Here’s the final piece:

Let’s talk about PEPERMANENT.

• How to confirm the permanence of PEPERMANENT

• Walkthrough on creating a fully on-chain NFT on Bitcoin

• Final words

1. Go to xchain explorer, and see the Issuances tab. Click View in the initial issuance transaction.

2. You can already see the data in the description here but the better method is copying the transaction hash into your clipboard and resolving the op_return data either manually or through an API. This is what we’ll do now: Copy the transaction hash.

3. Now you have three choices. Choose one of the instructions below to extract the image URI.

3.a) Go to bitst.art and scroll to the “description” field under events.

The image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

You can just copy-paste everything within the “image” element to any browser and it’ll show you your on-chain Pepe.

3.b) Visit JP Janssen’s decoder referring to this transaction and scroll down to the “Description” field. You’ll see the full data there.

Unfortunately, the formatting may not work when you copy-paste, so just right-click the “inspect” element.

Under the console, you’ll find the entire image URI.

The image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

You can just copy-paste everything within the “image” element to any browser and it’ll show you your on-chain Pepe.

3.c) You can also do it manually. Follow JP Janssen’s guide and use the transaction where the data is added on-chain. Here’s the blockstream link to the Bitcoin transaction.

Note: The entire URI is a JSON file; but what you’re interested in is the image, which is located inside the image element of the JSON. In either option above in Step 3, the image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

If you copy this string into any browser’s URL section, it’ll display the artwork.

Here’s the full image URI string:

First a little bit of history: The first 100% on-chain ownable artwork on Bitcoin was created by JP Janssen. His work, OLGA, to this day remains one of the most significant relics in the entire NFT space regardless of the chain.

Mr. Janssen encoded OLGA (which is a JPG file) in Bitcoin transactions. He chose to store in a transaction that isn’t linked to the OLGA token itself (the method resembles how CryptoPunks stored its images on-chain on a separate contract).

I use SVG file type in my art, because SVG is vector graphics. Since it’s based on a mathematical framework, it takes significantly less space than raster graphic files. SVG can also scale infinitely and has no frame loss in its animations (technically infinite frame per second). These advantages make SVG one of the best file types for the metaverse, especially an on-chain one.

While creating the artwork, I do a lot of optimizations. Already while drawing on inkscape, I minimize the number of nodes on each pathway without losing the aesthetic feel. Then I edit the drawing directly in code; removing decimals, grouping similar property assets, adding animations, effects, etc. This stage is usually 80% of the work - making sure I create an aesthetically pleasing artwork while minimizing its cost storage.

Up until this point, we haven’t uploaded anything on-chain. In Ethereum, this is pretty easy - you just update the tokenURI and all marketplaces & wallets will be able to read the on-chain data and display the artwork. Unfortunately, this isn’t common practice in Bitcoin. So I had to get creative a bit.

I noticed that description fields in Counterparty wallets were being stored within Bitcoin transactions (as part of op_return). This is usually a link to a JSON file, stored on a centralized server or Arweave. But what if I stored my JSON file which included my SVG file directly in it?

Make no mistake, once you add a weird JSON to your description, nothing will be visible on any Counterparty wallets, or Counterparty explorers. These fields are not designed for this purpose.

But artists use mediums outside their original purpose all the time.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I wanted to make sure that the file gets stored on-chain “at issuance” (not added later). So I minted PEPERMANENT directly with the long JSON file including the SVG artwork, which cost me ~$200 to store on-chain. Then I ran another transaction to add an Arweave link so that wallets and explorers could recognize the artwork.

Storing the most iconic web3 character on Bitcoin itself is a very interesting idea to me. I also wanted it to look aesthetically pleasing, which I hope I managed. This of course required a lot of optimization because storing stuff on Bitcoin is expensive AF. Beyond that, I had a lot of fun creating the artwork. There is some reference to my earlier pieces in PEPERMANENT. I’d love it if people could find that reference.

I deployed PEPERMANENT on 2022-11-23, but I had to wait for Fake Rares to approve me and add the card to the directory before I announced it, which is why the hype started only recently.

I hope everyone enjoys PEPERMANENT as much as I did.

Update: PEPERMANENT is now fully sold and can only be bought on the secondary market. As of this writing, there are no dispensers available on Counterparty. The only available assets seem to be on Emblem Vault on Ethereum. The current floor price is 0.69E.

