Basics
BTC is a UTXO model, each utxo is unique and inherently traceable.
1 BTC = 10^8 Satoshis (Satoshi), that is, the smallest unit is Satoshi, referred to as sats;
Origin
At the beginning of 2023, the most important stories in the crypto space all happened on Bitcoin. In January, the decentralized protocol Nostr was born from the Bitcoin community. In February, the NFT protocol Ordinals on Bitcoin came out of nowhere. On March 8, Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape, began auctioning BTC NFTs on Ordinals. Of the 300 NFTs issued, 288 were sold for a total of $16.5 million. The Ordinals protocol[2], released by Casey Rodarmor[1] in January 2023, proposed an idea: Can we arrange these "satoshis" in a certain order? Assign them an ordinal number between 0 and 2,100,000,000,000,000, and then connect them to other information: pictures, text, videos, or even a string of code. Thus, each satoshi becomes unique and irreplaceable. This is equivalent to giving Bitcoin the native ability to create NFTs. Doesn't it sound amazing? In fact, this protocol relies heavily on the Segwit upgrade in 2017 and the Taproot upgrade in 2021[3]. The Taproot upgrade brings a higher level of privacy, security, and scalability to the Bitcoin network. While it has always been possible to attach data to Bitcoin through technical means, you can basically only put 4Mbs of data, no more. Ordinals is an open source project developed on GitHub[4]. The project includes a BIP[5] that describes the ordinal scheme, an index that communicates with the Bitcoin Core node to track the location of all sats, a wallet that allows ordinal-aware transactions[6], and a block browser for interactive exploration of the blockchain[7]. It can be understood in two parts:
Use an Ordinals technical solution to number Bitcoin's Satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin). Bitcoin was originally a homogeneous token FT, but just like a large central bank issues legal tender and numbers legal tender, Casey also numbers Bitcoin's Satoshi;
inscription: When each satoshi is marked with a change, it can be bound to any code of limited size, that is, the artwork and satoshi can be bound, so that it can be issued and circulated.
https://dune.com/icanhaz/ordinals-bitcoin-nft-inscriptions
While Ordinal NFT is based on Ordinal Theory, the current Ordinal NFT is also made possible by the Segregated Witness (SegWit) and Taproot technical updates to the Bitcoin protocol in 2017 and 2021. It is worth noting that these updates were not developed for the purpose of enabling these new types of NFTs. However, because both updates increased the amount of data that can be stored in a block - meaning there is now space to store images, videos, and even games - the deployment of Ordinal NFTs was inadvertently made possible.
Segregated Witness (SegWit)
Segwit was an update in 2017 that resulted in a soft fork of BTC. The update effectively split Bitcoin transactions into two parts by adding a “witness data” section that could hold arbitrary data.
Witness data was originally created as a solution in the following ways:
Bypassing the strict limitations of block size limits
Allows optional, arbitrary data transfer
Preventing unintentional transaction malleability In a technical sense, the implementation of SegWit means that transactions no longer need to include witness data (usually the sender's digital signature). Instead, an additional space is created at the end of the block for the witness data as a separate structure. This supports the transfer of arbitrary data and makes the "block weight" smaller (because the witness data in segwit is stored in a separate data structure, the transaction signature data is no longer counted in the block weight), cleverly keeping large amounts of data within Bitcoin's block size limit to avoid hard forks.
This is the first prerequisite for Ordinal NFTs, as it expands the limits on how much arbitrary data can be included in a transaction.
Taproot
Implemented in November 2021, Taproot is a multifaceted upgrade designed to improve Bitcoin’s privacy, scalability, and security. With this upgrade, Taproot creates a simpler system for storing arbitrary witness data and relaxes restrictions on how much arbitrary data can be placed in a Bitcoin transaction. The initial goal of this upgrade was to further enhance Bitcoin-based smart contracts, such as time-locked contracts that are often used in witness data. These changes were a key enabler for Ordinal NFTs, which store NFT data in Taproot scripts. The upgrade makes it easier to build and store arbitrary witness data, laying the foundation for the "ord" standard. And with the relaxation of data requirements, assuming that a single transaction can fill an entire block with its transaction and witness data, up to the 4MB block size limit, this greatly expands the types of media that can be placed on-chain.
