A recent report from Bloomberg said that Casey Rodarmor has dismissed the insinuation that using the Bitcoin blockchain for the so-called monkey JPEGS will not be a problem for the network.
Rodarmor made the assertion after an uproar from Bitcoin enthusiasts that such activities on the network would take up spaces needed for more important transactions on the blockchain of the premier cryptocurrency. He said that building his Ordinals Protocol on the Bitcoin network has added utility to the blockchain.
JPEGS will not undermine the Bitcoin network
Casey Rodarmor, whose Ordinal Protocol was recently introduced to the crypto community, said that contrary to the angst of its detractors, having GIFs and JPEGs on its blockchain will not undermine the ideals of Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer network.
Until a couple of years ago, most non-fungible tokens were built on the Ethereum network. NFTs such as CryptoPunks and Bored Apes contributed to making the Ether blockchain the most commercialized in the industry. Transaction speed on the Ethereum blockchain is not among the fastest, a possible effect of its multiple utilities.
Tens of thousands of NFTs minted on Ordinals
Since the launch of the Ordinal Protocol, creators have made tens of thousands of NFTs on it. However, these are still a far cry from the 1.38 million NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain in January.
Ironically, since the beginning of the year, the price of bitcoin has rebounded. The top crypto currency has rallied, gaining 50% since the beginning of 2023.
Rodarmor has long been interested in generative art on the Bitcoin network. The programmer, who is based in California, has been running a meetup for Bitcoin developers. Some of his foci are generative live visual music and the premium art market on the Ethereum blockchain.
Programmer art
“I wouldn’t describe myself as an artist, but I’ve made a lot of generative digital art, sort of like programmer art,” Rodarmor said.
The 39-year-old is another high school dropout who meandered through a community college. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009. His work experience includes a stint with Google as a software engineer and a few crypto projects before starting the Ordinals project in January.
Taking power from the government
Speaking about his interest in bitcoin, which he encountered in 2013, he said,
“I like things that take power away from the government,” he said. “I was very excited that it had a chance of working, that it had a chance of producing better money that would benefit everyone.”
He sees himself as a Bitcoin purist. These are enthusiasts who believe that no other blockchain is as good as Bitcoin, even though it has been shown time and time again that the network is not as scalable as Ethereum.
Figuring out how to do NFTs on Bitcoin
“So I basically decided that I can make Ethereum NFTs, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling anybody to buy them due to security problems and centralization,” Rodarmor said. “I was like, all right, I guess I have to figure out a way to do NFTs on Bitcoin if I want to make some JPEGs for people to buy.”
Ordinals actually mean ordinal numbers. It is an expression of the position of an object. Users of the protocol can send and receive Satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin recorded.
“On the blockchain, these sats—that carry optional extra data in ordinal progression,” Rodarmor explained.
The Ordinals protocol was made possible by previous upgrades on the Bitcoin blockchain. These are SegWit and Taproot. These made it possible for data to be deployed on the blockchain.
So far, what has been seen on the Bitcoin network as collectibles are Bored Ape JPEGs, as well as inscriptions of Donald Trump. Some of these are images that have been popularized on the Ethereum network. Bored Apes, the Nyan Cat, an animated flying cat, and many others A Nyan cat sold for $600,000 in 2021.
Auditing the code behind Ordinals
Rodarmor is already thinking of building a platform where NFTs are swapped for bitcoin. At the moment, the team is working to make sure that the platform has no bugs. Trades on the Ordinals are currently mostly coordinated via Discord and Telegram.
“We are going to implement trustless offers, which allow people to swap bitcoin for inscriptions, and I think that’s what people really want,” he said.
Despite the fact that he is not yet profitable, he accepts the project as a full-time job.The developer has a lot to accomplish, but for now, he’s working on how people who helped him build the platform can be paid.
“Even though we don’t have official support from collections yet, people are already making the inscriptions,” he said.
