Ordinals: Essential Tools 🧰
Tools for ordinals. Read my thoughts on Liquidium, Xverse, and more.
Ordinals: Essential Tools
gm ordinal collectooors.
Let’s take a look at some tools. 🤝🧰
Liquidium: An ordinal-lending protocol
Liquidium is the most exciting thing to happen to Bitcoin since… ordinals. It’s the first DeFi protocol to launch on Bitcoin, ever. And it did it w/ no dumb contracts. (I jest. There are uses for smart contracts, but we don’t need them here on Bitcoin; literally built different 💪)
On Liquidium, you can lend or borrow $BTC and use your ordinal/s as collateral. You want to watch out for a few things here, tho, as shown in the example below.
Example:
The loan amount here is 0.07 BTC, but the fp is 0.03 BTC. The dapp should not permit borrowers to set loan amounts greater than the fp. (What’s stopping the borrower from running w/ the funds?) Obviously, it’s up to the lender to do their due discretion as well, but imposing these conditions would go a long way to boost lender confidence and lower risk.
Keep in mind, the platform is still in closed beta, so hopefully they address/resolve some of this stuff prior to opening to the public. Regardless, Liquidium is an impressive achievement, and I look forward to using the lending feature religiously once they crack it. (Lenders ftw 🤝)
Xverse, Unisat, and Sparrow: Wallets
(Full disclosure: I’m considering joining Xverse as an angel investor.)
My favorite Bitcoin wallet is Xverse, obviously. That’s b/c Jan from Xverse is a friend of mine. And if you’re active in the space, you know that Jan is a recognized 🐐 in the Bitcoin community. Here’s an example.
Xverse has been relying on Hiro’s indexer, which has caused some recent issues (like people’s ordinals not showing up in their wallet). This was resolved yesterday.
Until then, Jan had been going on a tear on spaces explaining the situation. But more than that, I was keen to discover that Xverse is working on some major shit in the bg. How do I know? Trust me, bro.
Unisat is an amazing wallet too. They run their own indexer, and they’ve got their own marketplace, which is arguably the most popular BRC-20 marketplace... for now. (Also look at ME’s BRC-20 marketplace.) Unisat has also got a points system, which you can farm for whatever may come later. (Are you feeling degen enough? 🤨)
Sparrow is a fantastic wallet if you’re a math scientist who’s into advanced theoretical physics and shit. Jokes aside, if you do know how to navigate it, it can be an incredibly powerful tool. You can extract specific sats via sat ranges, and even send bulk txs. The UI leaves a lot to be desired, tho. (See below.)
Ord.io: Ordinal scanner
Want some alpha? 👀 Spend 10 min/d browsing Ord. Just 10 minutes is all it takes to check the inscriptions you want for the day.
This is b/c you can check inscriptions on the Bitcoin chain as each block goes live. In other words, you don’t have to dig around the bird app sleuthing for the next potential win. The wins are right there, all in plain view for anyone who cares to look.
Oh, you want more alpha? Some of the inscriptions display their project names in blue under the inscription number. Others don’t, like the ones in the image above. But based on the variations, you can guess the majority are from a single project. Click through and check out the wallet/s. See what other stuff they might be holding. Check those too.
Keep digging. Also check out other top projects, and look for holders who hold many pieces. Then see what else they’ve got in their wallet, and dyor on those projects too. Ord offers solid ground and strong scent trails.
Happy hunting.
Ordinal Hub
Ordinal Hub’s got a suite of tools for ordinals. It’s got…
A price tracker. Shown above, the price tracker shows the most popular projects and their price changes over preset time ranges.
Trending. Also shown above, the UI is pleasing, tho you can tell that the functionality is still being built out.
Sat scanner. Input your wallet, and the scanner tells you if you’ve got special sats. Pretty basic rn, but it looks like the team will add extraction soon.
API for devs. Ordinal Hub offers an indexer for devs at tiered price points. There is a free option if you can settle for 5 requests a minute + other restrictions. The paid plan starts at $999/mo. Yeahhh… not cheap, but then again, they have their own indexer (!).
Impressive.
Sating.io
Sating has been keeping busy (and quiet). Sating started off as a rare sats extractor. Today, it offers an expanding suite of tools, including “Safe Send” (send sats w/o risking any special sats) and “Inscribe” (inscribe on any sat you want).
More powerful tools are coming, like “Bulk Inscribe”. Sating’s also opened up a marketplace for special sats. (See below.) Prices are generally higher than if you negotiate w/ individual sat hunters, but you pay a premium for convenience, right?
APP
APP is the brainchild of Chartfu, ME’s CDO and founder of Bitcoin Bandits. It was created w/ the sole purpose of “teleburning” an NFT from other chains and onto Bitcoin, and inscribing it as an Ordinal.
The app came to fruition from a guerrilla marketing campaign launched by the founder of OMB, Zk-🦈, who encouraged other projects to burn a cryptopunk in exchange for wl spots. (At the time, the # of spots to be handed out was unknown.)
Bitcoin Bandits were the first to do it. DeGods were next in line. The campaign was a massive success, and both projects won 33 wl spots each at 0.09 BTC. The “burned” punks and OMBs were fractionalized and airdropped to Bandit holders. (Degods are next!)
Closing thoughts
We’re so early. How do I know? Spend a few minutes using these tools and gazing over the landscape. Many of these tools are still janky af whenever you want to do something. We also know normies aren’t here yet, b/c Ledger integration w/ Xverse hasn’t happened yet. (It’s coming.)
Like I said, we’re early.
But early is when it’s worth getting your hands dirty ‘cause it’ll pay off in the long run. What we’re seeing emerge are the foundations of dapps on Bitcoin, and it’s going to be fucking beautiful. 🌞
P.S. Fuck. I forgot Gamma.io 💀