No, not that cat.But I can understand your confusion given all the hype around OP_CAT with the upcoming release of Quantum Cats, an art project from the team behind Taproot Wizards, one of the premier ordinals collections on Bitcoin.The team at Taproot Wizards is working to create a collection of evolving inscriptions.

Quantum Cats is a collection of 3,333 inscriptions, each of which has a predetermined evolution path. Meaning their artwork will evolve over time in a deterministic way.

https://twitter.com/rot13maxi/status/1745983083608789345

Wait, how? I thought the blockchain was immutable.

Well, it seems they’ve found Satoshi’s lost cat.

Enter: OP_CAT

This is a big deal.

ฅ(^•ܫ•^)ฅ

OP_CAT is an opcode that existed in 2010 but was removed because of complexities at the time. It is being proposed as a potential addition to Bitcoin's scripting language. It would allow two data elements on the script's stack to be concatenated or linked together in Bitcoin transactions.

Put another way, this advancement would allow you to connect data from multiple inscriptions, linking them end-to-end.

Essentially, you are connecting two Lego blocks to create one larger block.

It sounds simple enough so far, right?

〲⚆ܫ⚆〉ฅ ↜⑈

How does this work?

This part is a little in-depth, so if your eyes gloss over, that’s totally normal.

Think of Bitcoin’s script as a simple programming language. It tells the entire network which conditions need to be met for someone to spend Bitcoin. This program behaves like a form of security system that checks if you have the right key before letting you in.

These are called covenants. This is a fancy term for rules that state what can or can’t be done with Bitcoin once you have it. For example, a covenant could state that you can only send Bitcoin to someone else if they meet certain predetermined conditions.

(=^•́ܫ•̀^=)

Still following?

Let’s get into why this matters and look at some examples of how OP_CAT could be used.

Say you have a collection of digital art pieces, each composed of several layers. And let’s say each layer is an .svg file, which is a type of image that you can edit to change the look of your art piece.

OP_CAT could be used to add instructions to Bitcoin transactions, so the script knows which svg. layers to display in the art.

Imagine:

An inscribed art piece that changes depending on the season of the year. You have a layer for each of the four seasons. With OP_CAT, you could have a transaction that says, “During spring, starting sometime on the first day of the spring equinox, show the spring art layer, and in the winter, show the winter layer, etc.”

There are a bunch of neat ways this could be used. It adds new meaning or context to the inscribed sats as they are traded or collected.

Another example, courtesy of Chat-GPT:

“OP_CAT could be used to concatenate data from multiple inscriptions. For example, if you have an inscription that's a part of a poem on one satoshi and another part on a second satoshi, using OP_CAT, you could combine these to form the complete poem in a single transaction.”

(ﾐ⎚ܫ⎚ﾐ)

If you’re still following, you probably see that OP_CAT is rather open-ended and allows for flexible interoperability between inscriptions. It would be the creation of a new form of complex “smart” transaction on Bitcoin. This means new types of agreements and forms of digital asset management tied to the inscribed sats.

Interestingly, this OP_CAT has been missing for years.

In the early days of Bitcoin development, the scripting language did include several opcodes meant to provide various functionalities for transactions. One of these opcodes was OP_CAT.

Why was it removed?

Satoshi Nakamoto put the cat down.

(⋑•ㅅ•)⋑

Concerns were raised about the OP_CAT opcode being potentially problematic because of the risks of extremely large transactions and scripts that could create blockchain bloat. There was also concern about opcodes being used to create transaction outputs that could not be spent, or “unspendable outputs,” which would lock Bitcoin forever.

Additionally, the security implications were not well understood at the time and there were concerns about certain opcodes creating vulnerabilities or instability for the network if not properly managed.

With that, Bitcoin’s scripting language was intentionally limited for security reasons, which adds meaningful context to the ongoing discussion about OP_CAT's potential risks and benefits.

〈^✪ᆺ✪^〉

Disabling OP_CAT simplified the Bitcoin scripting language, but it also limited its capabilities. And that brings us to today.

Times have changed, Bitcoin has matured and taken on a new form, and inscriptions are moving things forward with the network acting as a new way to store information.

Quantum Cats marks an attempt to rebirth OP_CAT. From the project page:

“In 2024, the Taproot Wizards discovered that OP_CAT is not truly dead.

Instead, like Schrödinger's cat, OP_CAT is trapped in a quantum realm where it is simultaneously dead and alive.

If OP_CAT can escape its quantum cage, it would fulfill its purpose and bring about an orange tsunami of Bitcoin innovation!”

If the Taproot Wizard team succeeds in passing a Bitcoin Improvement Protocol, or BIP, which is a formal proposal to change Bitcoin, it would effectively add an opcode to the bitcoin scripting language and add modern blockchain functionalities to the bitcoin network. This is a big vision.