Fundamental
As we all know, each Bitcoin can be divided into 100,000,000 units, called satoshis (or sats), which is called "cong" in Chinese. In other words, as a unit of account, the smallest unit of Bitcoin is 0.00000001 (one hundred millionth) Bitcoin, called "1 satoshi". 1 Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million satoshis, which means that each satoshi is worth 0.00000001 Bitcoin. The Ordinals protocol proposes a design based on the smallest unit of Bitcoin, Satoshi, which allows various information such as pictures, texts, videos, etc. to be embedded in Satoshi (inscription is called inscription), and the uploaded inscription is linked to a specific Satoshi. This process is called inscription. Ordinals is a numbering scheme for sats that allows individual sats to be tracked and transferred. These numbers are called ordinals [8]. Sat are numbered in the order in which they are mined and transferred from transaction input to transaction output in a first-in-first-out manner. Both the numbering scheme and the transfer scheme rely on order. The numbering scheme relies on the order of mining, while the transfer scheme relies on the order of transaction input and output, hence the name ordinals. The ordinals theory does not require a separate token or any changes to Bitcoin, and can be used and take effect immediately. Rodarmor proposed the ordinals theory, which is to number the satoshis from 0 in the order in which they were mined. For example, the first satoshi in the first block has an ordinal number of 0, the second satoshi has an ordinal number of 1, and the last satoshi has an ordinal number of 4999999999, so that each satoshi has an ID attribute. There are two core points of the entire Ordinals protocol:
Each Cong number is unique, just like an ID number.
First in, first out. Let's take an example
In the following figure, there are two inputs on the left. Address 1 and Address 2 have a total of 5 satoshis. In this transaction, 4 satoshis are sent to an address starting with 3oPz, and 1 satoshi is left as a mining fee to pay the miner.
Assuming that in the above transaction, we use the Ordinals protocol to assign an "identity" (serial number) to each satoshi, then after the transaction is completed, the 4 numbered satoshis Ord A->D of address 1 and address 2 will go to address 3, and the last satoshi will be given to the miner.
The so-called "first in, first out" means that the order of each satoshi number is determined by its index in the transaction output. For example, in the transaction output (Output) in the figure below, address 3 is ranked before the miner address, so the satoshis transferred from address 1 and address 2 are inherited by address 3 first, and then the miner address.
Satoshi Numbering Rules
Each satoshi is numbered, starting with the first satoshi in the genesis block, and numbers are assigned to satoshis in the order in which they are mined. The first satoshi in the first block has a serial number of 0, the second satoshi has a serial number of 1, and the last satoshi in the first block has a serial number of 4,999,999,999. Because the initial BTC mining reward was 50 BTC.
So you can attach any content to each satoshi, turning them into Bitcoin-native digital artifacts; (understood as NFT)
Ordinals can be represented in several different ways:
Integer notation: 2099994106992659 Serial number, assigned according to the order in which Satoshis were mined.
Decimal notation: 3891094.16797 The first number is the block height at which the satoshi was mined, and the second is the offset of the satoshi within the block.
Degree notation: 3°111094′214″16797‴.
Percentile notation: 99.99971949060254%. The position of the satoshi in the Bitcoin supply, expressed as a percentage.
Total supply of Satoshi
Normal: Any satoshi except the first satoshi in a block (total supply is 210 trillion)
Premium: First Satoshi of each block (total supply is 6,929,999)
Rarity: First Satoshi of each difficulty adjustment period (total supply 3437)
Epic: First Satoshi after each halving (total supply is 32)
Legendary: First Satoshi* of each cycle (total supply is 5)
Mythical: First Satoshi in the Genesis Block (total supply is 1)
Inquiry about rarity
https://ordinals.com/sat/2099994106992659
Mythical
https://ordinals.com/sat/0
Summarize
Ordinals has brought unique influence to both the NFT market and BTC. After the melee caused by Blur in the trading market, the Ethereum NFT market has entered a clear bear market, but Ordinals has brought a new narrative: First, compared with NFT storage off-chain on Ethereum, Bitcoin NFT storage is all on-chain. For the first time, artworks can be stored forever on a human public ledger. Humans have never given up the pursuit of "eternity". There is no doubt that BTC NFT will bring a new upsurge; secondly, an important feature of Ordinals is to number Bitcoin, which has spawned a culture similar to "QQ beautiful numbers" and brought a common narrative to the NFT community - communities are no longer "monkeys" and "butterflies", and numbering will become an important, and of course a new narrative. Ordinals will also bring new vitality to the Bitcoin ecosystem. In addition to block rewards, miners can also earn transaction fees under the Ordinals protocol. There is no doubt that miners will have greater motivation to start up in the future. At the same time, the NFT transactions brought by BTC in the future may promote the further development of the Lightning Network. More importantly, if BTC NFT prospers further, it will also bring about the development of surrounding services - both wallets and exchanges are in the "to be built" stage, and there is a huge opportunity for developers to discover needs and provide services. Of course, there is also a lot of controversy in the Bitcoin community about Ordinals. Some BTC Maxi believe that non-financial data should not be written into the block, which makes BTC deviate from the underlying narrative of "gold". Some people are worried that numbering Bitcoin will turn Bitcoin from a homogeneous representative to a non-homogeneous token, losing privacy. In any case, just as NFT is irreversible when it is written into the public ledger of Bitcoin, Bitcoin NFT must be an irreversible and even difficult to stop important trend in the history of encryption.
