Recursive Inscriptions: Infinite Creativity and Combination Possibilities on the Bitcoin Chain

Since Ordinals, the protocol on the Bitcoin chain, was launched and Brc20 was detonated by Ordi, innovations based on Ordinals have emerged in an endless stream. Recently, another striking innovation has emerged—recursive inscriptions. Recursive inscriptions have the ability to reference existing inscriptions on the chain and engrave a large amount of code on the Bitcoin chain. In addition, because the recursive inscription calls the code (presented in text form), its size is extremely small, making it break through the 4MB limit of the Bitcoin block size, allowing complex 3D video games to be completely uploaded to the Bitcoin chain . This innovation has brought unlimited imagination to the development of Ordinals, making scalability and interoperability on the Bitcoin chain possible.

This article will visualize the origin of the recursive inscription, its implementation method and extent, as well as its possible impact and possible risks from four perspectives

1. What are Ordinals and Brc20

Before talking about recursive inscriptions, let's popularize what Ordinals and Brc20 are. The Ordinals protocol is a satoshi numbering system, giving each satoshi a serial number and tracking them in transactions. In short, Ordinals allow users to attach additional data to make each satoshi unique. This process is called "recording". "Satoshi" is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the author of Bitcoin (Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym), and is the smallest denomination of Bitcoin (BTC). 1 bitcoin can be divided into 100 million satoshis, which means each satoshi is worth 0.00000001 bitcoins. Satoshis are numbered according to the order in which they were mined and transferred. The numbering scheme is based on the order in which satoshis were mined, while the transfer scheme is based on the order of transaction inputs and outputs, hence the name "Ordinals".

BRC20 refers to the Bitcoin token standard based on blockchain technology. BRC stands for "Blockchain Token Standard" and the number 20 represents the version number of the standard. The BRC20 standard defines a set of rules and protocols for creating and managing blockchain-based tokens. The BRC20 standard is similar to the ERC20 standard on Ethereum, which provides a common way to create and operate tokens. BRC20 tokens can be issued, transferred and traded on compatible blockchains. This standard specifies the basic functions of tokens, such as the total amount of tokens issued, token names, symbols, decimal places, etc., as well as standard interfaces and events for token transactions. By adopting the BRC20 standard, developers can more easily create and deploy their own tokens, and realize the circulation and transaction of tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The emergence of the BRC20 standard has promoted the development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the Bitcoin ecosystem, enabling different projects to be better compatible and interoperable with each other.

2. The origin of recursive inscriptions

The origin of recursive inscriptions can be described as a chain. Since Brc20 caused a sensation, the community began to think, since Brc20 using Erc20 as a reference can be successful, why not use Erc721 as a reference to create a Brc721? Thus, Brc721 came into being. However, since most Erc721 stores images in a centralized escrow, management fees need to be paid, while Brc721 burns images directly on the Bitcoin chain, which poses a huge cost challenge. As Ordinals take hold, the congestion problem engraved on the Bitcoin chain is increasing, further exacerbating cost pressures.

In order to solve this problem, Gbrc721 was created, and Gbrc721 successfully overcomes the problem of high cost on the chain. In developing the Gbrc721 project, the project party only needs to upload the NFT components and combine them skillfully. For example, a 10K collection might only require 200 components, including mouths, ears, noses, and so on. This greatly saves the cost of chaining. However, this also brings a new problem, that is, image parsing needs to be performed off-chain to display the image. Therefore, the Gbrc721 project "Ordibots" currently presented at MagicEden is still presented as a string of text (pictured below).

The concept of recursive inscriptions was proposed by the founder of the Bitcoin protocol Ordinals. On June 12, 2023, Raph, the new chief maintainer of Ordinals, announced an important progress on Github. He called the inscription "Recursive Inscriptions" Innovation number 2167 was incorporated into the code of Ordinalsd (shown below). In this version of the code, through the syntax of "/-/content/:inion_id", inscriptions can refer to each other's content, realizing the function beyond Gbrc721. This innovation is directly implemented on the chain without relying on off-chain Analysis fundamentally solves the problem of Gbrc721. Thus, the Recursive Glyph was born, a simple but ingenious modification that brought endless creativity to Ordinals and sparked imaginations.