As a community, this is a call to action for those paying attention because this conversation can change the future of this ecosystem.

Let’s do what we can to support their “mission to rescue OP_CAT from this state of purgatory and bring it back to the land of the living, so it can Make Bitcoin magical again.”

(｀ᴗ´)っ

LFG.

Quantum Cats project page:

https://www.quantumcats.xyz/

To start, on ETH Layer 1, 1 byte of CALLDATA is 16 gas.

Calldata is where data from external calls to functions is stored.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine imposes a cost of 4 gas for every byte set to zero in calldata and 16 gas for every non-zero byte.

You can use the size of an image to determine gas.

For example: a 400 KB image

400000 x 16 = 6,400,000 gas

Today's network fee is an average of 14 Gwei.

6,400,000 x 14 = 89,600,000 gwei

1B gas units = 1 ETH in cost

89,600,000/1,000,000,000

= 0.0896 ETH = ~$217.32

This would be the cost of 400 KB of CALLDATA on Ethereum, depending on currency conversion rates.

It's worth mentioning that this calculation assumes that every byte of the 400 KB image is non-zero, and this won't always be the case. Realistically, some bytes could be zero, reducing the gas cost slightly.

Also noteworthy is that Gas prices on Ethereum fluctuate often, so this may not represent average or future costs.

Now check this out:

Let's compare Ethereum to @lukso_io.

LUKSO is a layer-1 EVM blockchain with an execution engine that is fully compatible with all Ethereum tooling.

Péter Szilágyi (@peter_szilagyi), Team Lead at @ethereum released Burnt Pix, an art collection that runs on the EVM where minters can spend gas to iterate and refine their on-chain art pieces, something that could only be fully experienced in a low gas/cost environment.

One of my own Burnt Pix pieces has used an astonishing 1.75B gas, as can be seen in the token attributes via @_universalpage.

1.75B gas x 14 Gwei = 24.5B gwei

= 24.5 ETH = ~$59530.10

This is an approximation of how much it would have cost me on Ethereum to create the same Burnt Pix art.

My total cost on LUKSO? I can find the total LYX spent on my Burnt Pix piece in the token attributes on the Universal Page website.

14.11 LYX

= ~$142.96

I paid 416.4x less than the amount of gas than it would have on Ethereum.

I am still working out the exact math to see how much cheaper LUKSO is to store data on-chain than Ethereum, but if it’s a linear relationship for LYX/gas to determine cost, we might expect it to be over 400 times cheaper. Does this add up @feindura?

So for the same 400 KB image in the earlier example, I might expect to pay next to nothing in comparison because gas is so cheap on LUKSO.

= ~$0.34

This is wild. So let's look at storing on-chain files on Bitcoin as another example for context.

On @unisat_wallet marketplace, file size must be smaller than 365 KB

Say we are working with the maximum size of a 365 KB image, which is a slight difference from 400 KB but close enough to make the point. You can approximate your total cost the following way:

Bytes/4 * market average price of sats/vByte.

Virtual bytes (vB) and weight units (WU) are used to measure the size of transactions and blocks on the Bitcoin network.

Block sizes are limited to 4,000,000 WU (or 1,000,000 vB since 1 vB = 4 WU).

BTC fee ranges at the time of writing are 0–226 sat/vByte.

To make this simple, let's say your total network fee is 80 sats/vByte when you go to inscribe the 365 KB on Bitcoin.

(365,000/4) * 80 = 7,300,000 sats

1 Sat is one-hundred-millionth of a Bitcoin.

7,300,000/100,000,00.

= 0.073 BTC

= ~$3002.89 at 80 sats/vByte

Or if the image was 400 KB instead:

= 0.080 BTC = ~$3291.45 at 80 sats/vByte

There's an argument to be made here that Bitcoin could be cheaper than Ethereum when working with on-chain CALLDATA, but this example mostly emphasizes just how cheap gas is on LUKSO.

It's bewildering, really. 🤯

In our example, Bitcoin is roughly 20 times cheaper than Ethereum. Still, this doesn't compare to the savings of going on LUKSO.

Why is there such a significant difference? Simply put, every blockchain has its own intended use cases determined by its architecture. Some are more suitable for data storage than others. Some require you to get crafty, like we do with inscriptions, in order to store information on-chain.

Ethereum and Bitcoin are generally not used for large data storage because of the cost of doing so.

In my eyes, LUKSO opens up so many doors, including a way for data-heavy games and applications to make their way on the blockchain because such data can make its way on the blockchain in a way that is now feasible.

This isn't a commentary on Ethereum or Bitcoin as a data layer, but merely an elaboration on a late-night thought about gas mechanics on different networks.

If this sort of post interests you, please let me know below! This sort of information could be particularly valuable to artists and creators looking to put their art on the blockchain. Tag someone who could use it.

Thanks for reading!