The idea of the blockchain becoming clogged with popular online memes has some ardent Bitcoin supporters in a rage.
Casey Rodarmor thinks there is no reason to be alarmed about the recently revealed NFT protocol known as Ordinals. He thinks that nonfungible tokens, or inscriptions, will provide the oldest blockchain a new use that will boost its utility. Some say that because of the enormous amounts of data required to encrypt the digital images, GIFs, and representations, conventional transactions will be crowded out with high fees, compromising Bitcoin’s original purpose of being a peer-to-peer payment network.
Until recently, NFT collections were primarily built on Ethereum, which acted as a catalyst in making that platform the most significant blockchain in terms of commerce.
Rodarmor’s longtime interests include generative art and bitcoin. The Emeryville, California-based programmer has experimented with generating images for live music as well as the high-end art market on Ethereum. He also organizes a meet-up for Bitcoin developers in the San Francisco area.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as an artist, but I’ve made a lot of generative digital art, sort of like programmer art,” the 39-year-old Rodarmor said in an interview.
Rodarmor came across Bitcoin and its explanatory “white paper” in 2013 while working at Google. “I like things that take power away from the government,” he said. “I was very excited that it had a chance working, a chance of creating better money that benefits everybody.”
Rodarmor supports bitcoin as a means of achieving financial freedom, like many other Bitcoin purists.
“So I basically decided that I can make Ethereum NFTs, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable actually 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.”
Ordinal numbers, which convey a location for an object, are referred to as “ordinals” in shorthand. In a podcast interview, Rodarmor gave a quick explanation of the protocol, explaining that it enables users to send and receive sats, the smallest measurement unit of Bitcoin recorded on the blockchain, which include optional supplementary data in ordinal succession.
According to Rodarmor, without Bitcoin’s earlier technical advancements like SegWit and Taproot, the Ordinals protocol would not be conceivable. Large volumes of non-financial data can now be kept on the blockchain thanks to these developments.