explored by people who have found a way to access content directly on the blockchain. The term ordinals was presented only a few days ago and has given everyone the ability to generate native NFTs. This alternative was unlocked by the Taproot upgrade that took place in November, which enlarged the length of Bitcoin transactions to almost every block size.
This was the key to what is currently happening. Before Taproot, transactions could only be 80 bytes large, which made it hard to use the block space. NFTs are now being stored straight on-chain, allowing for portability, stability, and decentralization. This is something to take into account.
This could offer unique advantages for content creators as well as consumers. Each bit of content stored on the blockchain via ordinals must be synchronized by every node in order to make sure the longevity of the blockchain. Most NFT initiatives combine various chains with Ethereum, only storing pointers to data that doesn’t live on the blockchain.
Controversy Surrounding the New Feature
Although there are clear benefits for NFT adoption, the introduction of this new feature has sparked a longstanding dispute about the true function of the Bitcoin ecosystem. There are two sides already involved in this public debate: those that support this new face of Bitcoin and those that view it as spam.
The first faction believes that this could make the chain a net benefit and will result in more fees and use cases. The case of the famous crypto influencer Dan Held is a good example. He believes that each transaction that pays a fee should not be deemed as spam and the chain should not be made available for anyone to build on top of.
The second group claims that even though they may not be able to stop it, it will cause harm to the financial or transactional use case of Bitcoin. This faction includes Blockstream CEO Adam Back and some who believe him to be Satoshi Nakamoto. He stated that Bitcoin users can “educate and encourage developers who care about bitcoin’s use case not to do it or do it in a space-efficient way, e.g. timestamped.”
Luke Dashjr, a Bitcoin developer, called this an “attack” on the protocol and asked for filters to be designed to reduce the performance of ordinal functions. Another Twitter user named “Bitcoin is saving” criticized another perspective that it could impact the viability of marginalized individuals when creating countries to run Bitcoin nodes and transactions.
What do you think about ordinals and Bitcoin NFTs? Leave us a comment in the section below.