Expand your knowledge
Dust Limit
About the reason why each engraving costs 546 statsIn Bitcoin, the minimum value of a transaction output is usually 546 satoshis. This value is based on the concept of "dust limit" in the Bitcoin protocol. Dust limit refers to the lowest valid value of a transaction output in the Bitcoin network. Transaction outputs below this value may be considered invalid or unworthy of processing by miners. The purpose of dust limit is to prevent users from creating a large number of small transactions in the network, thereby congesting the network and wasting storage space. According to the Bitcoin protocol, a standard transaction output contains a P2PKH (Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash) or P2WPKH (Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash) output script. For these types of transaction outputs, the minimum valid value is 546 satoshis. If the value of a transaction output is lower than this value, the cost of creating the transaction (i.e., the miner fee) may be higher than the value of the transaction itself. Therefore, few miners are willing to process such a transaction. Please note that the value of 546 satoshis may change as the Bitcoin network changes. The actual dust limit depends on the size of the transaction and the current network fee rate. In summary, Bitcoin's 546 satoshis rule is to prevent invalid transactions and congestion in the network.
Two-phase commit
All Taproot spends must come from existing Taproot outputs. This is why engraving information to the blockchain requires a two-phase commitment/reveal process. First, in the "commit" transaction, a Taproot output is created that commits to a script containing the inscription. This step is the step of preparing and committing to write specific information. Second, in the "reveal" transaction, the output created by the commitment transaction is consumed, thereby revealing the inscription on the chain. This step is the step that actually performs the write, because it consumes the Taproot output created in the commitment phase and makes the pre-committed information public. This process is required because Taproot transactions do not directly support the writing of arbitrary data, but require that all spends come from existing Taproot outputs. With the commitment/reveal approach, we can achieve the burning of arbitrary information to the blockchain, but it only requires two stages to complete: first preparing the output and information in advance in the commitment phase, and then actually writing the information in the reveal phase.
Transaction Analysis
Inscribed a hello worldhttps://mempool.space/tx/46714ae173f0c183e974fab2f582701c9d0e0e896a93e3e970d8710f870d28c9https://ordinals.com/inscription/46714ae173f0c183e974fab2f582701c9d0e0e896a93e3e970d8710f870d28c9i0
OP_FALSEOP_IF OP_PUSH "ord" OP_1 OP_PUSH "text/plain;charset=utf-8" OP_0 OP_PUSH "Hello, world"OP_ENDIF原始内容
20117f692257b2331233b5705ce9c682be8719ff1b2b64cbca290bd6faeb54423eac060beea7098801750063036f7264010118746578742f706c61696e3b636861727365743d7574662d38000b68656c6c6f20776f726c6468 parsed content
20117f692257b2331233b5705ce9c682be8719ff1b2b64cbca290bd6faeb54423eac060beea7098801750063 OP_IF036f7264 ord
010118746578742f706c61696e3b636861727365743d7574662d38 text/plain;charset=utf-8
000b68656c6c6f20776f726c64 Hello, world
68 OP_ENDIF parsing tool https://codebeautify.org/hex-string-converter
Engraved a nice to meet you
https://mempool.space/tx/4fafab4a267876f371b2b08437a9948c22c2911f2462d65dde384b1f689c0499https://ordinals.com/inscription/4fafab4a267876f371b2b08437a9948c22c2911f2462d65dde384b1f689c0499i0https://st atic.unisat.io/inscription/content/4fafab4a267876f371b2b08437a9948c22c2911f2462d65dde384b1f689c0499i0 I carved the inscription myself https://mempool.space/tx/3fd4b39890aae0a740db7a157eb8c32e901270c52a2cee0c2d25bd0e40f4d22f
brc20 stat transferred to me 500000000https://ordinals.com/inscription/fed2913e99beb498896eb910e1ea4260807441c322a9324573b4dcbd514904c4i0brc20 mint doge 4200https://ordinals.com/inscription/b9135e259ec380571b5fe087d5df67c686337a8bedec9d335793db8b5abe6d24i0brc20 transfer doge 2200https://ordinals.com/inscription/c02b017443290a4f50511878824c340129bb766cb66ea14916930b3a3d498d94i0
