"The Times reported on January 3, 2009 that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer was planning to implement a second round of bailout for the banking industry."
This is a text recorded by Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, in the genesis block of the Bitcoin network. That day was January 9, 2019. This inscription witnessed the birth of Bitcoin and also recorded the response to the financial crisis. irony.
Satoshi Nakamoto was not alone in wanting to bring more information into the Bitcoin network. To date, more than 33 million inscriptions have been created.
What is the inscription?
"Inscription" means to have words engraved on something (such as a stone, a coin, a tablet, etc.). Bitcoin inscription is the metadata engraved on satoshi. The smallest unit of Bitcoin is satoshi (satoshi). One bitcoin can be divided into 100 million satoshis. Each satoshi is sorted through ordinal theory and has a corresponding ordinal number, which is a unique number. Bitcoin inscription refers to using the Ordinals protocol to write content into satoshi for inscription. The written information can be text, pictures, videos, audios, etc. Recently, sats has also successfully allowed many people to enjoy a wave of hundreds of times profits, while rats, which is also popular, has also increased by nearly dozens of times, making people drool.
What is Bitcoin Inscription?
Bitcoin inscription is a digital imprint created on Bitcoin using new technology. If Bitcoin is compared to digital gold, then inscription is a gold jewelry. They share the same essence. Inscription refers to the transaction’s witness data part. The process of embedding arbitrary data into the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Inscriptions" appeared on the Bitcoin network, which are basically an application of the Bitcoin blockchain similar to, but not the same as, non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Unlike NFTs on other blockchains such as Ethereum, these inscriptions are engraved directly on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Inscriptions can be data, images, audio, video, or even software. However, in terms of the average size of Bitcoin inscriptions, the audio and video types are the largest. Their footprint is still the lowest as their frequency is significantly reduced compared to types such as images or text.
Depending on what is placed, Bitcoin inscriptions can be divided into two broad categories: text-based inscriptions and image-based inscriptions.
Text-based inscriptions are mainly used to create tokens, such as the BRC-20 Token standard. The BRC-20 Token standard is a protocol for creating tokens on Bitcoin, which is similar to the ERC-20 Token standard on Ethereum. The BRC-20 Token standard allows users to create their own tokens and trade them on the ordinal market. Hundreds of BRC-20 Tokens have been created, some of which have high market capitalization and liquidity, such as Ordi, Pepe, and Meme.
Image-based inscriptions are primarily used to create NFTs, which are collectible digital artworks or collectibles. These NFTs can represent a variety of themes and styles, such as animals, cartoons, abstract, and more. Some NFTs are original, while others are copies or imitations of NFTs on other blockchains. Image-based inscriptions are not as numerous as text-based inscriptions, but they are more popular in the market. The most expensive Bitcoin inscription currently is a picture called "Genesis", which is said to have a market price of as high as $10 million.
In the first 200 days since Bitcoin was first inscribed, 1.14 million image-based inscriptions have been created, which exceeds the total number of NFTs minted in the first 200 days on the Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon networks. A report from Galaxy Research and Mining predicts that the market value of the Ordinals market will reach $5 billion by 2025.
A number of commercial services have slowly emerged around the concept of Bitcoin inscriptions. For example, the browser extension wallet used to store Inscriptions enables users to connect to exchanges, send and receive Bitcoin or Inscriptions, and view Ordinals collections, providing a user experience comparable to Ethereum Metamask. There are also companies exiting inscription-as-a-service offerings, such as Ordinalsbot and Unisat. Binance Pool, the mining arm of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, also launched Inscription as a Service on August 31, 2023.
What is the use of Bitcoin inscriptions?
Bitcoin Inscription could reinvigorate Bitcoin’s block space fee market, and as Inscription becomes more popular and competes for block space, these fees are likely to increase, resulting in more revenue for miners. And this will become even more important in the long term, as Bitcoin block rewards approach zero and miners will have to rely on transaction fees to keep the network secure.
