1. What are Ordinals and Brc 20

Before we talk about recursive inscriptions, let's first popularize what Ordinals and Brc 20 are. The Ordinals protocol is a system for numbering Satoshis, giving each Satoshi a serial number, and tracking them in transactions. In short, users can attach additional data through Ordinals to make each Satoshi unique. This process is called "recording". "Satoshi" is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the author of Bitcoin (Nakamoto is a pseudonym), and is the smallest denomination of Bitcoin (BTC). 1 Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million Satoshis, which means that each Satoshi is worth 0.00000001 Bitcoin. Satoshis are numbered according to the order in which they are mined and transferred. The numbering scheme is based on the order in which Satoshis are mined, and the transfer scheme is based on the order of transaction inputs and outputs, hence the name "Ordinals".

BRC 20 refers to the Bitcoin token standard based on blockchain technology. BRC stands for "Blockchain Token Standard", while the number 20 indicates the version number of the standard. The BRC 20 standard defines a set of rules and protocols for creating and managing blockchain-based tokens. The BRC 20 standard is similar to the ERC 20 standard on Ethereum, which provides a universal way to create and operate tokens. BRC 20 tokens can be issued, transferred, and traded on compatible blockchains. This standard specifies the basic functions of tokens, such as the total number of tokens issued, token names, symbols, decimal places, etc., as well as standard interfaces and events for token transactions. By adopting the BRC 20 standard, developers can more easily create and deploy their own tokens and realize the circulation and trading of tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The emergence of the BRC 20 standard has promoted the development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing different projects to be more compatible and interoperable with each other.

2. The Origin of Recursive Inscriptions

The origin of recursive inscriptions can be described as a chain of links. Since Brc 20 caused a sensation, the community began to think, since Brc 20, which was based on Erc 20, was successful, why couldn’t we use Erc 721 as a reference to create a Brc 721? As a result, Brc 721 came into being. However, since most Erc 721s store images in centralized hosting and need to pay management fees, Brc 721 directly burns images on the Bitcoin chain, which brings huge cost challenges. With the popularity of Ordinals, the congestion problem of inscriptions on the Bitcoin chain has become increasingly serious, further exacerbating cost pressures.

To solve this problem, Gbrc 721 was created, which successfully overcame the problem of high costs on the chain. In the development of the Gbrc 721 project, the project party only needs to upload the components of the NFT and combine them cleverly. For example, a 10 K collection may only require 200 components, including mouths, ears, noses, and so on. This greatly saves the cost of on-chain. However, this also brings a new problem, that is, image parsing needs to be performed off-chain to display pictures. Therefore, the Gbrc 721 project "Ordibots" currently displayed on MagicEden is still presented as a string of text.

The concept of recursive inscriptions was proposed by the founder of the Bitcoin protocol Ordinals. On June 12, 2023, Raph, the new chief maintainer of Ordinals, announced an important progress on Github. He merged the innovation of inscription "Recursive Inscription" No. 2167 into the code of Ordinalsd (as shown below). In this version of the code, through the syntax of "/-/content/:inscription_id", inscriptions can reference each other's content, realizing functions beyond Gbrc 721. This innovation is implemented directly on the chain without relying on off-chain parsing, which fundamentally solves the problem of Gbrc 721. Therefore, recursive inscriptions were born. This simple and ingenious change brought unlimited creativity to Ordinals and stimulated people's imagination.

3. Implementation and Effect: Explore Endless Combination Possibilities

In the previous article, we have learned about the origin of recursive inscriptions. In this article, we will specifically explore how recursive inscriptions are implemented. At the same time, we will also understand what led to the dramatic opening of the first eye-catching recursive inscription project, "Recursive Punks", and how the various components are integrated together in the recursive process. In addition, we will also pay attention to the extent to which recursive inscriptions can be combined, and whether combinations between recursive inscriptions of different formats can be achieved. Next, we will solve these puzzles together and explore the endless combination possibilities brought by recursive inscriptions.

