Are you familiar with Crypto Punks, Ethereum Rocks, and several other NFT projects that were pretty primitive but also traded for thousands of dollars? These projects were some of the initial Non-Fungible Token forms at the top of the Ethereum mainnet when the concept was pretty new and unique in the entire crypto ecosystem.
After the debut of some jpegs on the blockchain, the waves of hype reached several " Ethereum Killer " layer 1 blockchains and the concept strengthened its position a very long time ago. When we come back to today's crypto market, we see some updates on the Bitcoin mainnet that remind us of the times when NFTs were the first form of decentralized jpegs.
As the concept is easy to create your own piece of art in a couple of seconds, it was not able to create a long lasting hype during the consolidation or the recent upward trend in the crypto ecosystem. However, the Ordinals could find a place for themselves on CoinMarketCap and other data tracking platforms.
Ordinals' Strong Sides
First of all, the ordinals use the most secure blockchain that operates in Proof of Work mechanism. Unless there is a 51% attack on a PoW chain, the blockchains are pretty secure to store your data on.
Also, BRC-20 became a fancy brand name for the tokens or jpegs that will be integrated into Bitcoin's mainnet. The Ordinal inscriptions are truly fundamental as the step on Bitcoin is almost equal to a step taken on Mars. Beyond the EVM circle, this is noteworthy.
The website is like a playground where you can embed anything you want into the Bitcoin mainnet. However, as you may realize, the size limit is pretty low and it might be impossible to inscribe a visual as you planned.
Though there are good sides of the project that makes use of every single satoshi on Bitcoin, there are some negative stances on it, as well.
Criticisms on Ordinals
First of all, we need to consider the level of security and it is the side that many developers are worried about.
"“Inscriptions” are exploiting a vulnerability in Bitcoin"
That is the problematic side according to blockchain security protocols.
We cannot still 100% trust the security of the data with Ordinal Inscriptions.
Necessity Discussions
When the ordinals are unscripted, the density on blockchain increases drastically. While the transactions on Bitcoin was around $1 - $2, the times when people start to inscribe something on the network take the transaction fees up to $10 - $15 due to the load in the chain. You can clearly see the unconfirmed transactions queue on Bitcoin.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Bitcoin is not a super fast blockchain. Rather, it is a relatively slow blockchain, 10 minutes per block, with a limited block size, 1 MB max. Thus, working on Bitcoin with a project does not add any value to the ecosystem while there are platform projects such as EVM Layer 1s.
The project looks like a "hype & gainz" type of concept. However, when we look at the side of development, it is a nice update on Bitcoin's mainnet, as well.
As I mentioned, there are 2 opposite ideas / perspectives regarding the Ordinal Protocol and the way it is used by crypto people.
What do you think about the Ordinals?
