On Monday, June 3, Luminex, the Bitcoin Ordinals launchpad, introduced a new standard named BRC-69. This standard is said to greatly enhance the efficiency and affordability of inscription on the network, with estimated reductions of up to 90% in inscription fees according to the launchpad.
The Ordinals protocol underwent an update in March 2023, allowing for the creation of BRC-20 tokens, which have gained substantial adoption since then. According to Coingecko, there are currently 35,528 BRC-20 tokens in circulation, with a market capitalization exceeding $249 million.
The growing number of BRC-20 transactions has resulted in a scarcity of block space on the Bitcoin network, causing an increase in BTC transaction fees due to the higher number of pending transactions.
A quarterly report by IntoTheBlock highlighted a surge of over 300% in Bitcoin network fees during the second quarter of 2023. The BRC-20 standard and the creation of new tokens were identified as major contributing factors to the rise in on-chain fees.
To alleviate this network strain, Luminex has developed the BRC-69 standard, which is touted as a groundbreaking innovation. According to the launchpad, this standard reduces inscription costs and optimizes Bitcoin block space as the number of inscriptions grows.
Luminex claims that the BRC-69 standard achieves cost reduction through a four-step process: “inscribe traits,” “deploy collection,” “compile collection,” and “mint assets.” This means that minters only need to inscribe a single line of text instead of a complete image.
By using this text as a reference, the final image can be automatically rendered across Ordinals frontends, utilizing on-chain resources only. Luminex states that this results in flawlessly rendered images that can be dragged, dropped, and saved as typical image formats in the Ordinals ecosystem.
In addition to cost efficiency, Luminex’s proposal suggests that the BRC-69 standard offers high flexibility and lays the groundwork for other on-chain functionalities. Some of these features include pre-reveal collection launches and on-chain reveals.
It is important to note that Bitcoin Ordinals remains a contentious topic in the cryptocurrency industry, as a significant portion of the Bitcoin community opposes the protocol. Critics argue that this technology adversely affects the efficiency and security of the Bitcoin network.