BRC-721

BRC-721 and the Decentralization of Collections in Ordinals

Ordinal Theory has not specified a method for assembling projects into collections. As a result, different entities have attempted to implement their approaches. However, these approaches are centralized and depend on specific services or wallets, limiting the Ordinal ecosystem and providing numerous opportunities for malicious actors.

BRC-721 introduces a decentralized and trustless approach to creating collections and enables a mechanism for posterior display, similar to the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain.

By providing a single authoritative source, it aims to simplify the process of collection creation and verification without the need for upfront fees.

The protocol specifies the data structure for collections and their items in the inventory. The inventory and validation rules determine whether an ordinal inscription belongs to a particular collection. This decentralized and trustless approach enhances the security and integrity of the Ordinal ecosystem, reducing reliance on centralized entities and mitigating opportunities for undesirable behaviors.

Compared to NFTs on Ethereum, NFTs engraved on Bitcoin through BRC-721 exhibit the following characteristics: