Ordinals: Rare and exotic sats

[rodarmor]

I just necroposted to an old thread in which Johnson Lau came up with a numbering system for satoshis, which I independently also came up with a decade later. I think it's worth giving its own thread, so I'll copy what I posted here:

So, funny story, in the beginning of 2022, I came up with the exact same scheme discussed in this thread. After I finished the scheme, I realized that it was basically serial numbers for satoshis, typed "satoshi serial numbers" into Google, and found this post. It feels natural extension to bitcoin, so it makes sense that multiple people have come up with it over the years.

I called it "ordinal theory" or "ordinals", because it uses order in multiple places:

• The order of satoshis in the supply of satoshis, for numbering
• The order of inputs and outputs of a transaction, for inheritance
• The order of transactions in a block, for inheritance of fees

I've spent the last year implementing it, so just 10 years after the OP, you can finally try it out!

The binary, written in Rust, is called ord, and the code is on GitHub at https://github.com/casey/ord.

I has a bunch of functionality:

• Conversion between different, equivalent, notations, including the raw integer notation, block.offset notation, names, and degree notation, which is based on relation to difficulty adjustments and halvings.
  
• An index that connects to a Bitcoin Core node instance and tracks the location of all sats.
  
• An NFT implementation which embeds NFT content in Taproot witnesses, assigning them to the first sat of the first output of the transaction, "inscribing" that sat with content
  
• A rarity system: common = not the sat of the block, uncommon = first sat of the block, rare = first sat after a difficulty adjustment, epic = first sat after a halving, legendary = first sat after a conjunction, which is the difficulty adjustment and the halving happening on the same block, which happens every 6 halvings, and mythic = first sat of genesis block.
  
• A naming system, which assigns unique names consisting of the letters a through z to each sat, basically base 26, but starting backwards, so that all short names aren't locked in the genesis block.
  
• A block explorer, with a signet instance hosted at https://signet.ordinals.com and a mainnet instance at https://ordinals.com. The block explorer supports search, try putting in different representations for a sat: 0, 0.0, satoshi, etc.
  
• A wallet, which can construct transactions to send particular sats and make and send inscriptions.
  

Everything is open source, permissively licensed, and independently developed, so try it out and let me know what you think! Keep in mind that this is still very much alpha software. We're as careful as possible developing it, but it hasn't been audited and may have bugs

[1713996660]

1713996660

[1713996660]

1713996660

[Emitdama]

I understand that by 'naming' each and every satoshi in entire bitcoin network, you are trying to bring the 'collectible' feature to every satoshi. Basically, even 1mBTC got 100k satoshi which means what some celebrity 'held and sent' may not get the rarity grade due to massive in number.

If it is all about "tracking" then doing that in bigger unit might be helpful.

Probably I am not knowledgeable to realize this tagging each satoshi kind of concept with real world utilization.

Anyway, congrats and good luck with your contribution to bitcoin devotees.

[buwaytress]

See, this is my confusion when it comes to units in Bitcoin, which led me to ask this question in this thread.

What I found out from responses there is that inputs are all combined anyway before being transmitted out -- so how do you then keep track of satoshis when mixed with other inputs? It's easy to track inputs if always sent whole and never combined with other inputs, but once consolidated, does this mean you lose their "serial"?

[nutildah]

• An NFT implementation which embeds NFT content in Taproot witnesses, assigning them to the first sat of the first output of the transaction, "inscribing" that sat with content
  

Super interesting to watch the discussion over this bullet point in particular unfolding on Twitter as it now appears to be possible to upload several KB (theoretically up to ~4 MB) worth of data to the blockchain for the purposes of on-chain NFT storage.

https://ordinals.com/inscription/69d500051f9a0812ed41798eeb06d4af93349529480c23e9cf1ef0ccb2a921a8i0

On one side you have lukedashjr calling it an attack on Bitcoin and Adam Back calling for transaction censorship by miners; on the other side you have Peter Todd calling the "freakout" about ordinals "stupid" and reminding everyone that adding non-standard transaction data to transactions has always been possible.

It has reinvigorated the age-old debate of "appropriate use of block space," what "blockchain spam" entails, and whether Bitcoin should be used to store data not related to the actual transaction of BTC (for financial purposes).

Here is a brief overview of how it works as far as NFTs are concerned:

https://read.pourteaux.xyz/p/illegitimate-bitcoin-transactions

Of course the concept of adding non-standard data to the blockchain for other purposes already taken place via Omni and Counterparty for years.  In 2014, JP Janssen encoded a thumbnail size image and placed it in a Counterparty transaction -- it is probably the first example of a tokenized, on-chain image.

But using Taproot to do it in this new manner is bumping up the storage capacity by one or two orders of magnitude.

