Prelude
You have heard about ordinals, or inscriptions, and BTC NFT’s you need alpha and fast. Beat the system, and get involved at all costs!
Well, you have come to the right place. It’s fair to say I am somewhat of an insider on the whole Ordinals debacle and I’m here to give you boots on the ground alpha regarding everything you need to know so far about what I know.
As always this article is probably not true and legally I cannot even say it’s my opinion for legal reasons. I shall endeavor to just say it as I saw it. You can call it fiction, as nothing is really “true” anyway. Also in my typical style, I shall not spoon-feed you the alpha you so crave. Instead, I shall weave it into a long and complicated article that frankly, pleases me to write. I would however hope that those who persevere with the text will get a decent lowdown on the story so far. Some of the heroes, some of the scammers. and some of well. The fakes.
What is this in a Nutshell?
You can store data on the blockchain. Who knew, despite this, for ages no one did. Why? It’s complicated but mostly due to mass formational psychosis. (See our other article here). Anyway, Now you can. Thanks to this dude called Casey, who on all accounts is a “bit of a bright spark”.
How does it work? simply.
The information in question can be in any file format. It’s just data. And it is stored in some space on a chain which, TLDR was “designed” for something else. Something else that many people didn’t want, so now there’s space for JPEGs! YAY!
Does that bloat the chain? Or something?
Well, not like you think. There is a tiny bit of extra data than if it wasn’t there. But this data kinda points to somewhere else where there is indeed “dormant” space anyway. So in reality, it doesn’t BLOAT the chain in the way you might imagine. If you want to know more you can just check out ordinals.com It’s a good place to start.
How do you do it?
Honestly, you can’t really. Unless you are a wizard with a computer the size of the pentagon. (Which in itself makes it quite compelling in the ven-diagrams of big data and probably why it is attracting such interest. Especially amongst the foamo brigade. On top of all this, and what makes it really different are two things.
- It is immutable information, unlike the vast majority of NFTs (despite what you may think).
- It’s on BITCOIN. Which, it is often suggested, is the place to be. And EVERYONE knows it.
Despite the consciousness of this project being less than a couple of weeks old. IF THAT. Already I have seen and heard the wildest rumors and more about incredible and unprecedented plans for huge entities, not just celebrities to foamo all over this project. These are facts. Let’s explore why.
Why?
Well, like I said above. Pretty obvious, EVERYONE knows Bitcoin is the daddy. But beyond that. WHY REALLY THO?
The new frontier.
I was recently talking to a friend who happened to be involved with let’s say high ticket items. We were chatting about my frogs. He is not a crypto guy at all. As I was talking about Ordinals I found myself describing how bitcoin was finally giving people a way to understand what it is on their terms, through mediums they understand. By this I mean of course memes. What I mean specifically is that Bitcoin has always been the ledger of our time, but most people are not particularly arsed about financial transactions, no matter how relevant they are. It’s just not how people are wired. But along comes Casey who adds novelty. Now people can start to understand about the importance of permanence on the public record.
Here at memeenquirer, we have perhaps flirted with the veil that all may not be precisely as it seems. It occurs to us that this kind of formal public record is something that only through the conception of ordinals has become a new wave of understanding and cultural acceptance of immutable data. Probably nothing.
Does this mean that there will be a gold rush to put EVERYTHING onto the Solomun of Blockchains making everyone who has read this far a potential millionaire? Pretty much. This leads me nicely to my next section.
Conceptualism
It’s interesting to note the “details” of this protocol have been largely washed over in sight of the bold letters BITCOIN NFT. However, it’s worth noting that while the technology is undoubtedly robust and inspired, an element of cognitive conceptualism must be applied when considering how it works on a deeper level.
In short, lol. The idea is that an ordinal, (which is a term used to assign data in bitcoin) can be “paired” to a specific “satoshi” or penny of bitcoin. This is not something implicit in the design of the chain. We are told. It’s something that Casey has “discovered” and just made true. In line with our passion for memeology of all kinds, we must give him a slow clap. But for the self-evident “truthfulness” of his discovery, we must give him a rousing ovation.
For those people with more than a passing regard for technology, system design, or even psychedelics. The implications of the suggestion are not only obvious, but at points of listening to Casey passionately explain it, indeed your mind may tend to jump ahead to preempt what he is going to say as he says it. Quite a peculiar experience.
