• Bitcoin-based (BTC) non-fungible token (NFT) protocol Ordinals has minted over 100,000 NFTs.
• Ordinal NFTs are stored entirely on-chain, including the content that the tokens are representing.
• The Taproot upgrade allows for larger than usually permitted quantities of data to be stored on the blockchain.

Bitcoin NFT Protocol Launches with Over 100k Tokens

Ordinals, a Bitcoin-based (BTC) non-fungible token (NFT) protocol, has minted over 100,000 NFTs since launching on Jan. 21, 2023. Despite this success, many believe the project wastes the valuable blockchain space in order to save what they see as useless data.

Ordinal NFTs Stored Entirely On-Chain

Ordinal NFTs — known as “Inscriptions” — are stored entirely on-chain, including the content that the tokens represent such as images, short videos and PDF versions of documents like the bitcoin whitepaper. This means that all of these large amounts of data must be downloaded by each network’s full nodes in order to operate properly which significantly increases their storage requirements.

Taproot Upgrade Workaround

The introduction of the Taproot upgrade — activated on Nov. 12 2021 — provided a workaround for this limitation by using OP_FALSE, OP_IF and OP_PUSH entries instead of an OP_RETURN entry which only allowed for eighty ASCII characters before being increased to forty bits later on. Taproot was meant to increase smart contract development but it was also found useful for storing larger amounts of data on the blockchain.

Criticism Of The Project

Despite its success so far many have criticized Ordinals believing it is a huge waste of bitcoin’s blockchain space and should never have been launched in its current form due to how complex it makes maintaining nodes due to having to download large amounts of data from them in order for them to function properly.

Conclusion

The situation serves as an example why introducing new features and complexity into already dependable blockchains such as Bitcoin is often met with great caution by developers and users alike as mistakes can have serious consequences down the line if not carefully planned out beforehand or managed afterwards when needed.