After only four months since the protocol was launched, the ord has its first contentious debate over so-called “cursed” registrations.
The simplest definition of a cursed listing is any listing that is not currently indexed and identified by ord. This term came across as a catch-all when some people incorrectly or deliberately used opcodes to create listings that could not be indexed by ord and would therefore be unrecognized and not given a listing number.
This problem was first mentioned on April 25 in the ord github and the interim fix proposed by then-lead developer Casey Rodarmor was to “Edit ord to recognize currently invalid listings above, including retroactively in old blocks, but consider these new listings ‘cursed’ and assign them negative registration numbers.”
Oddly enough, the sample registration code on the Ordinals docs website would have been a cursed registration.
There are many ways to create cursed inscriptions. Any entry with multiple inputs/outputs would be considered cursed. As noted above, some misuse of opcodes such as OP_1 can lead to cursed registrations. Alternatively, the introduction of OP_66 using a value of “cursed” intentionally made these types of entries by having an even opcode which is not indexed by ord. Unless already defined in the specification, even opcodes are not recognized as they are reserved for future protocol development. The complete list of ways to create cursed inscriptions from number 2045 is as follows:
- Multiple registrations per transaction, for efficient batching.
- Inscriptions on entries after the first, which is useful for collections.
- Multiple registrations on the same sat, so the full history of a sat does not need to be checked to determine if a new registration is valid.
- Registrations with unrecognized even headers, so new even headers don’t prevent upgraded clients from disagreeing on registration numbers.
There are some specific debates around cursed inscriptions. One of the challenges comes from the way these inscriptions are currently numbered. Cursed inscriptions are numbered negatively in the order of their creation. Because of this numbering system and naming convention, some people have deliberately chosen to create inscriptions and collections that look “cursed”, whether by flipping the image of a positively numbered inscription or by using a more sinister image theme when registering. The question is: should they be appended to the index of positive numbered inscriptions or should they retain their negative inscription number when updating the code?
Also, another controversial conversation is what to do about certain type of cursed inscriptions that used opcode OP_66 in their creation. Because this opcode is not recognized by ord and the even numbered opcodes are intentionally left out for future use in development, it is debatable whether registrations using this opcode should be included in the cursed set or whether they should be rejected.
At present, the issue around pair opcode is listed in the github ord. There are many comments in favor of including these listings in the index, but the main protocol officials seem to oppose it. At this time, the current position of the developers is that these inscriptions would not be linked, meaning they would not be assigned to a specific satoshi.
Remember that Ordinal Theory operates on a first-in, first-out tracking system for satoshis. Each inscription is assigned to the first satoshi in the genesis transaction when the inscription is created. This type of lens for watching bitcoin can track and transfer images, files, text, etc. If a cursed inscription is not linked, it would not be associated with a specific satoshi and therefore could not be transferred to another address. Many people who register hope that they can sell or transfer their registration to another person. While listings using this opcode will live forever on the Bitcoin blockchain, if those listings are classified as unlinked and not attributed to a specific satoshi, users who minted cursed listings using this opcode would not be able to sell or sell them. to transfer.
Herein lies one of the biggest concerns for people who spend money on transaction fees to create cursed listings. If they are unable to sell them in the future, significant funds would have been wasted on fees. Many users have responded to the github issue, expressing support for the inclusion of these listings, but code maintainers do not support recognizing cursed listings using the even numbered opcode OP_66.
On May 30, ord’s new main maintainer, Raphjaph, writing, “In the current state of the protocol, registrations are not valid if they use an unrecognized tag pair, so this change already makes a concession by recognizing them. For now, they are unlinked, but we might reconsider and link them in the future if there are good reasons.
This response is not what many registrants were hoping to hear. Similar to Bitcoin, ord is open source software allowing users to fork the code if they wish to recognize these specific types of cursed inscriptions. This contentious debate is ongoing and the way forward for ord remains to be seen. Users who have spent large sums in transaction fees may be willing to upgrade to a newer version of ord that will recognize their cursed registrations, but this is only a theoretical way forward for now.
Either way, ordinals are a new technology built on Bitcoin. Whether the inscriptions are a flash in the pan or have lasting power may depend on how this problem is solved.