Bitcoin Ordinals Aim to Break the 4MB Barrier

Leonidas.og, the developer behind the Ordinals Protocol, has introduced a groundbreaking update, designated No. 2167, unveiling a concept called "recursive inscriptions," on June 12.

This development aims to overcome the current 4MB barrier that restricts Bitcoin inscriptions. Drawing inspiration from BRC721, the proposal suggests that while individual inscriptions must remain within the 4MB limit, combining them can surpass this threshold. 

Earlier this year, the Ordinals Protocol introduced the ability to fully inscribe any file on the chain if it was smaller than 4MB. The Ordinals Protocol allowed users to independently inscribe files onto the Bitcoin blockchain, unaware of other inscriptions.  With the introduction of recursive inscriptions, this limitation is now overcome. Using recursive inscriptions, a simple "/-/content/:inscription_id" syntax can be used to request the content of other inscriptions, offering a new possibilities.

This innovation has the potential to revolutionize various industries. For example, instead of individually inscribing 10,000 JPEG files for a collection, which can be costly, users can now inscribe the 200 traits from the collection and subsequently create 10,000 additional inscriptions. Each inscription can utilize a small amount of code to request traits and programmatically generate images, resulting in the same outcome. This advancement has the potential to save millions of dollars in transaction fees.

Leonidas envisions even more significant use cases, such as uploading code packages for complex applications. For instance, the BTC Core client could be stored on the blockchain, overcoming the previous size limitation of around 15 MB.

Further, the Ordinals team believes that complex 3D video games could soon run entirely on Bitcoin. Developers can split games into multiple inscriptions containing different pieces of code and display them in a single inscription. The official Ordinals explorer and ord.io will reportedly support recursive inscriptions, effectively turning them into BTC browsers. 

At press time, BTC traded at $25,861, showing a 0.36% increase in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.