However, it must be said that being first introduced to Casey’s presentation I first experienced it on YOUTUBE. link here. There is in truth constant need to review and consider his well-made arguments made on this brilliant channel. (If not a bit a maxi) Kek. (Imo being a maxi anything is a sign of ignorance, although I’m not sure).
Alas, a lot of the people who are interested in a thing like this, a hell of a bunch to join into a new and buzzing community with. And to an extent I have done just this. My point is that just as Ordinals is a conceptual and experimental art project at its core. (like a successful pep8liens). The people who have clamoured around the project have themselves created several mind-bending games of conceptual bro-nance. I will do my best now, to explain some of the more fun games. And frankly, the ones that benefit me or my interests.
XCP PINATA
Undoubtedly one of the success stories of the project so far was the emergence of the XCP Pinata collection. For those unaware Pinata is a sleeping giant in the world of digital assets, with an extensive wealth of assets that have helped define what you now know as NFTs.
It’s no surprise this kind of genius would be raring to go at the formation of such a magical time in digital history, (that’s what he does). But the rapid success of his initial collection took the world by storm, and amongst some other novel art projects on the platform they have come to set the standard of what people are seeing as achievable in this new wild west of memetic code.
Ordinal & Bitcoin Punks
This is interesting. Some people made minting punks on BTC a thing. The first was ordinal punks, which were the very first inscriptions made on BTC. This is undoubtedly cool as it is historic. However, it says more about the people who were able to make assets and also able to run a full node of bitcoin at the time. In my opinion, It is about as unimaginative as you can get and sets the enviable standard for BTC to start largely as a GARBAGE CHAIN.
For my part, I was watching ordinals come in from asset 44 if I recall, and downloading a server since that day. Even with professional help and top-end servers, it was a week before I was able to publish assets. (I said it was hard). It stands to reason that the first assets going up and still in fact now, at asset number 40k or such, the power is still in the hands of a few people, and the content going up, nonetheless is a testament to our culture at the time.
Also, they did it, and it’s kinda cool and they go.. they already did. Floor prices mooning and prolly wont slow. Then there was Bitcoin Punks. The thing everyone thought was Ordinal Punks. Already a second-round ultra low-res copycat. BUT they had something cool.
You have to mint your own. super cool.. Great mechanism. Fun game.. Conceptual.. see? In a lot of ways, it was very successful aka. foamo, but as of now we are picking up the pieces already. chaos… fakes rip offs emblem chaos… basically the public got what the public wanted. gg, wp. Tbh I saw this coming and so we did something different.
The Verified BTCPUNK XCP Collection by Pep8liens
As the bitcoin punks were minted we decided it would be fun to mint a few. Also, we noticed a couple of potential problems on the horizon. AKA a LOT of fakes and room for tomfoolery. So we did some.
The way it works was the first recognized registration of any punk would be accepted and ALL others denied. This is how I understood it. Sounds terrible… Loads of people mint assets in the hope they get to be part of an imaginary project which is itself a conceptual copycat. albeit with a nice mechanic. However now imo we are getting close to mindless spamming the chain and wasting money. Something Ethereum users are well used to, but not something I particularly find inspiring or collectible.
So what was our twist? We Noticed that the images provided were EXTREMELY low res and not really fit for anything and so we decided to pimp ours. Making that LITTLE bit more special or at least. BETTER QUALITY. We also added a nice colorful background. The originals were transparent. Small, but important differences. Also, it should be noted to do this we clearly edited the JSON, effectively “forking” the project at that point. Also, we can check the timestamps for the issuing of those assets to prove that were first to claim those punk likenesses and publish them in the block, therefore. We still have block providence on the BTC blockchain. (We were first). A small but important difference. But wait there’s more.
Don’t just stand there. Inscribe it.
As everyone rushed to the discord with their fake and unverified punks aiming to dump on each other in the way only the Eth punk generation knows. We as frogs have taken a different path. Back to our favourite pond XCP.
I created an asset BTCPUNK yes I could have been more creative, but I wanted to be unusually clear for once.
I then created a sub asset for each of the 9 “enhanced Bitcoin Punks” we issued. Each asset has a supply of 1. and is, in contrast with many bitcoin assets, divisible. The reason/art / utility/value to this should be obvious already but if not I will summarise it shortly.
Inscribeart.com is a great and new service where you can assign your ordinal to your XCP assets description, which is dope. So I did that. thus verifying their status.
