• Ordinals and inscriptions are conventions of numbering sats in order they’re mined into existence, and tracking them across transactions.
• Inscriptions are Bitcoin-native digital artifacts or NFTs that can be sent around and stored in a Bitcoin unspent transaction output (UTXO).
• The pro Ordinals and inscriptions case could broadly be understood as: “Come for the fun, rich art, stay for the decentralized digital money,” but concerns have been raised about reduced accessibility to transact on Bitcoin and reduced ability for users to run a full Bitcoin node.
What Are Ordinals?
Ordinals are a made up way of tracking sats (a fraction of a bitcoin) across transactions. It’s a convention of numbering sats in the order they’re mined into existence, and tracking them across transactions in a first in, first out (FIFO) method. So, as Bitcoin transactions are made up of inputs and outputs, the first satoshi in the first input is considered to be transferred to the first output of a transaction. There are conventions around which Ordinals are uncommon, rare, epic, etc.
What Is An Inscription?
An inscription is another made-up convention where sats can be inscribed with arbitrary content, a kind of Bitcoin-native digital artifact or NFT. Using the convention, they can be sent around and stored in a Bitcoin unspent transaction output (UTXO). Now, because they are coded in such a way that they are written into transaction witnesses, they never enter the UTXO set. The UTXO set is seen as having heightened consideration for the network because every node (even pruned nodes) must maintain this UTXO set.
What Is The Bull Case For Ordinals And Inscriptions?
The pro Ordinals and inscriptions case could broadly be understood as: “Come for the fun, rich art, stay for the decentralized digital money.” You could also agree with some of the critiques of shitcoin NFTs, and see this as a way of arguing that “Bitcoin does it better” e.g., Bitcoin inscriptions are immutable