From October to now, driven by the expectations of spot BTC ETF, the general rise of various concepts from BRC20, Solana Ecosystem to GameFi has been overwhelming, and the market restart seems to only take a moment!
要问最近币圈有什么暴富神话，那一定是铭文赛道了，先有 BRC-20 ORDI 一个月爆拉数千倍，后有以太坊铭文两周 300 倍，这里面很多新概念，又是递归铭文啊又是ESC20的，可谓层出不穷，很多人傻傻分不清楚，还没搞明白呢，人家就爆拉了，只能拍断大腿。
The concept of inscription was first proposed by the Ordinals protocol on December 14 last year. Briefly explained, the Ordinals protocol is a system for numbering the smallest unit of Bitcoin - satoshi. The total number of BTC is 21 million, so there are 2100 trillion in total. Satoshi, at the same time, the Ordinal protocol can also implant data into Satoshi. The process of implanting is called inscribe. The part of the data that is implanted is naturally called inscription. Satoshi carrying the inscription is generated. uniqueness and scarcity. Turning the smallest unit into a new target of speculation can be regarded as an expansion of the value of Bitcoin to a certain extent, and it is a massive expansion.
Where is the engraving?
When each Bitcoin transaction is uploaded to the chain, in addition to the most basic transaction metadata, the Bitcoin network allows you to submit a string of transaction notes with custom characters, which is the same as adding double notes to a bank transfer. principle. This transaction note field used to be mainly the "op_return" field, but its capacity was very small. After the Taproot upgrade, it can also be the transaction witness field. The witness field supports up to 4M of inscribed content instead of dozens of kb, which gives the engraving space to play.
So how to engrave it specifically? Imprinting is done by sending the Satoshi to be imprinted into a transaction. After every Bitcoin transaction, an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) is generated, which is similar to a certificate proving your balance and is stored in Bitcoin online.
The Ordinals protocol allows you to attach your NFT information to UTXO, which is to engrave the NFT on your balance certificate.
Of course, the data must be encoded into string form before it can be "carved".
Let's make a simple analogy. For example, if you have 5 yuan in your pocket and you want to give me 4 yuan, according to the principle of UTXO, you have to put all 5 yuan on the table, give me 4 yuan, and give you the unused 1 yuan. It becomes your balance. Ordinals means that when you put the 5 yuan on the table and prepare to complete the transaction, you will engrave this note on the 1 yuan returned to you like a seal, and then you will have the 1 yuan. inscription.
In essence, the Ordinals protocol actually borrows the memory on the Bitcoin chain to record its own ledger and form a new consensus. This new consensus is not only based on the Bitcoin consensus, decentralized and cryptographically native, but also completes its own evolution. This is how parasites survive.
This is also the ingenuity of Ordinals. It treats Bitcoin as a tool, and Bitcoin becomes the "hard drive" host for data storage, that is, the data availability layer. It is the serious consensus layer, completing the emergence of its own NFT. !
At this time, some people will be confused, is the inscription NFT or FT, that is, a homogeneous token? It is said to be an NFT. Why does Unisat have the number of tokens and why does it also exist on the exchange?
Both of these two pictures are Bitcoin inscriptions. The satoshi on the left is engraved with a punk image, and the satoshi on the right is engraved with four characters. In the past, everyone was Satoshi. It was nothing more than digging out the sooner or later of time. One Satoshi It is equal to one satoshi. There is nothing wrong with homogeneous tokens, but now, after two satoshis are carved, they become unique. I am punk and you are loot. This is non-fungible. Of course, I am punk than punk. Your loot is much more valuable.
If you are smart at this time, you will definitely think, if I engrave a punk image on a Cong now, will my net worth double?
Probably not, unless you are the first publisher to deploy and engrave punk.
Like traditional NFTs, the consensus of inscription is First is first.
If multiple people want to engrave the same picture on different inscriptions, they can indeed do so, but only the first inscription is valuable. At this time, the timestamp comes into play to determine whose inscription is the first. indivual.
In addition, the rarity of Satoshi is determined by the block position in which it was mined. The highest level is the first Satoshi in the genesis block, which is called the mythical Satoshi. This is just one, it’s worth a lot if you think about it, it has great collection value.
In summary, these characteristics are the characteristics of non-fungible tokens, so the inscription is an NFT.
The biggest difference between it and NFT on Ethereum is that all data of NFT is stored on the chain. It is more decentralized, so it is more fundamental and sexier.
Now that we’ve talked about NFT, where did FT come from?
The most familiar token issuance standards are probably the classic ERC-20 and ERC-721 on ETH, which correspond to divisible tokens and non-divisible tokens respectively. These protocols are designed based on ETH’s own smart contracts. It is very difficult to issue tokens on the BTC chain without smart contract functionality.
However, the emergence of the ordinals protocol has given everyone a new idea. Using a single Satoshi as a carrier and an inscription as a mark, the combination of the two can generate a unique and non-tamperable token.
Suppose I want to issue a token named $MR.V with a maximum circulation of 1,000. Then I can directly use ordinals to engrave 1,000 satoshis with the characters MR.V. I can also engrave 1,000 satoshis on one satoshi. , 1000 is the maximum capacity of Ordinals for one inscription.
At the same time, according to the consensus of First is first, since it is 1,000, I only recognize the first 1,000 coins engraved with the MR.V characters as the tokens I issued. This problem will be solved.
Of course, in another situation, although the maximum issuance is 1,000, I adopted a casting method of engraving 1 $MR.V. I only minted 500, and the remaining 500 can be minted by anyone, then The 500 minted by others are also within the consensus range of "First is first", and the subsequent $MR.V that exceeds the maximum circulation is not within the consensus range.
Therefore, according to the ideas given by Ordinals, the first BTC-based token protocol: BRC-20 turned out to be born, and the developer of the protocol, domo, used the BRC-20 protocol to issue the first Token-$ordi on the BTC chain. These are the first four letters of ordinals. The initial casting cost was about 0.1U per satoshi, with a maximum of 68U. Now it has dropped to 48U.