Almost zero mentions of this debate here, so let's mention it.

[OgNasty]

I am still researching and learning about this project but I have to say that I absolutely love the responses to it from certain developers. It shows who is a control freak that only likes Bitcoin when it does what they want it to. Use the code for something they deem as not appropriate and suddenly Bitcoin isn’t free and open software but instead something you can only use how they want you to use it. For that reason I love it. Eat your heart out controlling devs. Miners aren’t going to do your bidding and censor transactions, but it’s cute of you to ask.

[digaran]

I am still researching and learning about this project but I have to say that I absolutely love the responses to it from certain developers. It shows who is a control freak that only likes Bitcoin when it does what they want it to. Use the code for something they deem as not appropriate and suddenly Bitcoin isn’t free and open software but instead something you can only use how they want you to use it. For that reason I love it. Eat your heart out controlling devs. Miners aren’t going to do your bidding and censor transactions, but it’s cute of you to ask.

You are right, we should store whatever we want on bitcoin blockchain and pay the fees for it. That's called freedom, though at what cost?
Some facts and problems, with bitcoin being the leader in crypto, this could result in mass demand leaving normal transactions out the blocks, bumping the fees up. Didn't miners do this fee manipulation trick a few years back bumping the fees up to $50? Isn't there some shitcoin out there doing this NFT thing already?
Do the miners really think they control the network? Not theirs to decide alone, it's called consensus.

[OgNasty]

I am still researching and learning about this project but I have to say that I absolutely love the responses to it from certain developers. It shows who is a control freak that only likes Bitcoin when it does what they want it to. Use the code for something they deem as not appropriate and suddenly Bitcoin isn’t free and open software but instead something you can only use how they want you to use it. For that reason I love it. Eat your heart out controlling devs. Miners aren’t going to do your bidding and censor transactions, but it’s cute of you to ask.

You are right, we should store whatever we want on bitcoin blockchain and pay the fees for it. That's called freedom, though at what cost?
Some facts and problems, with bitcoin being the leader in crypto, this could result in mass demand leaving normal transactions out the blocks, bumping the fees up. Didn't miners do this fee manipulation trick a few years back bumping the fees up to $50? Isn't there some shitcoin out there doing this NFT thing already?
Do the miners really think they control the network? Not theirs to decide alone, it's called consensus.

It seems like miners and developers have been at odds for years with developers using tricks and lies to get miners to do what they want. Now it seems that miners are giving core developers the finger and doing what they want. This is likely the result or prior said developer behavior and in my opinion is a must to restore balance to Bitcoin. I personally love it and think it is necessary.

[nutildah]

This is by far the most interesting thing happening in Bitcoin at the moment, and except for a couple uppity threads where the usual ninnys are yelling at it, almost zero recognition on the Bitcoin Forum for the accomplishment of bringing so much newfound attention to bitcoin. Its just not a subject that is conducive to sig spamming, hence the relative silence.

Congrats rodarmor, you earned it



https://ordinals.com/inscription/25aa0505380d746e9d32ba0108e9dbab4a4a3958912bafb046c3c9c71cef2f65i0

[gordonhill]

Any marketplace, or escrow service?

[goldkingcoiner]

This is really interesting. Although the success of this project is really only connected to how much demand there is for these rare and exotic Satoshis. But I think that most people who are not really developers do not yet perhaps understand the full potential of Ordinals or why they would be in demand in the first place. So, aside from the NFT nature of Ordinals, could there be any further use cases?

How would this complicate transactions? I assume people would be hesitant to transact unless they have no valuable Ordinals?

The idea of rare and more valuable Satoshis (in terms of NFT collections) has been going around a lot but I have yet to see any demand for them.... I could be mistaken...

[BlackHatCoiner]

Some facts and problems, with bitcoin being the leader in crypto, this could result in mass demand leaving normal transactions out the blocks, bumping the fees up.

Is that a problem, or a feature? When there's high transaction demand, there are high fees, regardless of whether you transfer hard cash or the image of a monkey.

Didn't miners do this fee manipulation trick a few years back bumping the fees up to $50?

Since when miners are capable of forcing or manipulating you pay more?

It seems like miners and developers have been at odds for years with developers using tricks and lies to get miners to do what they want.

The developers lie, the miners get to do whatever they want, they've been at odds, both groups rule bitcoin, why such conspiracy in one page?

[digaran]

Since when miners are capable of forcing or manipulating you pay more?

How long have you been around not knowing the answer?
Anyways, cool project, not going to use third parties.
Btw, what's with the rare.text? Couldn't load it on mobile and don't know what those numbers mean.
This also reminds me of the *radioactive tracking technology.

*= Don't know what that is? It's a CIA project.

