Get to know Ordinals, the new protocol that has revived the Bitcoin NFT trend
Despite its status as the first cryptocurrency and blockchain network, Bitcoin is not the name people first think of when talking about NFTs. This is because Bitcoin from the start was not designed to adopt smart contract functionality, different from Ethereum which was designed for that from the start.
However, for at least the last month, the NFT realm has apparently been abuzz with discussions about Bitcoin NFTs. Yes, Bitcoin now has its own NFT ecosystem, and it's made possible thanks to a protocol called Ordinals .
However, for those who have followed Bitcoin's development since the beginning , they should know that NFTs existed in Bitcoin long before the term "NFT" itself was coined . For those who are not familiar, let's take a look at the story briefly.
A brief history of Bitcoin NFTs
The existence of NFTs on the Bitcoin network began with the emergence of a protocol called Counterparty in 2014. In simple terms, Counterparty functions like a Layer-2 solution for Bitcoin. This protocol is built on Bitcoin and inherits its security system, but at the same time offers extra functionality that allows the creation of unique tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain network.
One of the first NFTs born thanks to Counterparty was Spells of Genesis . Released in March 2015, Spells of Genesis is a trading card game with NFT assets as the cards. But what managed to capture the public's attention was Rare Pepe , a collection of NFTs inspired by the Pepe the Frog meme that was first released on the Bitcoin network in September 2016.
Rare Pepe NFTs / rarepepes.com
Entering 2017, the NFT Bitcoin space is increasingly busy thanks to a new protocol called Stacks , which basically also functions like a Layer-2 solution. Jump to 2023, now we have Ordinals, which apparently has a different way of working than Counterparty or Stacks.
What are Ordinals?
In its official documentation , Ordinals is described as a protocol for monitoring individual satoshis. 1 BTC can be broken down into 100 million satoshis , and thanks to Ordinals, each satoshi can be filled with data such as images or videos to become a unique asset. The process of adding data to satoshi is usually called "inscription" .
All of this is done without the need to rely on sidechains or tokens outside the Bitcoin network. Simply put, Ordinals can function natively without the need to modify the Bitcoin network, and this is possible thanks to the Taproot upgrade that was implemented to Bitcoin in November 2021.
Since Ordinals was officially launched on January 21, 2023, there have been more than 100 thousand inscriptions made based on data from the Dune analytics platform . Interestingly, 1 inscription does not always mean 1 NFT asset, and that means the number of Bitcoin NFTs created with Ordinals can be more than 100 thousand.
The difference between NFT Ordinals and conventional NFTs
There are several things that differentiate NFTs created with Ordinals from conventional NFTs that most people are familiar with. The creator of Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor, is more comfortable using the term “digital artifact” than NFTs, and he has a number of supporting reasons.
Most importantly, Casey calls digital artifacts a complete asset. Complete in the sense that the content is actually stored on the Bitcoin blockchain network, and not just metadata which then refers to content stored on a separate server. For your information, most conventional NFTs on Ethereum and other blockchains still rely on metadata-based methods.
The Ordinals website displays the latest line of inscriptions / Ordinals.com
The second difference is that NFTs or digital artifacts are not regulated by royalty policies at all. The term is permissionless in Casey's words, and this is of course very different from the NFTs we know so far, which have recently been enlivened by drama between pro-royalty and anti-royalty camps .
However, the difference that will probably be the biggest dealbreaker is the matter of accessibility. The Ordinals NFT market relies entirely on a peer-to-peer system, and so far no marketplace has tried to facilitate Ordinals NFT buying and selling transactions.
To be able to get Ordinals NFTs, you must join the official Ordinals Discord server and interact directly with each seller. You also need a special wallet that can monitor individual satoshi transactions. Otherwise, there is a possibility that the Ordinals NFT that you have (which is stored in a satoshi ) could be sent accidentally when transacting using BTC.
Example of a popular NFT Ordinals
Even though it has only been around for less than a month, Ordinals are already quite popular in the NFT community. According to the NFT Now report , some Ordinals have even been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One of the most popular is a collection called Ordinal Punks . Inspired by CryptoPunks, Ordinal Punks is a collection of 100 Bitcoin NFTs with pixelated characters minted in the first 650 inscriptions on the Bitcoin network.
