TL;DR

• During his ​latest appearance​ on the Joe Rogan Experience, Elon Musk discussed how most ​NFTs​ don't actually contain images, but instead, links to images.

• ...and the Bitcoin community had a field day with it!

• Why? Because Bitcoin NFTs (aka '​Ordinals​') don't link out to images, but in fact store the full image file on the Bitcoin ​blockchain​ - making it more permanent than most other options.

Full Story

In life, we're destined to experience a wide range of "Oh, I didn't know that" moments - for example:

• Natalie Imbruglia's 'Torn,' is actually a cover.

• If you were to fold a piece of paper 50 times, it'd reach a third of the way to the Sun (that's the power of compounding, baaaby!).

• And most ​NFTs​ don't actually contain images, but instead, links to images.

That last one was just put on blast to the wider world by Elon Musk, during his ​latest appearance​ on the Joe Rogan Experience.

...and the Bitcoin community had a field day with it!

Why? Because Bitcoin NFTs (aka '​Ordinals​') don't link out to images, but in fact store the full image file on the Bitcoin ​blockchain​ - making it more permanent than most other options.

Think of it like storing a file on your laptop's hard drive vs. storing it on Google Drive.

You have ultimate control over what happens to the image file when it's on your hard drive - where as if Google were to crash/lose a bunch of user data/go out of business, your image file (and its link) would be at risk.

...ok. Permanent/semi-permanent - who really cares?

(Almost) no one.

Digital permanence isn't really something we need to worry about in our day-to-day lives...

Buuuuut:

If you're dropping millions of dollars on a piece of digital art, you're going to want to have some assurances that it's going to stand the test of time.

On-chain image hosting (which is available across multiple blockchains, but guaranteed on Bitcoin) helps assure buyers of an NFT's permanence.

Alright, now you know!