[nutildah]

The idea of rare and more valuable Satoshis (in terms of NFT collections) has been going around a lot but I have yet to see any demand for them.... I could be mistaken...

The demand is huge. Some have already gone for multiple BTC. The thing is there is no marketplace for them so most sales are being done P2P.

To make up for this, some people have been depositing the Ordinals in an Emblem Vault where they are wrapped into an Ethereum ERC721 token. That way they can be sold on OpenSea. Sales there have been huge.



Emblem Vault sales blew up in the last 24 hours. You can see what they were on average prior to yesterday. The action is largely thanks to a series called Bitcoin Punks, which is just Ethereum Punks set against an orange background.



Crypto Twitter influencers got wind of it and Bitcoin Punks is now the latest NFT grift. No doubt after the pump is finished, prices will tank and the slowest among retail will be left holding the bag. None of that is rodarmor's fault, of course... just the way things go in this space.

[rodarmor]

Thank you nutildah! Getting such nice kudos on Bitcoin Talk is honestly a sweet milestone. These threads are feeling pretty legendary to me, especially the one I necro-posted to after a 10 year haitus.

[ABCbits]

@rodarmor i wanted to try Ordinals on Signet, but i saw few report which state indexing process is very slow[1-3]? Do you think it's viable to use HDD in this case?

Didn't miners do this fee manipulation trick a few years back bumping the fees up to $50?

Since when miners are capable of forcing or manipulating you pay more?

There's theory where multiple pool could work together to manipulate people to pay more TX fee by filling unused part of their block with their own transaction or arbitrary data. There's extreme version where they attempt to make congestion.

[1] https://github.com/casey/ord/issues/1648
[2] https://github.com/casey/ord/issues/1377
[3] https://github.com/casey/ord/discussions/1619

[mendace]

The use of Satoshi serial numbers or ordinals, as you've described in your implementation, could potentially lead to increased data being stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, which could in turn lead to increased size of the blockchain and increased resource requirements for nodes. This could be a concern for some users of the Bitcoin network, particularly if the size of the blockchain grows significantly over time

[NotATether]

How exactly does one go about and create an Ordinal? (specifically, how does someone use ord after they install it?)

This is by far the most interesting thing happening in Bitcoin at the moment, and except for a couple uppity threads where the usual ninnys are yelling at it, almost zero recognition on the Bitcoin Forum for the accomplishment of bringing so much newfound attention to bitcoin. Its just not a subject that is conducive to sig spamming, hence the relative silence.

Do you remember your Counterparty NFTs that you made some time ago? Perhaps you can now port them into an ordinal form.

[nutildah]

Do you remember your Counterparty NFTs that you made some time ago? Perhaps you can now port them into an ordinal form.

If you mean the forum NFTs, the token metadata points to a small JSON file already stored on another blockchain (Arweave). AFAIK the current Ordinals explorer only displays media files. So while I could inscribe a JSON file and attach it to an ordinal its contents wouldn't display on the explorer.

Counterparty users are looking for a way to host the image data for their tokens as an inscription but its a matter of getting the xchain explorer ready to read it as part of a token description.

One of the coolest experiments I've seen so far is called Rare Ordinals, where ordinals are being tokenized on Counterparty to leverage its market system (dispensers & DEX).

I've heard a market for ordinals is in development.

[BBGC NFT]

~
Do you remember your Counterparty NFTs that you made some time ago? Perhaps you can now port them into an ordinal form.

This development is amazing. Look, what I posted back in December 2021:

~
If you can bring NFTs to the Bitcoin blockchain, I will bring back my 2015 'NFTs' to your project.

My project BBGC Bitcoin Blockchain Gold Coin contains 58 NFTs (simple 32 x 32 pixel coin pictures) that started in 2015 on the Bitcoin blockchain, 2 years ago continued on the Ethereum blockchain and now should come back to the Bitcoin blockchain  

You can read the short story about the project here: https://bbgc58.wordpress.com/

This is by far the most interesting thing happening in Bitcoin at the moment ...

Yes nutildah, this is exactly what my project was waiting for. Back in 2015 there were no good possibilities and on the Ethereum network a Bitcoin NFT   They are on OpenSea at the moment  https://opensea.io/collection/bbgc-bitcoin-blockchain-gold-coin ... I have to check what can be done to bring them back. If you have some suggestions, please tell me.

Maybe I should start a project thread to bring them back.

[Kakmakr]

Just when I thought I had seen it all, you come here and you post about a concept that I have never heard of before... thank you for posting about "ordinals" ... I am now going to take some time to read up on this. 

So, in theory..... every Satoshi will have a serial number linked to it... right? So, what happens if those satoshi's go through a mixer service..after it was handled by some celebrity or linked to some major event?