Yesterday, the community of the Bitcoin NFT protocol Ordinals started a heated debate because of the idea of ​​the inscription number is permanently unstable proposed by the founder of the protocol, Casey Rodarmor.

A major feature of the Ordinals protocol that allows Bitcoin NFTs is the inscription number. The inscription number is the number assigned to the inscription in the order in which the inscription is created. The number of the creation inscription is #0.

Creation InscriptionInscription #0

With the rapid development of the Ordinals protocol, the inscription number gives Bitcoin NFT a unique hype narrative that is different from other chain NFTs. For example, Sub 10K is the first 10,000 inscriptions burned since the birth of the Ordinals protocol. Although a large part of these ancient inscriptions are test products of early players, there is no theme in the artistic content and can even be called broken. Bronze and rotten iron, but they may be like ancient fossils, and their value is a testimony to the savage era.

Sub 10K collection on Magic Eden

The emergence of cursed inscriptions broke the orderly growth of inscription numbers assigned according to the order in which the inscriptions were created. In early March, a bug appeared in Ordinals. Some inscriptions that had been successfully burned were not assigned inscription numbers and therefore could not be retrieved through the indexer. This error came to the attention and discussion of the community in April, and was initially referred to as Misprint printing error or Orphan Inscriptions orphan inscriptions. Subsequently, the core layer of the Ordinals protocol began to refer to these inscriptions as Cursed Inscriptions. (Recommended reading:Ordinals new gameplay: Will Curse Inscription be the next hot spot for Bitcoin NFT?）

In June, the Ordinals protocol was upgraded to version v 0.6.0. The cursed inscriptions were assigned negative inscription numbers, and were noted as numbering unstable on the Ordinals official browser. With the development of the Ordinals protocol, there may be new unknown situations that cause new cursed inscriptions to appear. It is unpredictable when they will appear, and it is very likely that they will disrupt the original inscription number record.

Curse Inscription is marked as Unstable Numbering

The seeds for this controversy have actually been laid for a long time. Casey Rodarmor has already expressed his thoughts on the future of cursed inscriptions - pre-announce a certain block height in the future, after which the cursed inscriptions generated by previous situations will no longer be cursed and will be given Positive number value. The word blessing is used to describe the repair of the cursed inscription. Once blessing occurs, the original positive number will inevitably be disrupted, and may be disrupted many times in the future.

The inscription number is permanently unstable proposed by Casey Rodarmor this time is actually to implement his idea of ​​cursed inscription mentioned above. Casey Rodarmor believes that as the Ordinals protocol continues to develop, it will be difficult to maintain the stability of the number of inscriptions, that is, the orderly growth of inscription numbers assigned according to the order in which the inscriptions were created. Inscription numbering is permanently unstable can simplify Ordinals code base and make future protocol updates easier. In addition, he also said that although the inscription number is permanently unstable, the error between the newly generated inscription number and the original inscription number will only be about 1%.

But he went so far that some Bitcoin NFT players could not accept it. Because he also proposed two measures to downplay the inscription number:

- Inscription numbers are no longer used in URLs (as they are now in the ord client). My understanding of this is that in the Ordinals official browser, you can no longer view the inscription directly by accessing the inscription number link. Now, if you directly access the link https://ordinals.com/inscriptions/0, you can directly view it. See other inscriptions with inscription numbers adjacent to inscription No. 0

- Viewing inscriptions in the Ordinals official browser no longer emphasizes the inscription number. This point is very critical. If you take a picture and see what it looks like now and then think about what it would look like if it were removed, you can feel how critical this point is:

Imagine removing the title 33589291, it might look like the following details:

This is a big deal... First of all, the inscription number, as a unique narrative of Bitcoin NFT, is loved by a large part of Ordinals players. This is a unique hype point compared to other chain NFTs. The concept of representing history has also penetrated into the hearts of many players. on the basis of,@LeonidasNFTHe also wrote a long tweet calling for the inscription number to remain immutable and believed that the inscription number should not be made variable. Once it is made variable, it will destroy the core value of the Ordinals protocol. Indeed, even if the inscription number does not undergo major deviations after adjustment, it will hurt the confidence of investors in collections such as Sub 10 K, and some basic applications that have been built will also be affected.

As a result, the discussion of the permanent instability of inscription numbers has been raised to the level of culture vs. technology... In my personal opinion, I dont think that inscription numbers are a kind of culture, like Sub 10K This kind of hype narrative is actually not supported by practical artistic content. If the bronze swords made in the Bronze Age are valuable cultural relics, is the scrap copper used in the experimental process of making bronze swords as valuable as cultural relics? I always believe that the key to the growth of the Ordinals ecosystem is the production of substantial cultural content. Whether it is the historical nature of inscription numbers or narratives such as rarity, they are actually just the icing on the cake, or in other words, enjoying the overflow based on the good accumulation of cultural content. the value of.

In addition, regardless of whether the cursed inscription is transferred to a positive number and affects the overall numbering order, the cursed inscription is still there. For example, today we suddenly discovered that there was actually a fourth country during the Three Kingdoms period, but we insisted not to include the history of this fourth country in the official history, because this would make everyone question the entire historical academic circle, and at the same time affect the value of the cultural and creative industries of the Three Kingdoms. ..Isn’t this “covering one’s ears and stealing the bell”?

I accept how this matter will eventually develop, but what I am more concerned about is when will the Ordinals protocol have a complete proposal governance mechanism? In this way, everyone no longer has to worry about the possibility of Casey being too personal and leading to one word. Next time if similar problems arise, everyone will not have to quarrel like headless chickens but have a reliable way to exercise governance. Right...