Another example of popular NFT Ordinals is Taproot Wizards, which was minted from its 652nd inscription . This project became a topic of discussion because it managed to record the largest transactions and blocks in Bitcoin history, with a data size of around 4 MB. The aim is none other than trolling those who oppose the existence of Ordinals.
The popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals and NFTs has also attracted the attention of NFT creators. OnChainMonkey (OCM) , a fairly popular Ethereum NFT project, can now also be found on Bitcoin. What's special is that 10,000 PFP NFT assets were minted in just one inscription .
According to the OCM development team, the size of the inscription they created was no more than 20,000 bytes , and this could essentially be proof that Bitcoin NFTs can be created without crowding the network. Yes, this project is 180 degrees from Taproot Wizards earlier.
However, don't think that NFT Ordinals can only be images or videos, because apparently video games can also be embedded in an inscription . If you need proof, take a peek at Inscription #466 , and you'll immediately be greeted by a simplified, fully interactive clone version of the FPS game Doom.
Closing
As briefly mentioned, the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem has actually been around for a long time. However, the existence of Ordinals seems to be a breath of fresh air thanks to its interesting way of working, and which is fully compatible with the Bitcoin network in its current state.
Ordinals is still very young, but it is not impossible that its ecosystem can develop even more widely. One thing is certain, Ordinals will change the public's perspective on Bitcoin in general. Answering the question "what is Bitcoin" will be more difficult after Ordinals, because as we can see, Bitcoin is no longer just a digital currency.
At the same time, the rejection of Ordinals is likely to continue. The reason is not only because Ordinals made Bitcoin deviate from Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision, but also for practical reasons, such as the fact that Ordinals caused Bitcoin network transaction costs to increase significantly .
3 Popular NFT Projects That Are Just a Moment of Hype
It is no secret that the success of an NFT project is quite dependent on the hype it builds on social media. Armed with a number of attractive teaser videos and mysterious and curious tweets, quite a few NFT projects have succeeded in attracting hundreds of thousands of followers in a relatively short time.
But of course, hype is not the main determinant. There are many other factors that are no less crucial for the success of an NFT project. Often times, relying too much on hype can lead to failure. Even if there is success, it usually only lasts for a moment.
Looking at the development of the NFT trend over the last two years, we can find several examples of popular NFT projects that have proven to be just a temporary hype . Each project certainly has quite different conditions, but what is certain is that they all deserve to be a reminder to the NFT community that exposure is not everything.
Here are 3 examples of popular NFT projects that are just temporary hype.
MekaVerse
Launched in October 2021, MekaVerse was one of the most anticipated PFP NFT projects at that time. Of course, this period could be considered the golden age of PFP NFTs, with projects such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats, and Pudgy Penguins having only been released a few months earlier.
Long story short, many people hope to make big profits from the next popular PFP NFT project, and MekaVerse is the one that most attracts their attention at that time, especially with the lure of an allowlist for its most loyal supporters.
The launch of MekaVerse initially went smoothly. Less than 24 hours after the minting phase, MekaVerse's trading volume was reported to have surpassed $60 million . Even before the true form of NFTs was revealed, MekaVerse's floor price was already around 8 ETH, approximately $25,000 at that time. Unfortunately it all didn't last long.
Not long after its launch, the Twitter world was abuzz with discussions that MekaVerse was full of cheating . By utilizing data from OpenSea, Etherscan, and a number of other sources, it can be concluded that MekaVerse team members managed to purchase some of the rarest assets out of a total supply of 8,888 before the reveal phase even began. Something that would be impossible to happen without metadata manipulation.
It doesn't stop there, the reveal phase of MekaVerse was also delayed due to technical problems. And when the true form of the NFT was revealed, the public response was polarized. Many have lamented how some NFTs look uncannily similar to one another, with the only difference being the color in one small area.
Since then MekaVerse's floor price has continued to decline, and at the time of writing this article, you only need around 0.22 ETH to get an NFT.
PRIME PHONE
In general, the story of HAPE PRIME is quite similar to MekaVerse. Originally using the name Hapebeast, the project implemented a similar strategy of building hype . Followers and members of the Discord server are also very enthusiastic, even willing to create impressive fan art and music content to further strengthen HAPE PRIME's reputation as a brand .
