Bitcoin's journey has evolved significantly from its inception, now embracing complex features like BRC20 tokens and Ordinals as mentioned in 10102’s Block 800k update, catalyzing debates within its community over network strain and innovation balance. Indeed, ordinals, leveraging the Taproot upgrade, mark Bitcoin's foray into NFTs, making satoshis unique digital assets with substantial opportunities for innovation and creativity.

BRC20 tokens, inspired by Ethereum's ERC20, aim to expand Bitcoin's utility to include tokenized assets and DeFi, transforming Bitcoin from merely a currency to a platform for decentralized applications.

With this evolution, concerns over network congestion and fees have surfaced. In response, Casey Rodarmor introduced Runes, proposing a more efficient alternative to BRC20 tokens by optimizing blockchain space and Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXO) management, potentially reshaping Bitcoin's DeFi landscape.

Runes emphasizes streamlined token creation, improved usability, and scalability, offering a lucrative opportunity for early adopters ahead of Bitcoin's halving event.

Below is everything you need to get started and explore further as needed.

Official documentation | Specification

Timely insights

• Runes are to be released at block 840,000. You can easily check the status of the Bitcoin blockchain on mempool.space.

• Xverse is a good wallet to get started with ordinals and runes.

• Connect to MagicEden and explore ordinals collections. Runes will have their own category there very soon.

• Running a node is likely the most reliable way to deploy, mint, and transfer runes around early on. There are many guides out there but essentially, it requires fully synchronizing a bitcoin client first, and then indexing satoshis via the official ord client.

• There is currently significant attention to the anticipated release of runes within the ordinals sphere. The best return on investments are made when attention on an innovative technology is low. Thus in the case of runes and at this time, it is okay to wait and let the hype settle down. Following closely however, and accumulating accordingly can potentially be rewarding.

• There is no official rune out yet. What is tradable today on the marketplaces are placeholders (inscriptions) only used to distribute runes in the future while being held (similar to points). Some call them rune miners, but there is still a lot of uncertainty around these (likely limited functional lifespan, volatile allocations, and relative tickers not guaranteed).

Read more from the community

Casey’s insights (developer of ordinals & runes)
Terminology explained (by BobBodily)
Runes projects (by NFTBrad)

Disclaimers apply. Thank you for reading! Please share below.
10102’s X | M1K4’X

First collection, Ordinal Miners
Inscription range: 5322 to 13333
View collection on Magic Eden.

Second collection, OMPool
Beautiful renderings of the Bitcoin mempool captured at distinct moments.
View collection on Magic Eden.

Upcoming collection, Mutable Trees

Mutable Trees is an innovative Bitcoin-based art project that merges the worlds of art and technology. This project uses a special kind of mathematical model called Lindenmayer Systems (L-Systems), which are tools for simulating the growth patterns of plants and trees. Within this framework, two types of L-Systems—stochastic and parametric—are used to create unique, dynamic tree art that grows and changes over time.

Stochastic L-Systems introduce randomness into the growth patterns, ensuring each tree is unique and mirrors the unpredictability found in nature. Parametric L-Systems provide the ability to fine-tune and control the growth, allowing for a wide range of artistic expressions within the tree designs. This blend of randomness and control enables the Mutable Trees project to produce a diverse collection of tree art that evolves, offering viewers a captivating and ever-changing visual experience.

The project is ambitious, creating a total of 2016 trees that grow in six generations, with each generation sprouting at significant Bitcoin block heights. Each tree goes through a lifecycle of 250 "years," with changes occurring every 63 blocks, reflecting the natural aging process within a digital framework. This lifecycle is influenced by Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment feature, linking the growth of the trees to the very heartbeat of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Projection based on estimated numbers:

• Total Collection: 2016 trees, symbolizing the number of blocks in a Bitcoin difficulty adjustment period.

• Generational Growth: Starting with 32 trees in the 'Rootstock' sub-collection, the project expands through six generations, culminating in 1024 trees in the 6th generation.

• Dynamic Evolution: Each tree evolves over 250 "years," with changes every 63 blocks, ensuring a rich, multi-faceted development throughout the project.

This fusion of art, mathematics, and blockchain technology makes Mutable Trees a pioneering venture in the digital art space. It's not just an art collection; it's a living, breathing ecosystem that grows with and within the Bitcoin blockchain, offering a unique perspective on the convergence of natural beauty and technological innovation.

