Introduction
Before the invention of the printing press, what would people do if they wanted to print a 1000-page book? They would have to carve 1000 stone blocks with full of characters, which was time-consuming and laborious, and these 1000 stone blocks could only be used for printing that specific book.
However, with the invention of the printing press, if you want to print a 1000-page book, you no longer need to carve 1000 stone blocks. Instead, you only need to create a limited character library and directly take out fixed character blocks from the library to quickly compose the book for printing.
This is similar to the introduction of the Ordinals protocol with recursive inscriptions, which will exponentially expand the scalability of the Bitcoin ecosystem. MIIX Labs believes that recursive inscriptions will become the next explosive point in the BTC ecosystem.
1. What are Ordinals
To understand what recursive inscriptions are, we first need to understand what Ordinals are.
In recent years, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have attracted widespread attention in the blockchain world. From art, music to virtual land, NFTs give various assets unique digital properties. However, this trend has not been widely implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain until the emergence of Ordinals.
Ordinals is a protocol that enables the identification of every satoshi in Bitcoin, thereby enabling additional data transactions, a process known as "inscription." This technology not only creates another use case for Bitcoin but also makes it possible to implement Bitcoin NFTs.
Each satoshi in Bitcoin has a unique number assigned based on the order in which the Bitcoin is mined and transferred, hence called "ordinals." This technology allows each satoshi to carry additional data, making it unique.
This means that the smallest unit of Bitcoin - satoshi, is no longer just a bearer of value but can also serve as a carrier of information.
MIIX Labs analysis suggests that Ordinals have a fundamental difference from traditional NFTs. NFTs typically use smart contracts to create and transfer on blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Smart Chain, and sometimes the assets they represent may be hosted elsewhere.
But Ordinals are directly recorded on individual satoshis and then included in Bitcoin blockchain blocks. Since Ordinals reside entirely on the blockchain and do not require sidechains or separate tokens, they inherit the simplicity, immutability, security, and durability of Bitcoin itself.
This means that as long as Bitcoin exists, the data stored in Ordinals can always be accessed. In contrast, if the data referenced by an NFT is deleted or its storage platform disappears, the NFT data will also be lost.
Therefore, the emergence of Ordinals has brought new possibilities for Bitcoin and is also referred to as Inscriptions 1.0.
2. What is BRC20
With the emergence of Ordinals, a standard for alternative tokens built on the Bitcoin network has also begun to emerge.
Ordi, an experimental token based on the Bitcoin network and the Ordinals protocol, represents the first application instance of the BRC-20 token standard. In a sense, Ordi has ignited the market for BRC20.
According to MIIX Labs, on March 8, 2023, the BRC2 standard was created by Twitter user @domodata, inspired by Ethereum's ERC-20, and created based on the Ordinals protocol. It allows developers to create and transfer alternative tokens using the Ordinals protocol.
Unlike ERC-20, BRC-20 does not use smart contracts but utilizes JSON data from the Ordinals protocol to deploy, mint, and transfer tokens.
The main features of the BRC-20 standard include:
Security: BRC-20 tokens exist on the Bitcoin blockchain, thus inheriting the high security provided by the Bitcoin protocol. Bitcoin uses the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism and has a large number of miners to help protect the network, making it one of the most secure blockchains.
Compatibility: BRC-20 tokens are compatible with the Bitcoin blockchain itself, making it easier to integrate them into the Bitcoin ecosystem. In addition, existing Bitcoin developers can easily build and integrate BRC-20 tokens.
Fungibility: BRC-20 tokens are considered fungible, meaning they can be easily traded on exchanges, providing a simple alternative for Bitcoin trading for beginners.
However, MIIX Labs analysis suggests that the BRC-20 standard also has some drawbacks:
Limited ecosystem: Although BRC-20 is becoming increasingly popular, it is a relatively new token standard, and the ecosystem is smaller compared to ERC-20. This means there are fewer resources, developers, and tools for building and managing BRC-20 tokens.
Potential high transaction fees: With the increasing activity of BRC-20 tokens, Bitcoin transaction fees increase as BRC-20 transactions grow.
Overall, BRC-20 tokens are still in the early stages and need more time to reveal their impact on the Bitcoin blockchain. This experimental stage leaves room for better design choices and optimization improvements in the future.
BRC-20 tokens demonstrate that Bitcoin is still innovating and evolving beyond a store of value and medium of exchange. They are growing rapidly and have the potential to play a greater role in the long-term future of the Bitcoin blockchain.
