Just a year ago, the idea of inscribing artwork, games, and meme tokens onto the Bitcoin blockchain would have been considered unimaginable. Ordinals, a once unthinkable concept, is now becoming a reality. In fact, an individual has recently utilised the protocol to load a fully on-chain music engine onto the Bitcoin network, according to Decrypt.
The ‘Descent Into Darkness Music Engine’ was inscribed onto the Bitcoin blockchain and created 10 unique editions that were subsequently minted and sold as individual Ordinals.
Someone just inscribe a fully on-chain music engine onto Bitcoin using recursion!
— Ord.io (@ord_io) July 2, 2023
Type in any word or phrase to generate a unique on-chain song:
→ https://t.co/iBt0sWnW00 pic.twitter.com/yeczQ7J2Si
And by simply inputting a few keywords, anyone – regardless of whether they are the owner of the inscription – can instantly generate a music track.
The music engine was created by the pseudonymous indie developer Ratoshi and is meant to serve as a companion to the Descent into Darkness text-based RPG. Speaking to Decrypt, Ratoshi revealed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT played a role in shaping the sounds utilised within the on-chain application.
In line with other Bitcoin-based applications and games, the on-chain app aligns itself with the likes of innovative camera-based Chainspace and playable replicas of popular games such as Doom and Pac-Man.
From blockchain to beats
Recursive inscriptions enable Ordinals to retrieve data from existing blockchain assets, fostering interconnectivity. This parallels the composability of Ethereum protocols, where smart contracts can be directed to various destinations.
WTF are recursive inscriptions?
— Leonidas (@LeonidasNFT) June 12, 2023
Here is everything you need to know:
Earlier this year the Ordinals Protocol introduced the ability for anyone to inscribe files fully on-chain onto Bitcoin. These inscriptions are self-contained and unaware of the other files that had been… pic.twitter.com/O3jt6lhaxT
By leveraging recursive inscriptions, Ordinals developers can overcome the storage limitations of Bitcoin inscriptions, which are restricted to 4MB per block. This limitation falls significantly short of the requirements for modern video game projects and other large-scale applications.
Efficient storage drastically reduces the long-term costs of on-chain projects on Bitcoin, enabling developers to scale inscription data at the blockchain’s base layer without relying on layer-2 solutions.
“Thanks to recursive inscriptions, I need to inscribe the code only once,” Ratoshi said. “Each subsequent inscription is then a much smaller HTML file that is able to reuse that pre-inscribed JavaScript file for future projects.”
Giving an example, Ratoshi highlighted the cost savings of using recursive inscriptions. Instead of paying $40 in Bitcoin network fees for each inscription for larger-scale projects, they could pay $40 for the initial one and significantly lower fees for subsequent inscriptions. This could result in a notable difference, with fees as low as $5 for later inscriptions.
Recursive inscriptions have the potential to generate substantial savings when putting media and apps on the Bitcoin blockchain. This cost-efficiency could also unleash a wave of innovation for various projects within the Ordinals community.
Ordinals were introduced in January by developer Casey Rodarmor, who leveraged a Bitcoin Taproot upgrade to enable the inscription of diverse data file formats on the blockchain. Since then, over 14.6 million Ordinals have been inscribed.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
