A new surge of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is making waves on the Bitcoin blockchain. And it has no relation to the prevalent Ordinals. The new protocol, Bitcoin “Stamps” (Secure Tradeable Art Maintained Securely), offers an alternative approach to embedding image data on Bitcoin — a tradeoff method compared to inscription technology.
Quick Takes:
- Bitcoin Stamps is an alternative approach to embedding image data on the Bitcoin blockchain. These digital assets offer improved decentralization and immutability compared to Ordinals.
- Other aspects that separate Ordinals and Stamps include Bitcoin NFTs suitability for lightweight image files and semi-fungibility.
- The developer of Stamps, “Mike In Space”, is currently creating additional services for the protocol, including a Name Service by Rarity Garden.
- He also plans on joining forces with Emblem and Hiro Wallet. By doing so, users can purchase and trade Stamps on OpenSea.
Brief Insight Into Bitcoin Stamps
As briefly mentioned above, one key aspect that sets Bitcoin Stamps apart from Ordinals includes embedding image data differently. Instead of keeping image data in transaction witness information, this new protocol directly saves it in spendable transaction outputs. The data is maintained to ensure it can not be pruned from a full node.
Following “The Ordinals Show” giving Bitcoin Stamps a shout-out, the NFTs are on the rise, according to this Twitter source:
According to the project’s GitHub page, authored by the creator of Stamps, “Mike In Space”, Bitcoin Stamps are unchangeable, permanent storage.
The developer also touches upon ongoing conversations with Hiro Wallet and Emblem for future protocol integrations. These collaborations would enable users to trade and purchase Stamps on OpenSea, which remains the most significant marketplace regarding wallet counts — despite Blur dominating NFT sales last month.
What Sets Stamps Apart from Ordinals?
Although Ordinals are arguably superior to other NFTs on different platforms due to its storage of image data on Bitcoin, one issue is that individual node runners can still prune data. Therefore, limiting decentralization and immutability.
This is where Bitcoin Stamps shines, differing from Ordinals in how it stores data and its immutability level. Contrastingly, Stamps stores image data directly in spendable transaction outputs, which forces nodes to preserve the data across numerous unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), which enhances decentralization and immutability.
Another benefit of Bitcoin Stamps includes being semi-fungible. As a result, the NFTs are issuable as “1 of 1” or “1 of many” digital assets, like Ethereum’s-1155 multi-token standard for dynamic NFTs. This feature alone has the potential to contribute to rapid growth.
Lastly, Bitcoin Stamps are fantastic for storing lightweight image files, including 24×24 pixel art with 8-color depth — this boils down to the implicit storage costs of storing data across all Bitcoin nodes.
Mike In Space emphasizes importance in preserving art securely on the robust ledger backed by Proof of Work. Furthermore, he is working toward developing additional services on top of the Stamps protocol, such as a Name Service by Rarity Garden.
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