With the advent of Ordinals on Bitcoin, it’s now possible to permanently store any “arbitrary” files on Bitcoin.

The best use case that comes to mind immediately is penguin pictures on the blockchain.

Pudgy Penguins’ (or [insert your NFT here]’s) metadata is locked on IPFS and won’t be moving anytime soon.

But what does “soon” mean? 1 year—5 years—20 years? I don’t know about you, but if there’s a nuclear Armageddon, I want my penguin to still be around.

And given that there are tens of thousands of nodes, in various attics, basements and bunkers, spread all across the world and updating separately with every block appended to the blockchain…Bitcoin’s chain seems like the prime candidate to be able to service that possibility.

Introducing Ordinals

The Ordinals protocol built on Bitcoin taproot, to put it bluntly, allows you to store NFT-like instances on Bitcoin.

People are uploading low resolution highly compressed files of their Etherrocks, Apes, Doodles and Punks because it’s far cheaper than uncompressed. But then, what’s the point of backing up a subpar jpeg? Remember, BTC sucks for high throughput and scalability, and is great for permanence. If you’re going to use a premium chain, might as well use a premium jpeg, or else you are best off using IPFS, Arweave or even shudders BSV, all of which are significantly cheaper by a factor of 100 times.

The Penguin Preservation Program

Penguin #1—me—is offering a service for all penguins and later other NFTs, to get inscribed into the Bitcoin network.

I’ve done the hard work of setting up a node, syncing the 700GB blockchain and indexing every transaction—which takes >96 hours and costs money by the second, by the way—so you don’t have to.

Not only that, I’ve optimized the best way to compress files without losing quality, so you can get a high quality version of your NFT on the chain without breaking the bank too much.

Notice how this is one of the only times in history where the mempool is clogged without the price moving fast. Hot take: I estimate that the BTC jpeg inscription is unlikely to continue for a long time* as the Bitcoin block space is extremely limited, so either the network’s developers will fork it off, or it will become prohibitively expensive to append to the blockchain. This is why I put my own penguin on the blockchain, as it could give it extra value by being there…before they make it impossible to do so.*

So, I’m offering this service for all penguins.

Penguins and other NFTs will be able to be added to Bitcoin’s blockchain at a cost of 0.1 ETH per penguin ID. (This is subject to change according to how BTC network fees act.)

The payment? It goes directly to pay for the inscription, and infrastructure costs. There is no profit made from this initiative.

All excess “profits” go to thePPP.eth, an EOA and possibly later multisig, used exclusively for the advancement of future penguin endeavors.

Therefore, by participating, you’re putting your penguin on chain forever, and “donating” to a common fund to be used to benefit penguins in important community initiatives.

To summarize:

• You are getting your NFT picture inscribed on Bitcoin.

• This is not a spendable NFT, simply an inscription.

• The inscription will last as long as the Bitcoin blockchain is alive.

• There is a strong possibility that it will not be possible to inscribe in the future, hence why there is a rush now.

• Speculative: If your penguin is saved on the Bitcoin blockchain, that adds extra value to the permanence of it. (Think: What if the BTC network gets overloaded with new NFT users and it starts to cost thousands of dollars to inscribe your penguin?)

• All the money raised by this initiative goes only to cover operational costs, “profits” go to thePPP.eth which is a wallet run by #1 and is pledged to be used exclusively for penguin related endeavors.

The only things you’ll need:

• Your penguin (or other collection) ID.

• An Ethereum address, to send payment.

Deals:

• First penguin 0.1 ETH, second penguin 0.08 ETH, each penguin from there on 0.06 ETH.

Send a DM on Twitter to get inscribed. Solidify your NFT on the blockchain forever.

If there is significant demand, I will create a front-end application so we do not have to deal through DMs!

Any funds collected from this article also go to thePPP.eth.