So that’s it really. Now our punks have a home, utility, and a life of their own, they are the most interesting punks on ordinals so far, imho.
Next we are waiting for DUEL verification one both XCP and Ordinals. SOMething no one seems to be thinking about as they rush to trade their jpegs for thousand of dollars. We prefer to go more slowly.
Finally, I don’t know if this is possible yet. but I intend to burn the original related inscription sat to which it is linked. or maybe, send it as gas in a tx so our punk infiltrates the the greater world at large. if you love it.. BURN IT..
THATS PUNK… I know. because I am one. It’s also very BITCOIN. That’s what we do and that’s what we did. So. We would like to openly invite anyone to signup the BTCPUNK subasset collection. Once accepted you will inscribe your punk on xcp, receive you fraction tokens, and burn the original inscription or Send it via gas to the blockchain at large. which I think would be cooler. Let’s see what happens. Come join us!
If you would like to buy or register a BTCPunk or Bitcoin Alien. Or even enquire on the status of sales so far. You can join us on telegram for the latest info. https://t.me/+j03k25fIhgswNTFh
KEEP ON SHILLING
While I’m shilling i should mention there are several other projects i am contributing to on Ordinals. ALL OF WHICH will feature Counterparty XCP as an intermediary to compliment ordinals. Frankly i think the idea of taking your ordinals and keeping them on eth a bit silly, but I know you are all going to do that and indeed.
The game is already afoot with EMBLEM finance leading the way whether they like it or not, but I think they do. Moving assets to Vaults is a subject for another day but I will say that some of the behind-the-scenes moves the founder of the project has already made indeedgrand. Worth mentioning also that DESKTOP COMMANDO who is an emblem regular has some alpha and resources from which I have learned a lot. Youtube is a good place to start.
Also im happy to release my hand curated pfp collection based on the 8liens artwork I did with RAREPEPE legend Oliver Morris, which is doing pretty well and building as always. A great little community, and hopefully one where we can grow trust and tranapracny amongst friends to complement this powerful technology.
As we have seen time and again. the community is not a word it’s our chain and we are the tokens. Let’s keep each other liquid. Reminds me of a mere enquirer article about how we learn. (Here). Anyway.. You can buy those If there’s any left. And also.. I got some Flooneys, but I don’t know what to do with them yet. Let’s see.
HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT?
How rude of me. I forgot to add YOUR value. This isn’t just about me. What can YOU GET out of all this?
Well. You probably ain’t gonna run a full node and mint anything. Just not. If you wanna go “semi-pro” you can download bitcoincore and then just get a small parsed node, then install the ord wallet. lol. Yeah, i know. but there is a bit of a tutorial on ordinals.com but here’.s how I did it.. WITH NO KNOWLEDGE.
I opened char gpt3 and copy pasted the instructions to the computer and said something like:
“I am but a charming and enigmatic, beautiful frog, with a small little pea brain, please explain to me how to get this shit up to 88mph”
This resulted in not working, but after a bit of prompting it guided me through. (you will probably go wrong telling the terminal where ord is so you can run it or something). idk.. Monkey bash buttons. Warning KETAMINE will not help. (I didn’t try it, tbh.. just an educated guess).
Ok, so you’re not gonna do that right? Do you just want them on a metamask? I get it.. Well, hear me out.
https://sparrowwallet.com/
If you wanna go semi pleb. Send them to sparrow wallet. It’s a simple bitcoin wallet that accepts orders but will NOT organise them for you. You Cannot send them just receive them.. so if you want to COLLECT, this is a great way to hold them until something better is built. Then, you can upload your keys into a supported wallet. Although I expect at this rate sparrow has probably just done a massive shit at how many users they now have and are devving out of a solution. So basically hold tight.
But no? you wanna flip them eh? Make some money? Ok well in this case what you need to do is go and read some other article. I’m not interested. Sorry.
That brings me back to creation. We are effectively graffitiing on digital money. It should be for all. As it goes some people are offering uploading services. I have personally been approached by several entities asking for assistance and we now have a service to upload assets for other people, lowering the barrier.
This still is not satisfactory for many purests, myself included, and I can say that many more services are rapidly emerging. So keep your eyes peeled and follow meme enquirer.
Hopefully that doesn’t cover all the main and important issues and we will see you again next time. Have lovely day. GM