Ordinals Protocol Sets New Record for File Size on Bitcoin

The Bitcoin “inscription” #70 614 708 has set a new record for file size on the Ordinals protocol, reaching 3.969 MB.

? Breaking News

We just inscribed the largest file ever inscribed on Bitcoin for @Logos_network — It now takes the #1 spot by file size ?

See here: https://t.co/LeZI5GkVEQ — Block: 841886 ?

This now means we have inscribed 80% of the top 10 largest files on Bitcoin ? pic.twitter.com/qm7ffTxtb6

— OrdinalsBot ⚡ (@ordinalsbot) May 3, 2024

According to OrdinalsBot, the “inscription” contains a copy of the “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” by Logos Network.

OrdinalsBot co-founder Brian Laughlin told Decrypt that the size is not related to the document’s length. As text, it would occupy no more than 2 KB. However, the project team uploaded it as a jpg file with a resolution large enough for reading.

“It’s tiny, but they added an image and blew it up to that size — just to take the top spot and really make a statement,” the expert explained.

The file exceeded the previous record for Bitcoin “inscriptions” set in March by just 0.001 MB.

Laughlin noted that the block capacity in the first cryptocurrency’s network was increased from 1 MB to 4 MB in 2017 due to the Segregated Witness hard fork. Attempting to “inscribe” anything larger is doomed to fail, he added.

“Part of our job is to ensure we don’t do that. Essentially, we’ll create [Ordinal] locally, send it to our Bitcoin nodes, and see if it all goes through. But we won’t even start if the size exceeds 4 MB. There’s no point, because we know it will fail,” Laughlin emphasized.

To add such large inscriptions as the “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace” or the previous record holder from Runestone (3.968 MB) to the Bitcoin blockchain, the OrdinalsBot team collaborated with mining company Marathon Digital.

“They test parameters and fine-tune because they really don’t know how it will work. But moving from testnet to implementation is truly an exciting moment,” Laughlin said.

As reported during the launch of the Runes protocol on the day of Bitcoin’s halving, the share of transactions with Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens did not exceed 2% of the total volume.