What are Bitcoin ecosystem CEOs making of Ordinal and what does the Doom video game have to do with it?
Serial numbers are here to stay. Ordinal numbers, or the ability to permanently image Bitcoin
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Blockchain data, usually in image or JPEG format, is a controversial topic among Bitcoin and some members of the broader crypto community. Not so for the founders and CEOs of Bitcoin-focused companies who attended the Advanced Bitcoin conference in London.
Cointelegraph asked several CEOs, builders and key opinion leaders about their thoughts on ordinals during the conference. There was a wide range of emotions ranging from curiosity to indifference to respect.
Alex Leishman, CEO of River, told Cointelegraph that he does not yet have a position on ordinals, but he recently received an ordinal:
“In short, the idea of having this kind of meta layer on Bitcoin that is tracked by Sats; that has separate state or maps on the blockchain is really interesting and could be interesting for other things.
For example, Leishman said he recently played a clone of the classic computer game Doom (called Yet Another Doom Clone) on Ordinal. “Someone embedded JavaScript and Doom into an ordinal on a small website,” Leishman said, uploading it to the blockchain.
Eric Sirian, co-founder of the Fed and adviser and maintainer of the open source protocol FedMint, told Cointelegraph that he is also “very neutral” on the issue of ordinals:
“Basically, there’s nothing we can do about it in a morally consistent way.” If we try to fight it, what gives us the right to do so? And we cannot effectively fight against that. […] So yes, why work on it?”
Sirion added that he’s not necessarily a fan of Ordinal, even though they might blow up the blockchain a bit, “but who am I to tell other people what to do with the fees they’re paying?”
The Bitcoin blockchain has since ballooned, with the average block size reaching an all-time high, but fees have remained more or less stable.
Benoit Mazouk, CEO of UK-based Bitcoin exchange BitcoinPoint, shared Sirion’s concerns about blockchain congestion. Mazuk explained that while he understands key Bitcoin leaders such as Blockstream CEO Adam Back who commented that serial numbers are “useless”, he “prefers Bitcoin as a currency”.
Perhaps more worrying is that users can upload graphic images and offensive data to the blockchain. In recent days, shock porn has been posted as regular.
Persistence and resistance to censorship, however, work both ways: Leishman argues that permanent records of potentially important or culturally significant events can be permanently embedded in the blockchain. “Finally, serial numbers can be compiled and it’s really censorship-resistant content,” Leishman commented.
Related: Yuga Labs’ First Bitcoin NFT Auction Raises $16.5M in 24 Hours
Christian Carrolls, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine, recently published a culturally relevant reference to the censorship of Roahl Dahl’s books, questioning whether forging banned books as a blocking method is worthwhile.
Overall, Bitcoin Ordinals advocates are beginning to change the way Bitcoin is used and accessed. Ordinals represents another use case for the Bitcoin network compared to its first: peer-to-peer cash. Leishman sums it up:
“Maybe the Bitcoin database has value for other things, and they’re willing to pay for it, which is good for the miners and maybe it really is.”
Miners have earned more per block since the introduction of Ordinals, and video game enthusiasts can rest assured that they can play a recreation of Doom loaded from the Bitcoin blockchain.
