fbpx

Largest Bitcoin Block Ever Mined Was An NFT Meme

The largest block in Bitcoin’s history was just mined this week, but it perhaps wasn’t what you might expect. Turns out, it very rudimentary meme in the form of an NFT: a giant image of what appears to be a bald, bearded wizard donning sunglasses promoting ‘magic internet JPEGs’. The minting appears to have been a message supporting the arrival of NFTs on the patriarchal cryptocurrency.

The feat was claimed by independent developer Udi Wertheimer and mining company Luxor, with the former proclaiming his mining success on Twitter shortly thereafter.

At 3.96 MB in size and just shy of Bitcoin’s 4 MB limit, the block contained an NFT, short for non-fungible token. Specifically, the block stored a tokenized JPG file of what appears to be a doodle of a bald and bearded wizard wearing sunglasses. The NFT was minted using the Ordinals protocol.

As curious as the image seems, the design appears to be inspired by an early Bitcoin meme that featured a similar wizard, as CoinDesk explains, crudely rendered in early generation Microsoft illustrator program Paint, inviting everyone to “ join” the game. The NFT was coined under the name ‘Taproot Wizards‘, referencing the original meme called ‘Magic Internet Money: Bitcoin Wizard‘.

The move comes amid the buzz generated by Ordinals and the arrival of NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, a matter that has sparked heated debates among enthusiasts of the flagship cryptocurrency.

Ordinals Protocol Makes It Easier To Create NFT On The Bitcoin Network

Earlier this month, Ordinals debuted a protocol that seeks to make it easier for users to create NFTs on the Bitcoin network. The solution was made possible by the 2017 Segwit upgrade, which made storing data on the Bitcoin blockchain 75% cheaper. The new tool has made storing NFTs in Bitcoin now much cheaper than doing it on Ethereum, the main network for this type of development. 

Certain complications remain, however, as Bitcoin is still fungible. Unlike Ethereum ‘s ERC-721 format, each Bitcoin coin can still be used interchangeably and interchangeably.

Ordinals gets around this by using inscriptions like text or images that can be added to sequentially numbered satoshis, or ‘sats‘ (the smallest units of Bitcoin) to create unique digital artifacts that can be held and transferred to through the Bitcoin network, as explained by its creator, Casey Rodarmor.

This makes Bitcoin a non-fungible asset, according to The Block, as the feature is not natively supported by Bitcoin software and can still make things very complicated for users wanting to mint NFTs on that network.

These latest efforts have now split the community into two camps: the purists who believe that BTC should be limited to financial transactions and those who believe that the web should be opened up to more use cases—even coining memes.

While some of the purists are mobilizing to stop spam NFTs in Bitcoin from taking hold, others have already rushed to test the new protocol. Users have already brought a copy of the Ether Rocks, one of Ethereum ‘s oldest NFT projects, as well as some of Trump’s collectibles.


You might also like

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More