How to implement recursive inscription

The realization of recursive inscriptions is inseparable from the wisdom and technical breakthroughs of the founding team of Ordinals. They embedded the code shown in the figure below in the underlying protocol, where "/content/" is the key to code reference. It is this syntax that allows developers to reference other inscriptions that already exist on the Bitcoin chain. For those readers who carefully study the code, it is not difficult to find that the code presented here (version 2174) is different from the version 2167 mentioned above (version 2174 deletes the "/-" part). Version 2167 was the original version, but then the founding team of Ordinals abandoned version 2167 and switched to version 2174. This also laid the groundwork for the dramatic opening of "Recursive Punks".

Recursive Punks' dramatic opening

On June 13, Recursive Punks officially announced the launch of a free minting of 10,000 Recursive Ordinals series, which immediately triggered heated discussions and spread in the community. Due to the principle of "First is First", the project was quickly burned after being discovered by the community, and it even paralyzed the website at one point when it was popular. However, after a wave of enthusiastic Fomo burning, many users were surprised to find that the official version of recursive inscriptions used was the old version 2167, and the correct recursive inscription syntax should be "/content/", but the official used "/-/content/:". This caused Recursive Punks to be unable to display images normally on the Bitchain inscription browser, so strictly speaking, the project is not a true recursive inscription project.

The community then began to spread the fix and pointed out the grammatical errors in Recursive Punks. However, after discovering the grammatical errors in the project, the official chose an unexpected way, that is, to tweet that the developers and community of the Ordinals protocol would approve both the version without pictures and the version with pictures. What surprised the community even more was that the official deleted the tweet afterwards and directly launched the version without pictures of Recursive Punks on MagicEden, and displayed it in the form of high-definition large pictures. The analysis of technicians showed that this was achieved through front-end rendering, which enabled this version to display pictures on the MagicEden platform. This move caused dissatisfaction among some community members, who believed that this behavior seriously violated the concept of decentralization, and some even believed that it was a fraud.

Currently, both V1 and V2 of Recursive Punks are available on MagicEden. As of today (2023.6.20), Recursive Punks V1 (without images) has a higher trading volume, so it may be considered that the official V1 version still has more consensus in the community. The concept of "First is First" is still widely recognized. However, perhaps as the knowledge of recursive inscriptions becomes more popular, the real recursive inscription version Recursive Punks v2 will gain more support and recognition.

Clever combination of components in recursive inscriptions

In recursive inscriptions, with the help of the "/content/" syntax code mentioned above, the project party can directly reference the existing NFT components on the chain to create their own NFT works. This article uses the recursive inscription project "Recursive Frogs" as an example to illustrate the mystery.

Next, we click on "view source code" indicated by the red arrow to view the source code of the NFT work.

These six lines of code use the "content" syntax and actually reference six different components. The string of code after "/content/" corresponds to the "Inscription ID" of each component.

Through this clever component reference method, recursive inscription creators can combine various elements to create unique works. This infinite combination possibility not only inspires the creator's imagination, but also brings new dimensions to the development of recursive inscriptions. Whether it is a work of art, a digital collection or a virtual reality game, the combination ability of recursive inscriptions can bring unprecedented possibilities to the creative field.

Infinite combinations of recursive inscriptions and fusion of different formats

Recursive inscriptions are highly composable in theory, and can combine various inscriptions on the Bitcoin chain in a flexible way. This infinite combinability has allowed many industry pioneers to see the potential of recursive inscriptions to bring innovative application scenarios such as GameFi and Metaverse to Ordinals. Recursive inscriptions can combine inscriptions of different formats into a web page presented in HTML format. The content of this web page can be freely added by the project party as long as it can be found on the Bitchain. Various content such as music, videos or animated images can be integrated into it. Therefore, recursive inscriptions have injected huge possibilities into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the creativity and openness of recursive inscriptions also provide creators with an unprecedented creative platform.

