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The developers of the Ordinals protocol on the Bitcoin blockchain introduced ‘recursive inscriptions’ to overcome the 4 MB block-space limit for digital artifacts.
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WTF are recursive inscriptions?
Here is everything you need to know:
Earlier this year the Ordinals Protocol introduced the ability for anyone to inscribe files fully on-chain onto Bitcoin. These inscriptions are self-contained and unaware of the other files that had been… pic.twitter.com/O3jt6lhaxT
— Leonidas.og (@LeonidasNFT) June 12, 2023
Originally issued tokens and NFTs on the protocol were fully autonomous. The new feature allows inscriptions to reference one another.
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“This simple change opens up a multitude of powerful use cases,” said the author of The Ordinal Show bulletin and the founder of the Ord.io marketplace, known as Leonidas.og.
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For example, creators of digital art collections do not need to embed numerous JPEG files into the blockchain. Instead, it is enough to place identifiers for the set that other inscriptions will reference, using only a small amount of code to query.
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“Art is simply stored in the network in a more efficient way that could save millions of dollars in fees in the case of Bitcoin Apes,” said Leonidas.og.
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In broader terms, inscriptions can encode executable code packages. Referring to them enables on-chain video games or 3D objects. The latter has already been demonstrated by the OnChainMonkey team with an artifact of only 1 KB.
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Everyone in the Ordinals space should be paying attention to what @OnChainMonkey is doing here. They’ve inscribe two npm packages fully on-chain onto Bitcoin which will be public goods that anyone can leverage to make fully on-chain, generative art similar to Art Blocks. https://t.co/83QtWpUyUn
— Leonidas.og (@LeonidasNFT) June 12, 2023
In the expert’s view, the new Ordinals feature could provide Bitcoin with an “internal Internet”, enabling many repositories to reference one another.
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“It is not yet clear how people will use this. But this is, without doubt, an important moment in Bitcoin’s history,” concluded Leonidas.og.
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Earlier in June, the Ordinals released an update, which unlocks “cursed inscriptions”. This is over 71,000 artifacts, released either intentionally or inadvertently with incorrect opcodes.
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