HAPE PRIME's minting phase took place in January 2022 at a price of 0.2 ETH, and to no one's surprise, its total supply of 8,192 NFTs sold out in an instant. The floor price of HAPE PRIME also rose drastically to 8.5 ETH. But again, everything changed 180 degrees when the NFT was revealed .
Without having to wait long, a number of collectors immediately realized that the quality of the assets they had obtained was not comparable to what was previously promised. Some even experienced quite severe visual glitches , and the community's reflex immediately compared their cases with MekaVerse which was launched a few months earlier.
Since entering 2023, the floor price of HAPE PRIME has never been more than 0.4 ETH. For comparison, the popular NFT project Azuki which was released at almost the same time as HAPE PRIME currently has a floor price of over 13 ETH. In fact, in the glory days of HAPE PRIME, Azuki's floor price was only around 2 ETH.
Pixelmon
Not even a month after HAPE PRIME was released, the NFT world was already shocked by a promising NFT game project called Pixelmon . Even when there isn't much information about the game 's development, the hype for Pixelmon is already sky high. As a result, a total of 8,079 Pixelmon NFTs were sold out within an hour of being minted . Even more surprising, the mint price was set at 3 ETH, or the equivalent of $8,000 at that time.
The problem is, Pixelmon collectors have absolutely no idea how their NFT characters will appear in the game . And when leaked screenshots of the Pixelmon game circulated, almost all collectors were immediately shocked to death, because the appearance of the characters was even uglier than that of a child — far from the promise of the AAA gaming experience that was being advertised.
Faced with such a situation, most Pixelmon collectors immediately consider themselves victims of a case of rug pulling . However, what technically happened was not like that, because the creator of the project did not just run away with tens of millions of dollars, and promised to resolve this issue.
At the end, development of the Pixelmon project was transferred to a Web3 studio called LiquidX. Pixelmon's NFT form itself is much better than the initial version. Unfortunately it hasn't been able to return Pixelmon to its former glory, and its floor price is currently only around 0.28 ETH.
Closing
Of course there are many other examples of NFT projects that ended in failure, but these three are the ones that best describe what would happen if an NFT project only relied on hype as the main recipe for its success.
The whitelist/allowlist system can also sometimes be a double-edged sword. The reason is, this allowlist is often filled with people who just want to make quick profits, aka flipping .
In the case of HAPE PRIME, NFT influencer wale.swoosh told how everyone on the allowlist said they would not sell their NFT assets. However, just a day later, almost everyone decided to sell when the floor price was at 9 ETH.
Long story short, instead of attracting truly enthusiastic collectors, the allowlist system often collects profit seekers. And this is usually a sign that the hype for an NFT project won't last long.
The Author of the Novel Snow Crash: Metaverse Doesn't Have to Wear Goggles
The film Ready Player One , which was released in 2018, is often used as an example and illustration of the metaverse concept. In the film, almost everyone has a second life in cyberspace, and to access it, they need to use a virtual reality (VR) headset . The question is, does the real version of the metaverse that we will encounter also have to be like that?
According to Neal Stephenson, the answer is not necessarily. Speaking to Decrypt , the author of the novel Snow Crash said that one of the biggest mistakes people make in understanding the metaverse is assuming that goggles are a necessity.
Snow Crash is a 1992 science fiction novel that first used the term " metaverse . " Neal realized that people's assumptions were based on what he wrote in his novel, but what was happening now was actually not the case.
"And it works very well. In some ways, it works better than using goggles for a variety of reasons," Neal explains.
Neal continued to explain that he was not at all against VR headsets . He only looks at it from an accessibility perspective, and in reality VR headsets are still far from mainstream .
"Today, you can't spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to create an experience that only the minority of people who own the device can enjoy. So you also have to make it work on a flat screen," said Neal.
Neal Stephenson / Wikipedia
Another mistake that is often encountered according to Neal is the assumption that there will be more than one metaverse . For Neal himself, there is only one metaverse , just as there is only one internet. And this is what he is trying to make happen through his open metaverse project called Lamina1 .
On the other hand, Neal believes that games that function like a closed metaverse will not just disappear from circulation. The reason is, the creators will not open access so easily and let people bring digital objects from other games that are completely different, for example bringing a long-barreled rifle to a soccer game.
What about the games that currently exist, are there any that really approach the metaverse concept as described in the novel Snow Crash? According to Neal, so far Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox are the most suitable in this context.
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