Here’s the final piece:

Let’s talk about PEPERMANENT.

• How to confirm the permanence of PEPERMANENT

• Walkthrough on creating a fully on-chain NFT on Bitcoin

• Final words

1. Go to xchain explorer, and see the Issuances tab. Click View in the initial issuance transaction.

2. You can already see the data in the description here but the better method is copying the transaction hash into your clipboard and resolving the op_return data either manually or through an API. This is what we’ll do now: Copy the transaction hash.

3. Now you have three choices. Choose one of the instructions below to extract the image URI.

3.a) Go to bitst.art and scroll to the “description” field under events.

The image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

You can just copy-paste everything within the “image” element to any browser and it’ll show you your on-chain Pepe.

3.b) Visit JP Janssen’s decoder referring to this transaction and scroll down to the “Description” field. You’ll see the full data there.

Unfortunately, the formatting may not work when you copy-paste, so just right-click the “inspect” element.

Under the console, you’ll find the entire image URI.

The image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

You can just copy-paste everything within the “image” element to any browser and it’ll show you your on-chain Pepe.

3.c) You can also do it manually. Follow JP Janssen’s guide and use the transaction where the data is added on-chain. Here’s the blockstream link to the Bitcoin transaction.

Note: The entire URI is a JSON file; but what you’re interested in is the image, which is located inside the image element of the JSON. In either option above in Step 3, the image element starts with data:image/svg…. and ends with …/svg%3e.

If you copy this string into any browser’s URL section, it’ll display the artwork.

Here’s the full image URI string:

First a little bit of history: The first 100% on-chain ownable artwork on Bitcoin was created by JP Janssen. His work, OLGA, to this day remains one of the most significant relics in the entire NFT space regardless of the chain.

Mr. Janssen encoded OLGA (which is a JPG file) in Bitcoin transactions. He chose to store in a transaction that isn’t linked to the OLGA token itself (the method resembles how CryptoPunks stored its images on-chain on a separate contract).

I use SVG file type in my art, because SVG is vector graphics. Since it’s based on a mathematical framework, it takes significantly less space than raster graphic files. SVG can also scale infinitely and has no frame loss in its animations (technically infinite frame per second). These advantages make SVG one of the best file types for the metaverse, especially an on-chain one.

While creating the artwork, I do a lot of optimizations. Already while drawing on inkscape, I minimize the number of nodes on each pathway without losing the aesthetic feel. Then I edit the drawing directly in code; removing decimals, grouping similar property assets, adding animations, effects, etc. This stage is usually 80% of the work - making sure I create an aesthetically pleasing artwork while minimizing its cost storage.

Up until this point, we haven’t uploaded anything on-chain. In Ethereum, this is pretty easy - you just update the tokenURI and all marketplaces & wallets will be able to read the on-chain data and display the artwork. Unfortunately, this isn’t common practice in Bitcoin. So I had to get creative a bit.

I noticed that description fields in Counterparty wallets were being stored within Bitcoin transactions (as part of op_return). This is usually a link to a JSON file, stored on a centralized server or Arweave. But what if I stored my JSON file which included my SVG file directly in it?

Make no mistake, once you add a weird JSON to your description, nothing will be visible on any Counterparty wallets, or Counterparty explorers. These fields are not designed for this purpose.

But artists use mediums outside their original purpose all the time.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I wanted to make sure that the file gets stored on-chain “at issuance” (not added later). So I minted PEPERMANENT directly with the long JSON file including the SVG artwork, which cost me ~$200 to store on-chain. Then I ran another transaction to add an Arweave link so that wallets and explorers could recognize the artwork.

Storing the most iconic web3 character on Bitcoin itself is a very interesting idea to me. I also wanted it to look aesthetically pleasing, which I hope I managed. This of course required a lot of optimization because storing stuff on Bitcoin is expensive AF. Beyond that, I had a lot of fun creating the artwork. There is some reference to my earlier pieces in PEPERMANENT. I’d love it if people could find that reference.

I deployed PEPERMANENT on 2022-11-23, but I had to wait for Fake Rares to approve me and add the card to the directory before I announced it, which is why the hype started only recently.

I hope everyone enjoys PEPERMANENT as much as I did.

Update: PEPERMANENT is now fully sold and can only be bought on the secondary market. As of this writing, there are no dispensers available on Counterparty. The only available assets seem to be on Emblem Vault on Ethereum. The current floor price is 0.69E.