Whereas publicly mocking non-fungible tokens (NFTs) throughout a podcast, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk seems to have inadvertently highlighted the case for Bitcoin Ordinals, also referred to as Bitcoin NFTs.
“The humorous factor is that the NFT isn’t even on the blockchain – it’s only a URL to the JPEG,” Musk stated in an announcement launched on October 31. interview on The Joe Rogan Expertise.
Musk stated NFT tasks ought to at the least encode JPEG on-chain:
“You must at the least encode the JPEG within the blockchain. If the corporate that homes the picture goes bankrupt, you not have the picture.
On social media, Bitcoiners claimed that Musk’s feedback truly summed up the use case for Bitcoin Ordinals. The Bitcoin model of NFTs launched in January by developer Casey Rodarmor, which was made doable by the Taproot comfortable fork in November 2021.
Cryptocurrency analyst Will Clemente is amongst those that welcomed Musk’s feedback, noting that there are 38 million and counting Ordinals that can eternally exist on the Bitcoin blockchain.
.@Elon Musk you may have simply offered the case for Bitcoin ordinals – picture/textual content inscriptions straight on essentially the most safe open supply financial community on the planet. There are at present 38 million such registrations on the Bitcoin blockchain. pic.twitter.com/WASj1qpkz8
– Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) November 1, 2023
“Because of this the Ordinals will proceed to develop,” stated Rohun “Frank” Vora, the creator of the NFT tasks DeGods and y00ts. “It’s essentially the most elegant resolution to probably the most common criticisms of NFTs.”
Ordinals developer generally known as “Leonidas” love Musk commented a lot that he entered the 19-second video into the Bitcoin blockchain at block 814,773:

Elon Musk’s criticism of NFTs will not be new. In December 2021, he mocked NFTs as an indication of psychological sickness in a meme exhibiting a affected person mendacity on a therapist’s sofa.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2021
Musk’s feedback don’t apply to all NFT tasks on Ethereum, nonetheless.
For instance, Larva Labs moved its Cryptopunks NFT on-chain in August 2021 after residing off-chain for the primary 4 years.
“Storing them on-chain on this method would additional strengthen the long-term survival of Cryptopunks photos and attributes and be certain that they’re absolutely accessible to anybody with an Ethereum-only shopper,” Larva Labs stated within the launch.
.@Elon Musk It’s true that the truth that NFT merely gives an http hyperlink to somebody’s area is idiotic.
Nonetheless, with uncommon exceptions, it’s also foolish to insist that NFT content material be on-chain,
IPFS hyperlinks, with content material backed by the NFT proprietor, are the pure resolution.
– Arthur B. (@ArthurB) November 1, 2023
Associated: Are NFT markets in a dying spiral or prepared for a resurgence?
Metagood, the group behind Ethereum-native OnChainMonkeys, introduced in September that it could be migrating its NFTs to Bitcoin.
Though the corporate’s CEO, Danny Yang, didn’t straight tackle the JPEG dilemma, he defined that NFTs will “win over Bitcoin” as a result of it’s a safer community to work on:
“The Bitcoin Ordinal protocol is healthier designed for decentralization and safety than the Ethereum NFT protocol. Excessive-value NFTs will acquire over Bitcoin.
Nonetheless, Ethereum remains to be residence to 84% of all NFT buying and selling volumes, in response to to CoinGecko, acquiring knowledge from June. Bitcoin and ImmutableX are available in second and third with market shares of 11% and a pair of.5% respectively.
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