Bitcoin thought leaders weigh the pros and cons of Ordinals

cointelegraph.com:

Ordinals are here to stay. Ordinals, or the ability to permanently ink the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain with data, typically in the format of a picture or jpeg, are a controversial topic among some members of the Bitcoin and wider crypto community. Not so for the builders and the CEOs of Bitcoin-focused companies who were present at the Bitcoin conference, Advancing Bitcoin in London. 

Cointelegraph asked several CEOs, builders and key opinion leaders for their views on ordinals throughout the conference. The overarching sentiment was that of curiosity, indifference or deference.

Alex Leishman, CEO of River, told Cointelegraph that he doesn’t have a stance on ordinals just yet, but has recently been gifted an ordinal.

For example, Leishman recently played the vintage computer game Doom on an ordinal. “Someone had embedded doom in JavaScript and in a small web page in an ordinal,” which Leishman loaded up from the blockchain. 

Eric Sirion, cofounder and advisor to Fedi, and maintainer of the open source protocol Fedimint told Cointelegraph that he’s also “pretty neutral” on Ordinals. 

Sirion added that he’s not necessarily a fan of Ordinals as it might blow up the blockchain a bit, but “Who am I to tell other people what to do with the fees they pay like?”

The Bitcoin blockchain has since “bloated,” reaching an averageblock size all time high, but fees have remained more or less consistent.

Benoit Mazouk, CEO of UK based Bitcoin exchange, Bitcoinpoint, shared Sirion’s concerns about blockchain congestion. He explained that while he understands that Bitcoin key opinion leaders, such as CEO of Blocksstream Dr Adam Back, who commented that ordinals are “useless” (insert tweet), for Mazouk, he’s “more into Bitcoin as a currency.” 

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