What Are Full Block Ordinals?

full block ordinals

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Ordinals have given the Bitcoin community much to think about. Some say they make Bitcoin fun, and others say they’re spam. Personally, I don’t need my money to be fun; I need it to be safe, secure, and reliable.

But that’s just one plebs opinion.

Ordinals have started their own movement, with businesses, applications, and wallets all supporting this secondary use case for the Bitcoin blockchain. Ordinals are classified as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) inscribed onto the Bitcoin blockchain, but with a twist—they take up the entirety of a single block.

Imagine a giant drawing scrawled across a page in a massive ledger, blocking out any other entries or instead forcing other entries onto the next page.

That’s the essence of a full-block ordinal.

It might sound like a bizarre flex, and you can be sure it comes with heaps of controversy – behind it.

Ordinals usually find their way to fill up blocks alongside standard transactions, but that all changed in March of 2024 when A Slipstream user broke the record for the largest ever Bitcoin block, measured in raw bytes, clocking in at 3,990.36 kB. It contains the largest transaction, at 3988.96 kB, a large image inscription related to the Runestone airdrop.

Since then, we’ve seen two more similar transactions, and on 20 June 2024, the 4th largest Ordinal was minted.

The Art of the Inefficient

Creating a full-block ordinal is taking the act of digital graffiti and ramping it up 1000. It allows users to embed massive files – think images, videos, code, games, even entire websites – directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

This permanence has a certain appeal for digital artists seeking to create a one-of-a-kind, immutable record of their work or make a name for themselves.

However, there’s a hefty price tag attached.

Miners prioritise transactions with the highest fees, and full-block ordinals require astronomical fees to outbid standard transactions. Acquiring a full block pushes regular transactions to the next block, causing delays for everyday users.

So, to encourage a miner to ditch a host of transactions sitting in the mempool, you will have to fork over a massive premium for the right; in this latest case, the fee to claim the block was 0.85 BTC.

What is Slipstream by Mara?

Back in February 2024, Marathon launched Slipstream to encourage experimentation with non-standard transactions on Bitcoin. Instead of configuring transactions on your own node, which requires you to know what you’re doing, Mara helps expedite the processing of large or complex transactions that comply with Bitcoin’s protocol.

Miners like Mara are all too happy to offer services that will encourage these types of transactions due to the high fees these users are willing to pay.

Slipstream is a direct transaction submission service on Bitcoin that is powered by Marathon and made possible by the Company’s proprietary mining pool, MARA Pool. If these transactions adhere to the Bitcoin protocol and the fees associated with them are sufficient, Marathon will add them to its mempool and process them accordingly.

Block stuffing for less than 1 Bitcoin

While smaller Ordinals are annoying enough, especially when they send fees skyrocketing, they sometimes cause little disruption as standard transactions can fit into the remaining space.

While not ideal, it’s still better than having everyone priced out of an entire block.

Full-block ordinals raise questions about Bitcoin’s future; if someone can disrupt transactions like this, what is stopping a nation-state actor with plenty of resources from bidding for blocks and keeping the rest of the network from transacting or managing lightning channels?

As the debate continues, some see it as a fascinating experiment in digital art and ownership, while others worry about the potential for congestion and manipulation.

  • Scalability Concerns: Bitcoin’s block size is limited, and full-block ordinals exacerbate the existing scaling challenges. Could they contribute to everyone’s increased transaction fees?
  • Decentralisation at Stake? High fees associated with full-block ordinals could centralise the creation of ordinals in the hands of those with significant resources. The more nodes have to store unnecessary data, the quicker we run out of disk space, forcing full nodes to migrate to pruned nodes to remain functional.
  • Artistic Expression vs. Network Sustainability: Is the artistic merit of full-block ordinals worth the disruption they cause to the network?

What’s in the block?

According to Twitter, @ordzaar claims responsibility for inscribing a 56-second video into Bitcoin in the fourth-largest inscription ever! The novelty is clearly worth it for now if someone is willing to fork over 85 million Satoshis for the chance to pay homage to the builders, artists, and collectors in the Ordinals ecosystem.

So, what did the Bitcoin blockchain and every node on the network gain for securing this abnormal block?

The video features various influencers from the Ordinal space, like Casey Rodarmor, who created the Ordinal and Runes protocol, along with some of the first projects to use Ordinal theory.

Video embedded into the Bitcoin blockchain – Source: Ordiscan

Full blocks don’t mean full use

It’s still early days for full-block ordinals. Whether they remain a niche curiosity or evolve into a mainstream practice remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure – they represent a fascinating intersection of art, technology, and the ongoing debate about the future of Bitcoin.

One thing’s for sure—they represent a fresh blow for Ordinal haters like myself, as these spam transactions continue to fill up my node despite what seems like a meaningless signal to filter these transaction types out of my local mempool.

While I’m all for people using their Bitcoin as they see fit, even if it’s a complete waste in my eyes, these disruptions in service, to an extent, have me wondering how far Bitcoin can go with these types of transactions bogging it down.

Consider this: in a system where the medium of exchange is at stake, how can we ensure a fair playing field for those who can’t folk over premium fees?

Should users who simply want to exchange value for goods and services be forced to compete with someone who can monopolize an entire block for their own agenda?

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. As of the time posting, the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency, as all investments contain risk. All opinions expressed in these articles are my own and are in no way a reflection of the opinions of The Bitcoin Manual

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