Why it's interesting

This approach could lead to fascinating experiments, such as studying how exposure to different natural environments affects mood or health. By chunking the vast concept of nature's influence on humans into specific, smaller experiments, we can discover how individual elements of nature contribute to our well-being and development. This not only enriches our understanding of ourselves but also highlights the critical importance of preserving our natural environment for future generations.

The Ordinal Theory

The power of inscriptions

Individual satoshis can be inscribed with arbitrary content, giving rise to Bitcoin-native digital artifacts, more commonly known as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens).

Unlike traditional NFTs, inscriptions do not require a sidechain, a separate token, or even an independent storage solution.

Many NFTs on Ethereum point to media that are stored on IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) or elsewhere, rather than within the Ethereum blockspace itself. In contrast, inscriptions are as durable, immutable, secure, and decentralized as Bitcoin itself. This distinction highlights the inherent efficiency and simplicity of inscriptions.

The creation of perpetually inscribed artifacts directly on the Bitcoin blockchain forms the core of the Ordinal movement. As the developers and early adopters began to inscribe, the realm of Bitcoin started to expand through the lens of Ordinal Theory, giving rise to a new, augmented reality within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

This evolution signifies not just an expansion of Bitcoin's functionality, but also a profound shift in how we perceive and utilize its blockspace. For better or worse, one can read more about the early mindset and critics, while debates are still ongoing to this day.

Learn more

The evolution of inscriptions

Initially, the goal of most inscribers was to inscribe as early as possible. A race ensued. Milestones were set at the first 100, 500, 1k, 10k, and 100k inscriptions.

As we surpassed the 100k mark and new ideas emerged, the focus then shifted to structured inscriptions called BRC-20, a term borrowed from the Ethereum's ERC-20 tokens. Introduced by Domo, these inscriptions are essentially a JSON format-based credit system, with ORDI being the first and most valuable BRC-20 to date. However, their real-world utility, given the lack of smart contract or programmable support, remains to be seen.

After reaching the 1M inscription milestone, the emphasis shifted towards curating quality collections. Quality was first associated with original art, then evolved to include generative collections, and most recently, collections entirely inscribed on uncommon satoshis.

In the meantime, experiments continued to emerge along the way, such as Cursed ordinals, ORC-20 (an upgrade attempt to BRC-20), ORC-721 (generative inscriptions), SRC-20 (stamps), and finally, a promising effort to construct Recursive inscriptions.

Builders and early adopters are simply having fun, being creative, and absorbing a seemingly refreshing energy that has been absent from the Bitcoin ecosystem for quite some time.

This rapid evolution occurred within just a few months of Ordinals' mainnet deployment to the Bitcoin network. The initiative is still in its nascent stages, and the potential for future developments is vast. As for what the Block 900,000 edition might bring, it's likely beyond our current foresight.

CA$ a perfect match for Ordinals

The essence of the Crypto Archive$ is to chronicle major events in the crypto space in a concise, simple, and unfiltered manner. Our goal is to remain as neutral as possible while preserving pertinent information indefinitely. This ethos aligns perfectly with the simplicity and permanence of Ordinal inscriptions.

See the inscribed Crypto Archive$ | 800,000 (up to this point).

CA$ inscriptions #1

We commemorate Block 800,000 with a few of our own inscriptions, forever inscribed:

• Snapshot of Bitcoin metrics on June 20, 2023 (from Clark Moody Bitcoin). Please note the small screenshot within, capturing the exact time of the displayed information.

• Snapshot of the ord repository. Again, note the small screenshot within, capturing the exact time of the displayed information.

• A special dedication: Bitcoin is about to surpass 8 million minutes of non-stop operation.

More Archive$ | Q2 2023

• Illegitimate bitcoin transactions, what got many folks started

• Chronology thread, by Dazza9x on Twitter

• Casey’s github, the original developer of ord (main code repository)

• Docs.ordinals.com, the official documentation portal

• Guide to BRC-20 tokens by Bankless

• Bitcoin Rocks | Ordinal Punks | Timechain | Loops | Shrooms,
  Legendary early collections featured by Sub1k Ordinals.

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Disclaimer: the information provided on this newsletter does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of the newsletter content as such. Readers shall conduct their own due diligence and consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions.