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As discussed in Part I of this series, Ordinals are a pioneering new method of utilizing the Bitcoin blockchain that will usher in new and innovative use cases on Bitcoin. As promised, in Part II we will discuss the implications for creators and owners.

Implications of Ordinal NFTs for Creators and Owners

As with most crypto innovation, capable users quickly flocked to the shiny new object. Copies of popular Ethereum NFT projects began appearing on the Bitcoin blockchain after the Ordinals launch. For example, a clone of CryptoPunks, named Ordinal Punks, popped up and is reportedly gaining traction. Further, the owner of Bored Ape Yacht Club (“BAYC”) #1626 permanently removed the NFT from its spot as one of the most valuable in the space by “burning” it, then inscribing the NFT on Bitcoin using Ordinals.  While the owner of BAYC #1626 effectively deleted – or symbolically transferred – the NFT, it appears that some NFT creators are not purists and are willing to experiment on Bitcoin. For example, Yuga Labs, the creator behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum-based NFT phenomenon, announced that it would release a NFT project called TwelveFold on the Bitcoin blockchain.

In our December article we asked: what do hard forks mean for my NFTs? In this article we ask a similar question: how does a copy of an NFT on completely different chain (Bitcoin, not Ethereum), affect value and licenses?

A number of questions arise. Does the holder of the copycat Ordinal on Bitcoin require a license corresponding to the Ethereum NFT? What happens to the Ethereum NFT purchaser’s rights granted to it under the license, which may or may not include a commercial right to exploit and sublicense? Does an Ordinal inscription of an Ethereum NFT fall under a purchaser’s general non-commercial use and public display rights that are generally given to purchasers on NFT marketplaces? Does the original Ethereum NFT holder hold one set of rights and the holder of the copycat on Ordinals possess any rights that may be in conflict with the original NFT holder’s? Generally speaking, would the value of the NFT be affected if two identical copies exist on two different blockchains? Does the NFT owner or project have a say in which blockchain to recognize? Has any IP infringement occurred?

The NFT community has been humming in 2023 after the recent rise in Bitcoin NFT mints. Ordinals, a non-fungible token (“NFT”) protocol, sent the community buzzing in January 2023 when it launched on the Bitcoin blockchain (as updated by soft forks in the protocol in 2017 and 2021, which among other things, added new features to the blockchain and increased the block size from 1MB to 4MB and allowed for the inscription of data). Bitcoin evangelists – true believers in Bitcoin as hard money – appreciate that the Bitcoin blockchain’s development is optimized for non-censorable, decentralized money but not file storage and consider Ordinals as immutable JPEG garbage that will only create network congestion, thereby increasing fees, and should be viewed as beneath the original peer-to-peer mission. Conversely, NFT enthusiasts and the blockchain curious are celebrating Bitcoin’s NFT scene as an innovative use of the chain: unlike traditional Ethereum-based NFTs (where the original underlying asset generally resides on a centralized server or the IPFS), Ordinals reside on-chain.  Needless to say, the rise of NFTs on the original blockchain is not without questions.

This article is Part I of a two-part article on Ordinals. In this part, we will break down Ordinals, explaining Ordinal Theory, ins-and-outs and functions. In Part II, we will dive into the implications of having NFTs on two separate blockchains.

On November 30, 2022, amidst the tumult roiling the cryptocurrency industry following the latest collapse of a major crypto exchange and its reverberations throughout the crypto economy, European Central Bank (ECB) Director General Ulrich Bindseil and Adviser Jürgen Schaaf published a post on the ECB Blog, “Bitcoin’s last stand,” declaiming that Bitcoin “has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions” and that its market valuation is “based purely on speculation” and, on top of that, “the Bitcoin system is an unprecedented polluter.”  The scathing rebuke of Bitcoin, the largest crypto asset by market cap, was hurled at what the ECB officials see as Bitcoin’s technological shortcomings that make it “questionable as a means of payment” and “rarely used for legal transactions,” given that real Bitcoin transactions are “cumbersome, slow and expensive.” With the current price of Bitcoin having fallen since it peak of $69K in November 2021, the ECB officials described its current price (below $20K) as “an artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance.” The remarks echo statements made by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, back in April 2022 where he decried the entire “crypto gamble,” seeing crypto-assets as “bringing about instability and insecurity – the exact opposite of what they promised.” (See also recent statements by a Bank of England deputy governor noting that cryptocurrency was a “gamble” that needs to be regulated similar to the traditional financial sector, echoing his own remarks from November 2022 that urged “bringing the activities of the crypto world within the relevant regulatory frameworks”).

As cryptocurrencies continue to make their way into mainstream consciousness, individuals—even beyond those in the tech sector—have been interested in receiving their pay (or a part of it) in cryptocurrency.  This has prompted an increasing number of employers to consider, compensating their employees with Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies.  While…

On January 20, 2022, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce (the “Committee”) held a hearing on the energy consumption associated with cryptocurrency activity. In announcing the hearing on January 12, 2022, Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Oversight and Investigations Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO) stated: “In just a few short years, cryptocurrency has seen a meteoric rise in popularity. It’s time to understand and address the steep energy and environmental impacts it is having on our communities and our planet.”

By the close of the hearings, committee members received a two-hour lesson about a wide range of topics: blockchain (and its varying types of consensus mechanisms) and its energy impact to the climate; how crypto mining can affect utilities’ management of energy resources and ultimately the price consumers pay for their electricity; how utilities work with energy-intensive miners; and where to strike the balance between green energy goals and the economic development of cryptocurrency. A number of members of the Committee appeared open to preserving the potential innovations and economic growth from blockchain while still improving efficiencies in power usage and achieving growth in renewables.

This is Part I of a two-part post on the issues raised by the Congressional hearing on the energy usage of blockchains. In this part, we will discuss how different blockchain consensus mechanisms impact energy usage and some potential solutions discussed at the hearing. In Part II, we will delve into some ESG considerations now affecting businesses as related to cryptocurrency investments and blockchain usage.

The tide of regulation of cryptocurrency and blockchain could be turning in the United States. Following comments by newly-confirmed Treasury Secretary (and former Federal Reserve Chair) Janet Yellen describing Bitcoin as “inefficient” and “extremely volatile,” the price of the coin dropped 10% in 24 hours. During her confirmation hearings, Yellen…

Late last year, the SEC filed a litigated action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executive officers (collectively, “Ripple”), alleging that Ripple raised over $1.3 billion in unregistered offerings of the digital asset known as XRP.…

One driver for the first widely adopted cryptocurrency Bitcoin was to create a store of value that existed outside of government control. It is therefore no surprise that attempts to regulate the rapidly developing crypto asset market have required great efforts from regulators and legislators around the world to keep apace.

In this blog, we compare key drivers and results of the regulatory approach being taken in the US and UK. While the U.S. is leading the way on the enforcement of crypto regulations, the UK has taken greater steps in relation to banking approvals. With regard to tax treatment, the position is becoming much clearer in both jurisdictions.

First though, is there even “an” approach within each country?