Ordinals

Assigns a stable ordinal number to every satoshi and attaches content to individual satoshis, producing digital artifacts that move as ordinary UTXOs.

Chain

Bitcoin

Carrier

Witness-data inscription envelope

Ownership model

utxo

Operations

inscribe, transfer

Also written

ordinal, inscriptions, inscription

Where it came from

Created outside Bitcoin Universe by Casey Rodarmor, 2023.

Ordinal theory numbers individual satoshis and lets arbitrary content be inscribed onto them.

Where the specification lives

Ordinals has no Bitcoin Universe specification repository. Its specification is Ordinal theory handbook, maintained upstream.

Bitcoin Universe indexes or implements it in bitcoinuniverseio/index-ordinals and a Universe-operated ord server.

Support in Bitcoin Universe products

Enabled

Implemented and reachable in the product, subject to live status.

Execution model: Built and executed inside Universe products.

Where it appears

• Core: view, view-collection, view-activity, list, update-listing, unlist, buy, make-offer, accept-offer, cancel-offer, settle, reconcile
• Wallet: view, send, receive
• Inscribe: inscribe, transfer

Implemented

• viewin-app-execution
• view-collectionin-app-execution
• view-activityin-app-execution
• listin-app-execution
• update-listingin-app-execution
• unlistin-app-execution
• buyin-app-execution
• make-offerin-app-execution
• accept-offerin-app-execution
• cancel-offerin-app-execution
• settlein-app-execution
• reconcilein-app-execution

Not implemented, and why

sell

Ordinals has no executable offer workflow on this marketplace surface.

Operational behaviour

Indexing

State is read from Configured Ord server output and inscription views. Supporting reads come from Configured mempool/Esplora providers for UTXO and settlement reads.

What must be true before any change is accepted: Every mutation requires one confirmed, unspent, single-inscription output with no co-located Runes; Ord and Bitcoin value/outpoint/owner state must agree.

Confirmation

Settlement requires at least one confirmation by default; operators may configure 1-100.

Settlement requires at least 1 confirmation.

Reorganisation

Authoritative Esplora evidence drives deterministic dropped, replacement, conflict, and reorg reconciliation for generic orders.

Freshness

Exact state is checked per mutation; the current Ord endpoints expose no numeric tip for a lag comparison.

Provenance

Capability facts on this page were generated from backend/packages/ecosystem-contracts/lib/protocols.js in bitcoinuniverseio/core at 15dd03b5986a. Implemented behaviour is not the same as production availability: see how to read our status.