Ordinals: How Bitcoin Got NFTs and Tokens Without Changing a Thing

Most people think of Bitcoin as this rigid, conservative blockchain—slow to change, resistant to new features, and mostly just a store of value. And that’s true… until you discover Ordinals.

Yes, Bitcoin now has its own flavor of NFTs and even fungible tokens, and it didn’t require any hard forks or major upgrades. It’s all thanks to some clever use of existing features—SegWit, Taproot, and a little creativity from a developer named Casey Rodarmor.

Let’s unpack how this all came together.

Satoshis: The Atoms of Bitcoin

To start, a satoshi (or sat) is the smallest unit of Bitcoin—1 sat = 0.00000001 BTC. Ordinals treat each of these sats as something that can be individually tracked, numbered, and inscribed with data.

This means you can embed arbitrary content (images, text, code, etc.) directly into Bitcoin’s blockchain, attached to specific sats. And just like that—Bitcoin NFTs.

The Tech Stack: SegWit + Taproot + Imagination

This didn’t happen overnight. It’s built on years of Bitcoin upgrades:

  • Segregated Witness (SegWit), activated in 2017, separated transaction data from signature (witness) data. The key insight? The witness data isn’t strictly validated in the same way as the rest of the transaction, giving some room to play.

  • Taproot, activated in November 2021, added even more flexibility. It streamlined complex scripts and made it easier to embed arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions—especially in the script path of a Taproot output.

Casey Rodarmor connected the dots and launched the Ordinals protocol in December 2022. His insight: use Taproot script paths to “inscribe” metadata directly into Bitcoin transactions. The very first Ordinal inscription was an image, and you can check it out here.

Fungible Tokens on Bitcoin? Enter BRC-20

In March 2023, a pseudonymous developer named domo introduced the BRC-20 standard. It was an experiment—can we use the Ordinals protocol to track fungible tokens on Bitcoin?

Turns out, yes.

Instead of using smart contracts like Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens, BRC-20 uses plain JSON text files inscribed onto sats. These JSON inscriptions define token behavior like deployment, minting, and transferring.

Here’s the very first BRC-20 token ever deployed: “ordi”.

This is the actual JSON that kicked it off:

{
  "p": "brc-20",
  "op": "deploy",
  "tick": "ordi",
  "max": "21000000",
  "lim": "1000"
}

Let’s break it down:

  • "p": "brc-20" identifies the protocol.
  • "op": "deploy" says this is a deployment operation.
  • "tick": "ordi" sets the ticker (like a stock symbol).
  • "max": "21000000" is the total supply.
  • "lim": "1000" is the mint limit per inscription.

This inscription turned out to be wildly popular. “ordi” became the first and most valuable BRC-20 token, and it ignited an entire wave of token experimentation on Bitcoin.

Why This Matters

Ordinals (and BRC-20) have reignited innovation on Bitcoin:

  • NFTs on Bitcoin? ✅
  • Fungible tokens? ✅
  • Immutable data storage? ✅

All built on-chain, using the smallest possible unit—individual sats—and only Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules.

It’s a powerful reminder that sometimes, the most disruptive innovations come not from adding more features, but from reimagining what’s already there.