The year started with an overall bearish sentiment. People rapidly sold off their cryptocurrencies, and non-fungible tokens (NFT) in anticipation of further price declines, but this didn’t stop builders like us from moving the space forward. One exciting development that took the bears by storm and brought back fun to Twitter was the creation of ordinals on the Bitcoin blockchain.

But what are Ordinals? It is a protocol that allows individual satoshis to be inscribed with arbitrary content, thereby converting it into a digital artifact. This process of inscription was made possible by Taproot, which made it easier to store witness data in a Bitcoin transaction. Now, now, now, this is a lot of technical jargon, and we’re here to make web3 as easy as possible. So, let's break it down like we're talking to a 5-year-old.

Since we all know about non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital artifacts on ordinals are simply NFTs on Bitcoin, the same with the term inscribing, think of it as minting, which we are all familiar with. The only difference is the technical implementation; since this blog is for your average Joe and Jenny, we will not get into it but talk about how you can own participate to create and own rare and valuable Bitcoin NFTs. Remember, this is not a financial advice!

Currently, creating and buying one is very cumbersome, from setting up a Bitcoin wallet such as Sparrow Wallet which you need to make compatible with Ordinals to receive your first Bitcoin NFT. You also need to run a Bitcoin node to be able to mint one yourself. Now, these are a handful of steps for your average user not to mention the fact current trading market is OTC (over-the counter or peer-to-peer) over a discord server.

Luckily, we have builders on the Stacks ecosystem who are well-versed in the Bitcoin ecosystem due to their long history of developing apps and smart contracts on top of the protocol. Several teams have already shipped an ordinal minting service, a wallet and an upcoming ordinal marketplace.

Let’s break it down one by one ☝️

1. Xverse Wallet is currently the most advanced wallet for #Bitcoin. Yesterday, they announced their official support for Ordinals. In their NFT tabs, you can receive Ordinals NFT by simply using your receiving Ordinal address. Now, remember to use your Ordinals address only for Ordinals NFT and your Bitcoin address only for Bitcoin payments. You can download the browser version here.

2. Hiro Wallet is our honourable mention which is the main de-facto wallet in the Stacks ecosystem. Tomorrow, Hiro will officially roll out support for Ordinals NFTs. It is currently the most popular wallet in the Stacks ecosystem with more than 200K downloads in desktop and web.

   By connecting both wallets to an app like Gamma, you'll be able to pay for new inscriptions and deposit them directly into your account as "NFTs or Collectibles." Don't forget you also need top-up some BTC in your wallet to pay for the transaction, which you can purchase directly in the wallets using a fiat onramp service or deposit from an exchange.

3. Gamma is the most popular marketplaces on Stacks. They recently launched their no-code ordinal inscriptions to anyone with a BTC address. With Gamma, you can simply create an Ordinals NFT in a few minutes.

   • Choose if its a JPEG or Text

   • Upload your inscription

   • Set your transaction fee (this can be as low as 10$ and as high as 75$ depending on the network traffic and image size)

   • Paste your Ordinal recipient address

   • Pay and confirm your transaction. You can also get email notifications when your inscription is complete

4. OrdinalsBot is an ordinal minting service by Satoshibles. They recently launched an update where you can upload any images on their optimizer to save tx fees. Drop your JPEGs and they will handle the rest.

   Gamma contributed more than 6000 Ordinals NFTs while OrdinalsBot crossed over 13K Ordinals NFT and have been maintaining about 8-10% of all ordinals inscription. Both minting platforms have their own unique proposition to users such as customization. As mentioned, the Ordinals market is purely OTC and to avoid this risky business, there are some exciting development on the horizon.

5. Megapont the biggest blue chip NFT on Stacks will release its 10,000 Ordinal NFT collection Megapunks on February 28 through a POP (Proof-of-purchase) NFT on ETH. You can expect a marketplace on day 1 and a first-class user experience when minting - all you need to do is convert this proof-of-purchase (POP) NFT to an Ordinal NFT by burning. After burning your POP NFT, you will promptly receive your Ordinal NFT in the specified wallet.

6. Neoswap conducted the world’s first auction of ordinals last Friday where 100 people participated with a total volume of 22K STX. We can soon expect Neoswap trust-less ordinal trading solutions to go live next week.

7. At Ryder, we are building the simplest hardware wallet by abstracting seed-phrases, post and pre conditions. One of our USP is bringing real-life interaction and unlocking more utility for NFTs. Currently, Ryder demos supports signing Bitcoin transactions, upon launch users can take their inscriptions on Ryder and instantly swap it with other users by simply tapping.

It looks like the world of Ordinals NFTs shows no signs of slowing down as it crossed more than 100K inscriptions yesterday. Just remember to stay vigilant, be aware to only risk what you can afford to lose and enjoy the #ryde.