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Introduction
Ordinals Market is a marketplace for trading inscriptions - an innovation built on top of Bitcoin that can most simply be thought of as NFTs for Bitcoin. Ordinals allow a variety of data including text, images and video to be inscribed on a single Satoshi (the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin) and permanently stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. These inscribed Satoshis can then sent between wallets, just like any other Bitcoin transaction, effectively allowing the transfer of ownership of the inscription. You can read more about ordinal theory and how the protocol works on ordinals.com.
Ordinals Market facilitates the trading of Bitcoin inscriptions on the Ethereum blockchain using technology developed by Emblem Vault. Although it is possible to trade inscriptions natively on Bitcoin, it isn't always a smooth and user-friendly experience due to the slow speed of the Bitcoin network. The solution is therefore to store each inscription that you wish to trade inside a vault - an ERC-721 token that lives on the Ethereum blockchain and can be traded and transferred just like any other ERC-721 token.
The vault itself contains the encrypted private keys to the Bitcoin address that owns the inscription. It can be cracked open by the owner at any time, decrypting the private keys and allowing the inscription to be claimed directly on the Bitcoin network. If the vault is opened and the Bitcoin private keys are exposed then the ERC-721 token is burned (meaning it can no longer be traded on Ethereum). Alternatively, the vault owner can choose to keep their inscription inside the vault and on Ethereum to allow for easier trading and transfer.
The following sections of this guide will explain in detail the process of working with Emblem Vaults.
Last modified 5d ago