In a surge of activity, the number of Bitcoin-based Ordinal engravings surpassed 14 million on June 26, 2023, merely six days after crossing the 13 million mark. Since then, engraving activity has continued to escalate, marking a notable trend in blockchain engagement. Alongside textual inscriptions, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and fungible BRC20 tokens, Ordinal engraving technology has pioneered a novel naming convention known as Sats Names, leveraging the Bitcoin blockchain infrastructure.
Emergence of Bitcoin’s Sats Names
Records show that by June 2023, Ordinal engravings had surpassed 14 million, and as of July 1, 2023, the count stands at over 14.41 million. This surge has yielded additional incentives for bitcoin miners, totaling approximately 1,799.65 BTC, valued at around $54 million, generated through engraving-related fees.
Primarily, 86% of these engravings comprise simple plaintext entries, while the remaining constitute diverse file formats such as JPGs and PNGs. Moreover, the advent of Ordinal engravings has spurred the development of a novel breed of Bitcoin-based tokens adhering to the BRC20 standard.
Recent innovations like “rare satoshis” or “satributes” have surfaced, accompanied by a burgeoning trend known as Sats Names (SNS). Sats Names entail a framework for crafting human-readable designations on the Bitcoin blockchain utilizing Ordinal engraving technology.
Facilitating this, users can create names appended with extensions like .sats and .xbt. For instance, users might select names like satoshi.sats or jimmy.sats. The guidelines dictate that each ordinal can bear only one name, with all characters permitted under the UTF-8 encoding.
Regarding naming conventions, the Sats Names documentation specifies, “Capitalization does not matter,” and underscores that “All names will be registered as lowercase. No spaces are permitted within a name.”
To ascertain the availability of a Sats Name, individuals can utilize the Sats Names API, a web service enabling users to query the availability of Sats Names. Names are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and can be acquired through diverse marketplaces specializing in Ordinals.
The notion of decentralized naming services traces back to Namecoin in 2011, with similar paradigms manifesting on alternative blockchains, such as the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) standard.
As per the Sats Names documentation, by June 2023, 250,000 .sats names had been engraved, along with an additional 120,000 SNS names inscribed for alternative namespaces such as .ord, .btc, and .xbt.
The documentation further highlights that approximately 50,000 users currently possess SNS names, with SNS name resolution supported on platforms like the Unisat wallet and Ordinals wallet.
What are your insights on the burgeoning growth of Bitcoin’s Sats Names ecosystem and its prospective influence on blockchain innovation? Feel free to share your perspectives in the comments section below.