The controversy over the variability of ordinals' inscriptions: preserving culture or developing technology?

Yesterday, the community of the Bitcoin NFT protocol Ordinals engaged in a heated debate due to the idea proposed by the protocol's founder Casey Rodarmor that "Inscription numbers are permanently unstable".

Ordinals protocol gives a unique feature to Bitcoin NFTs, which is the "Inscription Number". The Inscription Number is assigned to the inscriptions in the order they are created, with the Inscription Number of the Genesis Inscription being #0.

Inscription #0

With the rapid development of the Ordinals protocol, the inscription number makes Bitcoin NFTs unique in the narrative of hype compared to other chain NFTs. For example, "Sub 10K", the first 10,000 inscriptions since the birth of the Ordinals protocol, although many of these "ancient inscriptions" are early players' "test products" and have no theme in artistic content, they may be like ancient fossils, witnessing the value of the barbaric era.

Magic Eden's "Sub 10K" Collection

The emergence of "Cursed Inscriptions" has broken the ordered growth of inscription numbers based on the order of inscription creation. In early March, Ordinals encountered a "bug" where some successfully engraved inscriptions were not assigned an inscription number and could not be retrieved through the indexer. This error caught the attention and discussion of the community in April, initially referred to as "Misprint" or "Orphan Inscriptions". Subsequently, the core layer of the Ordinals protocol began to refer to these inscriptions as "Cursed Inscriptions". (Recommended reading: Ordinals' new gameplay: Will "Cursed Inscriptions" be the next hot spot for Bitcoin NFTs?)

In June, the Ordinals protocol was upgraded to version v0.6.0. The "curse inscriptions" were assigned negative inscription numbers and were marked as "unstable" on the Ordinals official browser. With the development of the Ordinals protocol, new unknown situations may cause new "curse inscriptions" to appear, and it is impossible to predict when they will appear, which may disrupt the original inscription number records.

"Curse Inscription" is marked as "unstable number".

The foreshadowing of this debate has already been laid. Casey Rodarmor has expressed his thoughts on the future of "Curse Inscriptions" - announcing a certain block height in advance in the future, the "Curse Inscriptions" that occurred before that block will no longer be "cursed" and will be given a positive numerical value. The term "blessing" is used to describe the repair of "Curse Inscriptions". Once a "blessing" occurs, the original positive numerical value will inevitably be disrupted and may be disrupted multiple times in the future.

Casey Rodarmor's proposal of "Inscription Number Permanently Unstable" is actually to implement his idea of "Cursed Inscriptions" mentioned above. Casey Rodarmor believes that it is difficult to maintain the "stability of the number of inscriptions", that is, the ordered growth of inscription numbers assigned according to the order of inscription creation, as the Ordinals protocol continues to develop. "Inscription Number Permanently Unstable" can simplify the Ordinals codebase and make future protocol updates easier. In addition, he also stated that although the "Inscription Number Permanently Unstable", the error between the newly generated inscription number and the original inscription number will only be about 1%.

However, he went so far that some Bitcoin NFT players couldn't accept it. This is because he also proposed two measures to dilute the inscription numbers.

- The inscription number is no longer used in the URL (it is now in the ord client). My understanding is that in the Ordinals official browser, it is no longer possible to view inscriptions directly by accessing the inscription number link. Now, if you directly access the link https://ordinals.com/inscriptions/0, you can see other inscriptions adjacent to inscription number 0.

- View inscriptions in the Ordinals official browser without emphasizing the inscription number. This is crucial. Take a look at the current appearance in the image below and imagine how it would look without this feature to understand its importance:

Imagine removing the main title "33589291", it may be displayed as the detailed information below

This is a mess... First of all, as a unique narrative of Bitcoin NFT, the inscription number is loved by a large part of Ordinals players. This is not only a unique "hype point" compared to other chain NFTs, but also the concept of "inscription number represents history" has deeply penetrated into the hearts of many players. On this basis, @LeonidasNFT also wrote a long tweet calling for the "invariance" of the inscription number, believing that the inscription number cannot set a precedent for variability. Once opened, it will destroy the core value of the Ordinals protocol. Indeed, even if the inscription number does not undergo significant deviation after adjustment, it will hurt the confidence of investors in collections such as "Sub 10K", and some established basic applications will also be affected.

So, the discussion of "permanent instability of inscription numbers" has been elevated to the level of "culture" vs. "technology"... In my personal opinion, I don't think inscription numbers can be considered a "culture". Narratives like "Sub 10K" actually lack practical artistic content. If the bronze sword created in the Bronze Age is a precious cultural relic, does the waste bronze produced during the experimental process of making the bronze sword have the same cultural value as the bronze sword itself? I always believe that the key to the thriving development of the Ordinals ecosystem is the substantial production of cultural content, whether it is the historicity of inscription numbers or the narrative of rare Cong, they are actually just icing on the cake, or enjoying the value overflow on the basis of good cultural content accumulation.

Additionally, regardless of whether the "Curse Inscription" is included in the official numbering system, it still exists. It's like suddenly discovering a fourth kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period, but refusing to include its history in the official records because it would raise questions about the entire field of history and affect the value of the Three Kingdoms cultural industry... Isn't this just turning a blind eye to the truth?

I accept whatever the outcome of this matter will be, but what I am more concerned about is when will the Ordinals protocol have a sound proposal governance mechanism? This way, everyone will no longer have to worry about the possibility of Casey's personal color being too strong and causing a "one-man show". Next time there is a similar problem, everyone can have a reliable way to exercise governance rights instead of arguing like headless flies...

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