How to use ordinal on Bitcoin full node

Introduction

Ordinal is a numbering scheme for satoshis that allows tracking and transferring individual sats, which was introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.21.0.

What is ordinal?

Each Bitcoin can be divided into 100,000,000 smaller units known as satoshis, or sats. With the introduction of the new Ordinals protocol in Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 and later, individuals operating Bitcoin nodes can now inscribe each sat with additional data, creating what is known as an “Ordinal”. This functionality has opened up new possibilities, including the ability to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain. Through the use of smart contracts, it is possible to include unique data within these Ordinals, creating NFTs in a way that directly mints them onto the Bitcoin blockchain. In essence, Ordinals are a form of NFT that can be inscribed directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain through the use of Bitcoin nodes.

But that’s not exactly right. That’s the short-hand understanding, but there are a few important differences between NFTs and Ordinals.

How are Ordinals different from NFTs?

NFTs issued on the Ethereum blockchain, or an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain, often reference off-chain data stored on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). The IPFS is a distributed file storage system that can be thought of as akin to the blockchain’s hard drive. In some cases, the data referenced by an NFT may be updated using dynamic metadata. This dynamic metadata allows for flexibility in the data referenced by an NFT, enabling improvements such as higher-quality images. Some NFT projects may prompt holders to update the metadata of their NFTs by clicking a “refresh metadata” button on a platform like OpenSea to access these updated data. by doing so, the updated data can be fetched from IPFS and associated with the NFT in question.

The fact that NFTs require off-chain data to function properly is seen as a shortcoming by some, including Rodarmor, who created a new protocol to address this issue. According to Rodarmor, NFTs are “incomplete” because their data is spread across multiple locations, while his protocol, Ordinals, is “complete,” with all data inscribed directly on the blockchain. For this reason, Rodarmor refers to Ordinals as digital artefacts, distinguishing them from Bitcoin NFTs. Additionally, unlike many NFTs, Ordinals have no creator royalties associated with them. Rodarmor believes that Ordinals represent what NFTs should be, and sometimes already are, as well as embodying the fundamental aspects of inscriptions that make such digital artefacts valuable.

All this to say that Ordinals on Bitcoin may not only signal a cultural change for Bitcoin — they may actually be a technical improvement on NFTs. With that as the backdrop, here’s how to buy, receive, and store your first ordinals.

The environmental impact of Bitcoin Ordinals

Like all blockchain technologies, Bitcoin Ordinals have an environmental impact as well. The energy consumption required to maintain the blockchain network and carry out transactions is significant, and this has led to concerns about the environmental impact of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

However, it is worth noting that Bitcoin Ordinals consume significantly less energy compared to traditional Proof-of-Work based blockchains like Bitcoin. Ordinals use the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, which consumes orders of magnitude less energy than Proof-of-Work blockchains while still ensuring security.

Moreover, Bitcoin Ordinals can also be developed to be more environmentally friendly — for instance, by using renewable energy sources to power the nodes that maintain the blockchain network.

Overall, while Bitcoin Ordinals do have an environmental impact, it is considerably less than many other blockchain technologies, and there are opportunities to improve their environmental sustainability over time.

The most notable Ordinals inscriptions

Currently, there are several notable Ordinals inscriptions available that offer unique features and capabilities to developers. Here are a few of the most notable ones:

1. Cardano: This is a third-generation blockchain that has been designed to address the scalability issues of earlier blockchains. It is built on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and uses a programming language called Haskell, which is known for its safety and security features.

2. Polkadot: This is a shared blockchain that allows multiple parallel chains to operate within the same network. It uses a unique architecture called a “relay chain,” which facilitates communication between the different chains. Developers can use any programming language they prefer to build on this platform.

3. Solana: This is a high-performance blockchain that is capable of processing up to 50,000 transactions per second. It uses a unique consensus mechanism called Proof-of-History, which decouples transaction processing from network consensus. It also supports programming languages such as Rust and C++.

4. Avalanche: This is a consensus platform that is designed to provide fast, efficient, and highly scalable blockchain infrastructure. It uses a unique consensus algorithm called Avalanche, which allows for consensus to be reached in seconds rather than minutes. Developers can build decentralized applications using languages such as Solidity and Java.

These are just a few examples of the many different Ordinals inscriptions available today. Each of these platforms offers unique features and capabilities that can help developers create decentralized applications that are secure, scalable, and efficient.

Use ordinal on Bitcoin full node

If you want to set up Bitcoin Full Node with Ordinal Protocol support & save time in setting up a Bitcoin Full Node ON GCP, Azure & AWS with a fully synced environment, you can opt for Techlatest’s Bitcoin Full Node, available on the GCP, Azure & AWS marketplace. By launching and connecting to Techlatest’s Bitcoin Full Node on GCP, Azure & AWS users can set up their synced environment in a few minutes, rather than going through a lengthy installation and syncing process which takes days to sync several GBs of ledger data and costs hundreds of dollars in bandwidth cost.

There are some commands from which we can run Ordinal on Bitcoin full node, which you can see below in the images.

Once VM is provisioned, you can start the Bitcoin node either via the command line or using the Bitcoin QT GUI wallet

Start the Bitcoin sync process using the command line :
Go to the terminal and execute the below command as an Ubuntu user to run Bitcoin daemon in the background -

   bitcoind

To verify the command execution or to monitor the daemon, you can tail the Bitcoin debug log.

tail -f /home/ubuntu/.bitcoin/debug.log

How to stop Bitcoin daemon :

"bitcoin-cli stop"

Delete the wallet.dat file by running the below command-

sudo rm /home/ubuntu/.bitcoin/wallet.dat

Bitcoin Full Node with Ordinal Protocol support on GCP, AWS & Azure Cloud

Get a fully synced Bitcoin node with an ordinal wallet in just a few minutes.

This VM provides you full Bitcoin node. It has a box setup for Bitcoin which includes Bitcoin & Bitcoin QT GUI wallet, Ordinal, Hiro Wallet & pre-synced ledger.

Why you need a full node:

1. Enable Ordinal Inscription

2. Increased Privacy

3. Improved Security

4. Support for the Network

5. Personal Education

Since the ledger is already synced, you get the full node in just a few minutes instead of waiting hours to sync the ledger from 2009 which takes hours to sync.

Having your own full Bitcoin node provides you with the following benefits :

1. Enable Ordinal Inscription

1. Increased Privacy

3. Improved Security

4. Support for the Network

5. Personal Education

For Setting up Bitcoin Full Node with Ordinal Protocol support ON GCP, AWS & Azure you can follow our below-mentioned guides-

For GCP: Step-by-Step Guide.

For AWS: Step-by-Step Guide.

For Azure: Step-by-Step Guide.

Conclusion

To summarize the above blog, Ordinals is a new numbering scheme for satoshis that allows tracking and transferring individual sats, which was introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.21.0. This functionality has opened up new possibilities, including the ability to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain. Ordinals differ from NFTs as they inscribe all data directly on the blockchain, making them “complete” as opposed to “incomplete” as NFTs can have their data spread across multiple locations. Moreover, Ordinals consume less energy compared to traditional Proof-of-Work based blockchains like Bitcoin as they use the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. Finally, if you want to set up Bitcoin Full Node with Ordinal Protocol support, you can opt for Techlatest’s Bitcoin Full Node, available on the GCP, Azure & AWS marketplace. This can save you hours of waiting for the ledger to sync and provide you with a fully synced environment in a few minutes.