3. Birth of Recursive Inscriptions
MIIX Labs analysis suggests that recursive inscriptions will lead the transformation of inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain, bringing inscriptions from the previous 1.0 era to the inscription 2.0 era.
Since the excitement caused by Brc20, the crypto community has been thinking, if Brc20, based on Erc20, can be successful, why not create a Brc721 based on Erc721?
Thus, Brc721 was born.
However, as most Erc721s store images in centralized custody, requiring management fees, Brc721 directly engraves images on the Bitcoin blockchain, posing a significant cost challenge. With the popularity of Ordinals, the congestion of inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has become increasingly severe, further exacerbating cost pressures.
To address this issue, Gbrc721 was created, successfully overcoming the high cost challenge on the chain. In the development of the Gbrc721 project, the project only needs to upload the components of the NFT and cleverly combine them.
On June 12, 2023, Raph, the new chief maintainer of Ordinals, announced a significant development on Github. He merged the innovative inscription "recursive inscriptions" with the number 2167 into the code of Ordinals.
In this version of the code, through the syntax "/-/content/:inscription_id," inscriptions can reference each other's content, achieving functionality beyond Gbrc721. This innovation is directly implemented on the chain, without relying on off-chain parsing, fundamentally solving the problem of Gbrc721.
Therefore, recursive inscriptions were born, and this simple yet clever change brought infinite creativity to Ordinals, inspiring people's imagination.
4. Gameplay and Representative Projects
4.1 Gameplay
According to MIIX Labs, since each recursive NFT project currently provides different codes for the minter, including svg and html formats, the minting process is the same regardless of the format.
Let's take Recursive Punks as an example to briefly introduce the inscription minting method.
Step 1: Open the Recursive Punks website: https://recursivepunks.io/
Step 2: Click on GitHub to access the project's code repository. Alternatively, you can directly click on the corresponding link to download, or download by entering the corresponding ID.
Step 3: Click on the top right corner, log in to your GitHub account, or register if you don't have one. After logging in, click on the svg folder.
Step 4: As a demonstration, click on any file, then click download. You can then view the downloaded svg file once the download is complete.
Step 5: Verify if it has been inscribed by opening the verification website https://bitpunks.io/Explorer/Inscriptions
Step 6: Start minting (inscribing) by clicking login: https://unisat.io/inscribe
After completing the payment, all that's left is to wait. At this point, you can also check the packing progress on the chain by clicking on the transaction hash corresponding to your payment.
MIIX Labs reminds that before minting, you can also log in to the website separately to check if the fees are currently low, which can help control the cost of minting. Check real-time fees on the website: https://mempool.space/zh/
4.2 Representative Projects
1. Recursive Playground
"Recursive Playground" is the first interactive recursive inscription NFT project. As demonstrated in its beta version, users can change the state of the image by simply dragging the mouse. This allows inscription NFTs to transition from static and passive to dynamic and interactive, turning collectors into co-creators who can create their own works based on this.
In the view of "Recursive Playground," the collision of personal inspiration and interaction with the computer in some way creates unique art in real-time.
Although the beta version of "Recursive Playground" is just a debut for "interactive recursive inscriptions" NFT, its importance as a milestone in NFT cannot be denied. This is not just an attempt at interaction, but more of a validation of possibilities. Our understanding of NFTs is no longer limited to the two-dimensional world; the three-dimensional properties of NFTs have been validated.
Imagine if we try to change the reaction logic behind "Recursive Playground," extending the interaction limited to mouse clicks to the gravity system, fluid dynamics, and even time logic. Would "interactive recursive inscriptions" NFTs then have more playability?
NFTs will no longer be limited to conveying visual effects through a display screen. Through user interaction with the mouse, users can feel its presence more, and with a gentle touch, NFTs can create ripples based on pressure.
2. Fservin
Using the fundamental features and JS webGL fluid simulator, it generates a personal webpage. According to its NFT interaction experience test, users can create various beautiful light and shadow effects based on fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, and more by simply dragging the mouse.
3. Speculum Aeternum Miraculum
By introducing mathematical equations and variables of time (block height), the color of the butterfly changes with the addition of Bitcoin block height, achieving interaction between machines.
4. Recursive Doodinals
The project provides a series of NFT underlying features, allowing players to DIY create NFTs and then inscribe them.
According to the official introduction, Doodinals is the first completely community-created recursive art collection. Community players can DIY graffiti on io, with all elements supporting orientation, scaling, and rotation functions. The DIY-generated SVG files will be inscribed on Ordinals, and each player's graffiti will have the opportunity to be included in the collection. According to official data, currently over 128 avg files have been inscribed on Ordinals.
