Will "Curse Inscriptions" be the next hot topic for Bitcoin NFTs? - a new gameplay feature by Ordinals.

23-06-06 14:08
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The Bitcoin NFT protocol Ordinals has been upgraded to version v0.6.0. The most notable update in this version is the support for "Curse Inscriptions".


TL;DR


What is "Curse Inscription"?


Some successfully engraved inscriptions have not been assigned index numbers by the indexer and cannot be retrieved, and are called "cursed inscriptions".


Why are the number of "Curse Runes" different between the official Ordinals browser and the "Curse Runes" browser on cursedordinals.com?cursedordinals


There is a portion of "curse inscriptions" that currently have not been recognized by the Ordinals protocol. For the "curse inscriptions" created using the OP_66 opcode, Ordinals v0.6.0 still does not support them.


How to check if your "Curse Inscription" has been recognized as valid?


Directly go to Ordinals official browser to search for your "Curse Inscription" ID value. If it is recognized as a valid "Curse Inscription", the search result will be successfully displayed, and the assigned negative serial number value will be marked as "unstable".



Effective "Curse Inscription" search results  


Does the "Unbound" status of the "Curse Inscription" type OP_66 mean that I have lost this inscription?


All inscriptions are safely stored on the Bitcoin network, including OP_66. No successfully engraved inscriptions will be lost. If you have OP_66, all you need to do is wait for the Ordinals protocol to change its mind...


What is "Curse Inscription"?


In early March, Ordinals encountered a "bug" where some successfully engraved inscriptions were not assigned a sequence number value and therefore could not be retrieved through the indexer. This error caught the attention and sparked discussions within the community in April, initially referred to as "Misprint" or "Orphan Inscriptions". Subsequently, the core layer of the Ordinals protocol began referring to these inscriptions as "Cursed Inscriptions".


The reason for this error is that these "curse inscriptions" are not the first input in the engraving transaction, while the Ordinals protocol only counts the inscriptions that are the first input in the engraving transaction. According to Casey Rodarmor, the founder of the Ordinals protocol, in Issue #2045 on the Ordinals Github, "curse inscriptions" include the following types:



A recording transaction contains multiple inscriptions

Non-primary Inscription in Engraving Transactions

A clever design with multiple inscriptions

During the burning process, unrecognized operation codes were used, such as OP_66.


After upgrading to version v0.6.0, all types of "cursed inscriptions" except for the case where "unrecognized operation codes were used during engraving, such as OP_66" can now be searched on the Ordinals official browser, and they have been assigned negative ordinal values. It is worth noting that many players previously used LooksOrdinal to engrave "cursed inscriptions". If you are using LooksOrdinal, you can rest assured that LooksOrdinal does not use the OP_66 method to create "cursed inscriptions".


Why doesn't it support the "Curse Inscription" made in the OP_66 way?


OP_66, such even-numbered operation codes have not been defined yet. According to the chief maintainer of the Ordinals protocol, @raphjaph, the even-numbered operation codes are currently not defined in order to maintain the scalability of the Ordinals protocol. Therefore, if someone uses an undefined even-numbered operation code during recording, the Ordinals protocol will not consider such recording as valid.


Ordinals protocol founder Casey Rodarmor currently holds a dissenting view on the OP_66 type "Curse Inscription". He said that in normal circumstances, plans during the development process always change, and players should not take crazy risks before anything is finalized. Players can of course engrave what was considered "non-standard inscriptions" at any time, and they will think that the Ordinals protocol will do something to make these "non-standard inscriptions" meaningful and profitable. But it must be remembered that the Ordinals protocol may not do so.


Currently, the OP_66 type "Curse Inscription" is in an "Unbound" state, which means that from the perspective of the Ordinals protocol, this type of inscription is not bound to any Sats. Therefore, the OP_66 type "Curse Inscription" cannot be traded.


However, this does not mean that the OP_66 type "Curse Inscription" has no hope. Raphjaph, the chief maintainer of the Ordinals protocol, said that if there are sufficient reasons in the future to lift the "Unbound" status of this type of inscription, they will do so. In short, there is still a glimmer of hope for the OP_66 type "Curse Inscription". Currently, the core layer of the Ordinals protocol does not plan to include this part of the "Curse Inscription", but they are still maintaining an open attitude.


Conclusion


The overall solution for "Curse Inscription" is satisfactory. First of all, the existing inscription numbers have not been destroyed, and opening a negative number series also avoids large-scale code changes. Secondly, the story of "Curse Inscription" is interesting enough, and the Ordinals protocol core layer also uses the word "blessing" to describe the repair of errors, which is quite romantic. Most importantly, this error repair is an extension of the Ordinals protocol. As Casey Rodarmor said, support for multiple inscriptions for each carving transaction can achieve efficient batch processing, and support for multiple inscriptions on the same satoshi will eliminate the need to check the entire history of the satoshi to determine if the new inscription is valid, thereby improving efficiency.


Next, various trading markets and wallets such as UniSat are expected to soon support "Curse Inscriptions". "Curse Inscriptions" may become the next hot topic for speculation. Especially, Casey Rodarmor said that his idea is to announce a certain block height in advance in the future, and after that block, the "Curse Inscriptions" that occurred before will no longer be "cursed" and will be assigned positive serial values. However, there is still a second part to his idea, which is that if there are new situations that produce "Curse Inscriptions" in the future, negative serial values may still be expanded, and a certain method will be adopted to gradually make the "Curse Inscriptions" return to normal. Therefore, from a speculative perspective, will "Curse Inscriptions" be further subdivided according to the situations that arise in the future?


Finally, before wallets like UniSat have adapted to "Curse Inscriptions", it is recommended to avoid operating to prevent "Curse Inscriptions" from being spent as ordinary tokens. If you want to buy "Curse Inscriptions" from the secondary market, please wait for various trading markets to adapt before proceeding. Be a rational Degen and avoid FOMO.

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