3. Realization and effect: explore endless combination possibilities

In the previous article, we have learned about the origin of recursive inscriptions. Next, this article will discuss the implementation of recursive inscriptions in detail. Along the way, we get a look at what led to the dramatic opening of Recursive Punks, the notable first Recursive Inscription project; and how the various components came together along the way. In addition, we also need to pay attention to the extent to which recursive inscriptions can be combined; and whether the combination of recursive inscriptions in different formats can be achieved. Next, we will solve these puzzles together and explore the endless combination possibilities brought by recursive inscriptions.

Implementation of recursive inscriptions

The realization of recursive inscriptions is inseparable from the wisdom and technological breakthroughs of the founder team of Ordinals. They embed the code shown in the figure below in the underlying protocol, where "/content/" is the key to code references, and it is this syntax that allows developers to reference other inscriptions that already exist on the Bitcoin chain. For those readers who study the code carefully, it is not difficult to find that the code presented here (version 2174) is different from the previously mentioned version 2167 (the 2174 version deletes the "/-" part), and the 2167 version is the original adopted version , but then the Ordinals founding team abandoned version 2167 in favor of version 2174. This also paved the way for the opening of the next "Recursive Punks" drama.

Recursive Punks Dramatic Opening

On June 13, Recursive Punks officially announced the launch of free casting of 10,000 Recursive Ordinals series, which immediately triggered heated discussions and spread in the community. Due to the principle of "First is First", the project was burned quickly after being discovered by the community, and even caused the website to be paralyzed when it became popular. However, after a wave of frenzied Fomo burning, many users were surprised to find that the official recursive inscription version was the old version 2167, and the correct recursive inscription syntax should be "/content/", but the official used "/ -/content/:" . This caused Recursive Punks to not display pictures properly on the BitChain inscription browser, so strictly speaking, this project is not a real recursive inscription project.

The community then began spreading fixes and pointing out Recursive Punks' grammatical errors. However, the official chose an unexpected way after discovering a grammatical error in the project, that is, tweeted that he hoped that the developers and community of the Ordinals protocol would recognize both the version without pictures and the version with pictures. What surprised the community even more is that the official deleted the tweet afterwards, and directly launched the version of Recursive Punks without pictures on MagicEden, and displayed it in the form of high-definition large pictures. The analysis by the technicians shows that this is achieved through front-end rendering, so that this version can display pictures on the MagicEden platform. This move aroused dissatisfaction among some community members. They believed that this behavior seriously violated the concept of decentralization, and some even thought it was a fraud.

Currently, both the V1 and V2 versions of Recursive Punks have been launched on MagicEden. As of today (2023.6.20), the Recursive Punks V1 version (unpictured version) has a higher transaction volume, so it may be considered that the official V1 version still has more consensus in the community. The philosophy of "First is First" is still widely recognized. However, perhaps with the popularity of recursive inscription knowledge, the real recursive inscription version Recursive Punks v2 will gain more support and recognition.

Clever Combination of Components in Recursive Inscriptions

In the recursive inscription, with the help of the "/content/" syntax code mentioned above, the project party can directly reference the existing NFT components on the chain to create its own NFT works. This article takes the recursive inscription project "Recursive Frogs" as an example to illustrate the mystery. As shown in the figure below, the components of the NFT work are displayed in the red box (Ordiscan currently supports the display of recursive inscription components and one-click link component URLs).

Next, we click "view source code" pointed by the red arrow to view the source code of the NFT work.

These six lines of code use the "content" syntax, which actually refers to six different components. The string of codes after "/content/" corresponds to the "Inion ID" of each component.

Through this ingenious way of referencing components, recursive inscription creators are able to combine various elements with each other to create unique works. This infinite combination possibility not only stimulates the creator's imagination, but also brings a new dimension to the development of recursive inscriptions. Whether it's a work of art, a digital collection, or a virtual reality game, the ability to compose recursive inscriptions opens up possibilities never before possible in the creative realm.

Unlimited combinations of recursive inscriptions and fusion of different formats

Recursive inscriptions are theoretically highly composable, and can combine various inscriptions on the Bitcoin chain in a flexible manner. This infinite composability has allowed many industry pioneers to see the potential of recursive inscriptions to bring innovative application scenarios such as GameFi and Metaverse to Ordinals. Recursive inscriptions are able to combine inscriptions in different formats into one web page rendered in HTML. The content of this web page can be freely added by the project party, as long as it can be found on the BitChain. Various content such as music, video or animation can be integrated in it. Therefore, recursive inscriptions have injected great possibilities into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the creativity and openness of recursive inscriptions also provide creators with an unprecedented creation platform.