5. Vibeland
The project is the first original 10K high-definition collection completed through recursion, achieving the presentation of different PFP static high-definition images with a single inscription, achieving on-chain randomness. With each page refresh, a new avatar will be displayed, with up to ten thousand available for random selection. This was completely impossible before recursion, and it also sets the stage for blind boxes to be presented on Bitcoin in the future.
VI. Future Prospects
MIIX Labs believes that the emergence of recursive inscriptions brings unlimited possibilities to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Let's boldly envision the future scenarios of recursive inscriptions.
1. Greatly Reduced Threshold
Recursive inscriptions greatly reduce the entrepreneurial threshold of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and even with just a few lines of code modification, a completely new NFT series can be created, as demonstrated by the imageless, image, large image, and high-definition large image versions of Recursive Punks.
In addition, recursive inscriptions significantly reduce the cost of entrepreneurship. The 10k collection, which originally required uploading tens of thousands of images, now only requires uploading 200 component images and cleverly combining them through code to complete the creation of a 10k collection.
2. Rich Expression Forms
The emergence of recursive inscriptions has enabled the underlying inscription browsers of Ordinals (such as ord.io and ordiscan.com) to strive to support multiple media types, such as SVG, HTML, and JavaScript, in addition to the original text type.
Recursive inscriptions can now rival a universal webpage, displaying almost any content from a webpage. And recursive inscriptions can reference other inscriptions, greatly enriching the forms of expression for inscriptions.
3. Unlocking the Potential of the Metaverse
The emergence of recursive inscriptions brings possibilities for the implementation of GameFi and the metaverse on the Bitcoin chain.
A mini-game based on recursive inscriptions has already been developed - a recursive mini-game developed by Ordz Games, allowing players to click directly on the inscription browser, similar to the popular game "Sheep".
With its feature of code calling, recursive inscriptions achieve compact size, allowing inscriptions to exceed the 4MB Bitcoin block size limit.
As a result, in theory, we can build a metaverse and GameFi on the Bitcoin chain, and even upload complex 3D games to the Bitcoin chain.
Of course, it should be noted that recursive inscriptions are still in the early stages, and all these ideas and concepts will need continuous exploration and discovery to be realized.
VI. Risks and Challenges
The implementation of recursive inscriptions depends on the Ordinals protocol, which is built on top of the Ordinals protocol. If the "reference" part of the code is not implanted in the Ordinals protocol or is later removed, recursive inscriptions will not be usable.
According to information obtained by MIIX Labs, the development of recursive inscriptions requires more support from underlying infrastructure, such as major exchanges like Unisat and MagicEden, the main inscription browsers, and support from centralized exchanges such as OKEX and BINANCE.
As of today, MagicEden has not yet supported the Recursive Punks V2 version mentioned above, and the normal display of Recursive Frogs was only achieved after a proposal from a community KOL.
In the short term, while recursive inscriptions may bring some prosperity to the Bitcoin ecosystem, images, movies, code repositories, software code, and various new data inscriptions may accumulate in the Bitcoin memory pool.
As registrars bid higher and higher to confirm transactions, ordinary users who only want to pay for purchases with Bitcoin will have to pay expensive premiums.
Therefore, in the long term, the Bitcoin network may become more congested, and transaction fees will become more expensive.
In addition, recursive inscriptions may make it easier for fraudsters to add malicious software to the Bitcoin chain. Fraudsters can divide malicious software into multiple files and add them to people's devices when they download games, files, or software. This could result in the loss of funds for the downloader.
VII. Conclusion
In summary, MIIX Labs believes that the emergence of recursive inscriptions has sparked widespread discussions in the Bitcoin ecosystem and may have far-reaching implications for the entire industry.
The emergence of recursive inscriptions makes the narrative of the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem full of infinite imagination and continues to generate excellent and innovative projects.
If there is capital willing to promote it, and the project continues to create updates, and can attract enough users to participate, then undoubtedly, there are many good opportunities hidden within it.
Facing new things positively, keeping up with market trends, and seizing the opportunity to lay the groundwork for potentially hot sectors.
We are optimistic about the potential of recursive inscriptions, but it is also important to recognize that recursive inscriptions are still in the early stages. Before venturing and investing, MIIX Labs reminds everyone to always maintain a sense of risk, fully understand the risks involved, and handle them with caution, focusing on understandable narratives and opportunities.
Contact MIIX Labs:
Telegram (CN): https://t.me/MIIXOfficialCN
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