Bitcoin Will Be Fine With Monkey JPEGs, Creator of NFT Protocol Says
Some hard-core Bitcoiners are in an uproar over the prospect of ubiquitous internet memes such as pixelated cats and smoking monkeys clogging up the blockchain.
Casey Rodarmor, the creator of the recently introduced NFT protocol called Ordinals that is at the center of the angst, says not to worry. He sees inscriptions, or the newfangled nonfungible tokens, giving the oldest blockchain a fresh use case that can boost its utility. Detractors argue they'll crowd out regular transactions with high fees due to the large amounts of data required to inscribe the digital images, GIFs and representations, undermining Bitcoin's original mission as a peer-to-peer payment network.
Until recently, NFT collections such as Bored Apes and CryptoPunks were predominately based on Ethereum and served as a catalyst that helped to make that platform the world's most commercially important blockchain. The seven-day average number of transactions on the network has reached the highest since February 2021, according to CryptoCompare. Tens of thousands of NFT-like inscriptions have been created since the protocol's launch in late January, thought that still pales in comparison with the 1.38 million NFTs minted on Ethereum in January, according to blockchain data firm Nansen.
The jump in activity on the Bitcoin network comes amid a dramatic 50% rally by the largest cryptocurrency since the start of the year that has renewed focus on the token after an epic price collapse in 2022.
Bitcoin and generative art have long been among Rodarmor's favorite activities. The Emeryville, California-based programmer, who runs a monthly meet-up for Bitcoin developers in the San Francisco region, has dabbled in generative visuals for live music as well as the
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