Are Bitcoin NFTs doomed to fail?

Feb 15

At the start of the month, we wrote about Bitcoin 'inscriptions' (aka Bitcoin NFTs) and how they work.

In the eyes of many within the Bitcoin community:

The big problem with these inscriptions is they take up a lot of room on the blockchain - making things slower/more expensive.

(Plus, there're already a bunch of other NFT friendly networks to build on).

In the eyes of others:

It's a new way to leverage the existing functionality of Bitcoin, that will expand its utility and increase its adoption.

So, just like Old El Paso before us, we ask the question:

¿Por qué no los dos?

Or: is it even possible to host NFTs on Bitcoin without choking the system up?

Actually, yeah - kinda.

Turns out, there's a way to inscribe a TON of NFTs on the Bitcoin network, using a seemingly insignificant amount of data.

The OnChainMonkey project added 10,000 NFTs to Bitcoin, using only 20kb of space - or 2 bytes per NFT!

For context, the average BTC transaction is ~522 bytes, so each OnChainMonkey NFT only resulted in a .38% increase.

That's some wild efficiency right there.

But here's the big question:

Will everyone follow OnChainMonkey's lead and operate at maximum efficiency, making sure they're acting as good stewards to the Bitcoin network?

At scale, probably not (we've already seen folks upload playable video games to the Bitcoin network).

But hey - we can dream!

​Are Bitcoin NFTs doomed to fail?