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Casey Rodarmor, the creator of the Bitcoin Ordinals project, announced that he’s stepping down as the lead maintainer of the project. He has appointed pseudonymous coder Raphjaph as the next chief of the project.
While Bitcoin (BTC) price has been moving sideways over the last few weeks, Bitcoin Ordinals aka the BRC-20 non-fungible tokens residing on the Bitcoin blockchain have gained massive traction.
The demand for Bitcoin Ordinals has shot up significantly off-lately and is a major contributor to the gas fees on the Bitcoin blockchain. The total number of ordinal inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain has just surged past the 10 million mark.
Last Sunday, May 28, Casey Rodarmor, the creator of the Bitcoin Ordinals project announced that he’s stepping down as the lead maintainer of the project. Casey announced that he arrived at this decision since he was unable to give Ordinals the attention it deserves. The new leader for the Bitcoin Ordinals project is the pseudonymous coder Raphjaph. In a message on Twitter, Casey wrote:
“I haven’t been able to give ord the attention it deserves, so I am pleased to announce that @raphjaph has agreed to step up as lead maintainer! Raph is an impoverished student, and his work on ord will be entirely funded by donations. If you can, please consider donating!”
Bitcoin Ordinals was first launched in January 2023 this year and soon it became one of the most popular ways to mint assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. Earlier, Ordinals proved to be a way for inscribing data within the witness portion of Bitcoin transactions. They are written onto Satoshis – the smallest divisible unit of BTC possible.
However, the launch of the BRC-20 token standard in March 2023 sent the number of Ordinals inscriptions into overdrive. Pseudonymous developer “Domo,” introduced the new token standard allowing users to mint new tokens for the very first time in the history of Bitcoin.
The BRC-20 tokens gained huge traction and soon after and with a few hundred tokens minted in the first week, the total number of tokens has now jumped to 25,000.
Bitcoin Ordinals and Controversies
The rise of Bitcoin Ordinals has come with a few controversies. Many Bitcoin advocates have criticized the method of inscribing assets on the Bitcoin network as inefficient and wasteful. This was especially true when it comes to block space and transaction fees.
On the other hand, other developers have also been exploring the use of smart contracts for minting assets and NFTs on Bitcoin.
Ordinals, a protocol known for its user-friendly onboarding process, received praise from Bitcoin advocates as it successfully introduced new users to the Bitcoin community. Notably, even renowned anti-Bitcoin advocate Peter Schiff minted a few NFTs on Bitcoin using the Ordinals protocol. This interaction marked Schiff’s first engagement with Bitcoin beyond his usual criticism.
Bitcoin Ordinals were responsible for a massive surge in the gas fee on the Bitcoin network. This has been a boon for Bitcoin miners which have now seen $44 million in Ordinals-related fees paid out.