Revolutionary Upgrade Unleashed: Bitcoin Ordinals Protocol Targets 71,000 ‘Cursed’ Inscriptions for Redemption and Trading

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• • The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol developers have implemented a new upgrade to rectify over 71,000 invalid or “cursed” inscriptions, enabling them to be traded.
  • The upgrade represents the initial step in indexing previously unrecognized inscriptions, with the proposal for this fix made by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor back in late April.

The creative minds behind the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol have launched an innovative upgrade purposed to rectify the matter of over 71,000 “cursed inscriptions”, consequently allowing them to enter the trading space. The term “cursed inscriptions” has been coined to describe inscriptions that were rendered invalid and unrecognized due to either erroneous usage or deliberate misuse of opcodes during their creation.

On June 4th, a group of developers, including Twitter user Raphjaph, disclosed that the Ordinals protocol had been upgraded to version 0.6.0. This upgrade symbolizes the inaugural stride in indexing the formerly unrecognized inscriptions. The suggestion to address this issue initially emerged in late April, presented by Ordinals’ creator Casey Rodarmor, proposing the recognition and conversion of “cursed” inscriptions to their “blessed” counterparts.

Just released a new version of ord (0.6.0), which implements the first steps in recognizing more types of inscriptions (cursed inscriptions). Additionally you can now pass in RPC credentials through command-line flags, environmental vars or a config file.https://t.co/Xi6C92cC6z

— raph (@raphjaph) June 4, 2023

This upgrade imparts support for a subset of the various types of cursed inscriptions. This is achieved by setting a block activation height, beyond which certain types of previously invalid inscriptions would begin to be indexed as normal positive inscriptions. LeonidasNFT, a significant influencer in the Ordinals space, elucidated that these would be incorporated into the list of tradable, indexed Ordinals, and noted,

“This is important because over 70k existing but invalid inscriptions are now supported…”.

Bitcoin Ordinals are distinctive asset artifacts that enable the inscription of data onto the smallest division of Bitcoin, a satoshi. Launched by Casey Rodarmor in January, the Ordinals protocol triggered a hype wave in the following month as thousands of inscriptions were embedded onto the Bitcoin blockchain. This rush led to network congestion and a surge in transaction fees.

Ordinals inscriptions bear similarities to NFTs in terms of rarity and collectability. The allure for users is the acquisition of a unique data fragment permanently imprinted onto the Bitcoin blockchain. Therefore, these early or converted inscriptions on satoshis may potentially appreciate in value over time.

As per data from Dune Analytics, since the beginning of the Ordinals craze earlier this year, a staggering 10.8 million ordinal inscriptions have been responsible for generating $45.5 million in transaction fees. On May 28, Rodarmor announced his decision to step down and handed over the leadership to Raphjaph.