4. The trend of innovation triggered by recursive inscriptions and the prospect of application scenarios

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has brought infinite possibilities to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Next, we boldly predict the possible impact of some recursive inscriptions and possible application scenarios.

1. The threshold and cost of Bitcoin ecological entrepreneurship are reduced

Recursive inscriptions have greatly lowered the entrepreneurial threshold of the Bitcoin ecology, and even just a few lines of code modification can create a new NFT series, just like Recursive Punks' unpictured, pictured, big picture and high-definition big picture shows like that. In addition, recursive inscriptions also significantly reduce the cost of starting a business. Originally, it was necessary to upload a 10k collection of tens of thousands of images. Now, only 200 component images need to be uploaded, and they are skillfully combined through code to complete the creation of a 10k collection.

2. Increase the richness of inscriptions

The advent of recursive inscriptions has led to Ordinals' underlying inscription browsers (such as ord.io and ordiscan.com) striving to support multiple media types such as SVG, HTML, and Java in addition to the earliest text types. Recursive inscriptions are already comparable to a universal web page, which can display the content of almost any web page. And recursive inscriptions can refer to other inscriptions, just like a local web page is upgraded to the Internet, which greatly enriches the expression of inscriptions.

3. GameFi and Metaverse

The emergence of recursive inscriptions brings the possibility of realizing GameFi and Metaverse on Bitchain. At present, there are mini-games developed based on recursive inscriptions, as shown in the figure below, this is a recursive mini-game developed by Ordz Games. Players can directly click on the inscription browser, and the gameplay is similar to the previously popular "sheep a sheep", which is the realization of the "webpage" mentioned above.

As mentioned above, the recursive inscription achieves a small size due to its code calling characteristics. This feature allows the size of the inscription to exceed the Bitcoin block size limit of 4MB. As a result, we can theoretically build a Metaverse and GameFi on the Bitcoin chain, and even upload complex 3D games to the Bitcoin chain. Of course, it needs to be clear that recursive inscriptions are still in the early stages, and all these ideas and ideas need to be realized through continuous exploration and discovery.

Five, the possible risks of recursive inscriptions

1. There is a risk of centralization: the implementation of recursive inscriptions depends on the Ordinals protocol. As mentioned above, the implementation of recursive inscriptions is based on the Ordinals protocol. If the Ordinals Protocol is not implanted or the code in the "References" section is removed later, the recursive glyphs will not work.

2. Bring a burden to the Bitcoin network: In the short term, recursive inscriptions may bring prosperity to the Bitcoin ecosystem. However, pictures, movies, code repositories, software codes, and inscriptions of all kinds of new data are all likely to accumulate in Bitcoin's mempool. As registrars bid more and more to confirm transactions, regular users who just want to pay for purchases in bitcoin will have to pay a costly premium. Therefore, in the long run, the Bitcoin network may become more congested and more expensive to handle.

3. Reducing the cost of doing evil: Recursive inscriptions may make it easier for fraudsters to add malware to the Bitcoin chain. Fraudsters can split malware into multiple files and add malware to people's devices when they download games, files, or software. This can cause the downloader to lose funds.

4. Relying on the support of the underlying infrastructure: Recursive inscriptions also need the support of more underlying infrastructure, such as the head exchanges Unisat and MagicEden, the main inscription browsers, and the support of centralized exchanges such as OKEX and BINANCE. As of today (2023.6.20), MagicEden has not yet supported the image display of the Recursive Punks V2 version mentioned above (as shown in the figure below), and the normal display of Recursive Frogs was only realized after a community KOL proposed it.

6. Conclusion

The emergence of recursive inscriptions has triggered extensive discussions on the Bitcoin ecosystem, which may have a profound impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem and the entire industry. Of course, although we are optimistic about the infinite possibilities that recursive inscriptions can bring, we also need to realize that recursive inscriptions are still in the early stages, and we need to continue to explore and discover, and we also need the support of more project parties and teams. Therefore, before making risky attempts and investments, we should always be aware of risks.