The Bitcoin mempool has also experienced a surge in activity related to Inscription. With the recent increase in mempool congestion caused by Inscription, most transactions are being processed at low rates. Despite the low fees, the recent surge in Bitcoin mempool activity shows The increasing demand for Bitcoin block space, in turn, puts upward pressure on transaction fees, and due to the lack of urgency compared to financial transactions, Inscription transactions will be the buyer of last resort for block space when the mempool is empty.
It is known that the total amount of Bitcoin is limited, with a total supply of only 21 million, and the total number of inscriptions that can be engraved is also limited. As time goes by, early inscriptions become more precious because of their historical status. In the field of NFT, uniqueness and scarcity Sex will give the work a higher value, and earlier Bitcoin NFT inscriptions may become increasingly valuable.
What is the value of the inscription?
We cannot look at new things with colored glasses! When you actually mint tokens and NFTs, you will discover their value!
Here are a few very simple examples:
1️⃣ "Concept Inscription": For example, AIGC is just a concept, but if you engrave it into bits that cannot be tampered with, the rise and fall of the concept will definitely be reflected in the price!
2️⃣ "Commemorative inscriptions": Engraving various things that are happening now will have a different meaning when looking at history in the future. It is better than digging graves now and inferring the approximate year through c14! Commemorating current people or things, such as engraving the first photo of your newborn baby on bits, is also very meaningful based on the characteristics of bit inscriptions!
3️⃣ "Tokens are unique": Each satoshi of the original bit is the same, but after adding the inscription, each satoshi is unique!
Of course, this is just a simple example. There will definitely be more value to be discovered in the future, so don’t limit your knowledge!
Bit Inscription Features:
1️⃣ "First come, first served": The higher the payment handling fee, the earlier it will be processed;
2️⃣ "Unique": Once someone inscribes it, no one can engrave it again;
3️⃣ "Relatively fair": Everyone can mint, it depends on whose vision is more accurate and whose hands are faster!
4️⃣ "Limited quantity": The quantity can be limited when the inscription is cast, and once it is limited, it cannot be changed again!
5️⃣ "Untamperable": The bit inscription is not uploaded to ipfs, but engraved on satoshi, which cannot be tampered with!
Why should you care?
Maybe you shouldn't. You may have a "rare" Satoshi in your wallet right now, but if the ordinal remains obscure, there's no more reason to treat those Bitcoins any differently than usual, like a rare playing card is nothing more It comes down to paper and ink.
That said, as serial numbers, inscriptions, and NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain enter public consciousness, many concerns have been raised:
1. Will the widespread adoption of ordinal theory affect the fungibility of Bitcoin?
2. Should we worry about the faster growth of blockchain?
3. What impact will illegal content stored on the chain have?
4. Will this hurt or help Lightning Network adoption?
We don’t have complete answers to all of these questions, but they are all questions worth exploring!
One thing we do know is that eventually, as Bitcoin adoption grows and block space becomes increasingly scarce, block space will be up for grabs no matter what. Inscriptions do not bypass these restrictions, so block spaces must pay the same fee. Relay nodes that help broadcast transactions require no additional verification costs, and the data storage costs are the same as the block space occupied by equivalent financial transaction data.
Bitcoin ordinal has become a popular form of NFT, leveraging “ordinal theory” to store data on small Bitcoin units called satoshis. The launch of BRC-20 (also known as Bitcoin Request Comment 20) has further contributed to the rise of Ordinals in the NFT ecosystem.
As Bitcoin grows rapidly, criticism over high transaction fees and concerns about the technology's durability have emerged, leading some to question its long-term viability. While Bitcoin was originally created as a decentralized digital currency, some proponents believe it has the potential to transcend that role, similar to the infrastructure Ethereum uses to build applications. However, the idea sparked divisions within the Bitcoin community.
Do you think the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem will become the catalyst for the next bull market?