4. Innovation trends triggered by recursive inscriptions and prospects for application scenarios

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has brought endless possibilities to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Next, we boldly predict some of the impacts that recursive inscriptions may bring and possible application scenarios.

1. The threshold and cost of Bitcoin ecosystem entrepreneurship are reduced

Recursive inscriptions have greatly lowered the threshold for entrepreneurship in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Even with a few lines of code modifications, a new NFT series can be created, as shown by Recursive Punks' unpictured version, pictured version, large version and high-definition large version. That way. In addition, recursive inscriptions have also significantly reduced the cost of starting a business. Instead of uploading a 10k collection of tens of thousands of images, you now only need to upload 200 component images and combine them cleverly through code to complete the creation of a 10k collection. .

2. Improvement of the richness of inscriptions

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has enabled Ordinals' underlying inscription browsers to strive to support multiple media types besides the earliest text types, such as SVG, HTML, and JavaScript. Recursive inscriptions are already comparable to a universal web page, which can display the content of almost any web page. And recursive inscriptions can reference other inscriptions, just like a local web page upgraded to the Internet, which greatly enriches the expression of inscriptions.

3. GameFi and the Metaverse

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has made it possible to realize GameFi and the metaverse on the BitChain. At present, there are small games developed based on recursive inscriptions. As shown in the figure below, this is a recursive small game developed by Ordz Games. Players can click directly on the inscription browser, and the gameplay is similar to the previously popular "Sheep Goat", which is the "webpage" implementation mentioned above.

As mentioned above, recursive inscriptions have achieved a compact size due to their code calling characteristics. This feature allows the size of the inscription to break through the 4 MB limit of the Bitcoin block size. As a result, we can theoretically build the Metaverse and GameFi on the Bitcoin chain, and even upload complex three-dimensional games to the Bitcoin chain. Of course, it should be clear that recursive inscriptions are still in their early stages, and all these ideas and concepts need to be realized through continuous exploration and discovery.

5. Potential risks of recursive inscriptions

1. There is a risk of centralization: The implementation of recursive inscriptions depends on the Ordinals protocol. As mentioned above, the implementation of recursive inscriptions is built on the Ordinals protocol. If the Ordinals protocol does not implant or deletes the "reference" part of the code later, recursive inscriptions will not be usable.

2. Burdening the Bitcoin network: In the short term, recursive inscriptions may bring a certain prosperity to the Bitcoin ecosystem. However, pictures, movies, code repositories, software codes, and all kinds of new data inscriptions are likely to pile up in Bitcoin's memory pool. As registrars bid higher and higher to confirm transactions, ordinary users who just want to pay for purchases with Bitcoin will have to pay expensive premiums. Therefore, in the long run, the Bitcoin network may become more congested and the fees will be more expensive.

3. Reduction of the cost of doing evil: Recursive inscriptions may make it easier for fraudsters to add malware to the Bitcoin chain. Fraudsters can divide malware into multiple files and add malware to people's devices when they download games, files, or software. This may cause downloaders to lose funds.

4. Depends on the support of underlying infrastructure: Recursive inscriptions also require more support from underlying infrastructure, such as the top exchanges Unisat and MagicEden, major inscription browsers, and centralized exchanges such as OKEX and BINANCE. As of today (2023.6.20), MagicEden does not yet support the image display of the Recursive Punks V2 version mentioned above (as shown below), and the normal display of Recursive Frogs was only realized after a community KOL proposed it.

VI. Conclusion

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has triggered extensive discussions in the Bitcoin ecosystem, which may have a profound impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem and the entire industry. Of course, although we are optimistic about the unlimited possibilities that recursive inscriptions can bring, we also need to realize that recursive inscriptions are still in their early stages and need to be continuously explored and discovered, and also need the support of more project parties and teams. Therefore, before taking risky attempts and investments, we should always be aware of the risks.

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