‘Bitcoin is the best brand in crypto’: Why DeGod’s NFTs are now on Bitcoin

Bitcoin NFTs via Ordinals are buzziest thing in the room latelywith more than 100,000 such media funds committed to the blockchain in barely two weeks. Surprisingly, this figure includes 535 NFTs from DeGods— the most valuable Solana NFT project.

DeGods revealed the move on Monday when word circulated that the profile pictures (PFPs) had all been entered into Bitcoin in a single block. (“Inscription” is the process by which NFT-like assets are created on the Bitcoin blockchain, similar to “minting” on Ethereum.) The 535 particular images were originally released via Solana in 2021, but was “burned” (or permanently destroyed) to cut off supply in the early days of the project.

Project creator Rohun Vora, who goes by the pseudonym Frank, told Decrypt that he and Dust Labs CEO Kevin Henrikson (who simply goes by Kevin) are longtime Bitcoin lovers who relished the opportunity to bring the project onto the leading cryptocurrency’s network in the early days of Ordinal’s momentum.

“Bitcoin is the best brand in crypto – just as pristine as it gets,” Frank shared Decrypt. “It’s the most famous, and really as simple but powerful as it gets. And the mission statement is that it’s never been broken, right? It’s like global sound money. It’s so powerful. Aligning ourselves with the best brand in crypto is a no-brainer at all times.”

Now the 535 PFPs have been given a new life on Bitcoin with never-before-seen upgraded artwork. DeGods gave previous holders refreshed “DeadGods” artwork last year, and created upgraded artwork for the burnt NFTs as well, planning an eventual revival.

“We’ve always had this notion of ‘What’s dead can never die,'” Kevin explained, echoing the familiar refrain from the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” “And there was this idea, like, Oh my God, this is so perfect. We can literally bring these back, make them like Ordinals on BTC, and it’s permanent,” he said.

Back to life

Ordinals are a unique way to enroll NFT-like media and assets into the Bitcoin blockchain by linking them with a single Satoshi, or 1/100,000,000th of a BTC. The media is fully stored on the chain and Ordinal can be transferred, although there is still a need for much more infrastructure and platforms for transactions and handling of the assets.

It has quickly given rise to CryptoPunks clones and playable online games on Bitcoin. OnChain Monkey, an Ethereum project, too put his entire 10,000 NFT original collection in a single inscription. However, Ordinals also have received a significant setback from Bitcoin Maximalists, plus it has increased network congestion—and transaction fees in tact.

Kevin said they dove into Ordinals as soon as it started getting steam. But with the DeGods inscriptions, they didn’t just want to mint them in the usual way and have the inscriptions added to the network across potentially multiple Bitcoin blocks.

Instead, they worked with a Bitcoin miner, Luxor Technologies CEO Nick Hansen, to ensure that all 535 of the NFT inscriptions were etched onto the blockchain in a single, exclusive block. The block was processed by DMG Blockchain Solutions’ Terra Pool, which claims to be a carbon neutral mining pool driven by renewable energy solutions.

“It was a deal breaker for us if we couldn’t do it as a custom block, because we had to do something special,” Frank said Decrypt. “That’s DeGod’s way, right? You can’t just do it the basic way. You have to do something that feels really fresh.”

Ultimately, to fit the 535 images into a single Bitcoin block, they had to be seriously compressed. Each was resized to a low resolution of 210 x 210 pixels – a nod to the total Bitcoin supply of 21 million BTC – and in the .webp file format to save space. But now they are all inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain for future use.

While many NFTs on Ethereum and other platforms store their artwork remotely on either centralized servers or decentralized storage solutions (like IPFS), ordinals match the artwork or asset entirely within the block on the chain. That turned out to be a key part of the appeal to the DeGods team – that these assets will potentially live forever on Bitcoin.

“I’ve run one [Bitcoin] node, and the idea that every single node on the planet is now verifying and backing up this image is so powerful,” said Frank. “That’s what got us really excited.

Next step

Meanwhile, the wider DeGods project is already set to bridge from Solana to Ethereum sometime this quarter, which announced in December—with sister project y00ts bridge from Solana to Polygon.

That’s still happening for the rest of the project’s 10,000 total NFTs, and Frank tweeted this week that “having a presence on all blockchains is important.” However, these 535 specific DeGods NFTs, previously burned on Solana, will only live on Bitcoin via Ordinals.

However, how they roll out remains to be seen. The official DeGods account tweeted Monday that details on how to mint the Bitcoin NFTs will be announced “in the coming days.”

On Tuesday, however, Kevin told Decrypt that they are currently held in private wallets and that they are waiting for more tools to be used to make Ordinals safer to handle and trade. Once the goal is met, Kevin said they have many ideas on how to launch the NFTs in an effort to “give back to our holders and support the community.”

“We’re essentially going to sit on them,” Kevin said, “until we’re comfortable that the tool will support proper custody of these for a reasonably sophisticated crypto connoisseur.”