Bitcoin has entered a civil war — Over ‘art’
The Ordinals Protocol is generating a circular digital economy where assets are priced, bought and sold via Bitcoin. In an email dated Jan. 17, 1993, Hal Finney — a developer and early contributor to Bitcoin — shared the concept of “encrypted digital cards,” which are now known as nonfungible tokens (NFTs). “Giving a little more thought to the idea of buying and selling digital cash, I thought of a way to present it,” Finney wrote at the time. “We’re buying and selling ‘cryptographic trading cards.’” The most fascinating detail of his email lies in the fact that, by sharing this idea, Finney intended to facilitate the understanding of the concept of digital money. His vision foreshadowed what we saw in 2021 with the NFT boom. Overnight, the crypto space shifted from being solely about financial decentralization to also encompassing the decentralization of art, gaming, entertainment and more. Hal Finney's email about "encrypted digital cards." The narrative that was once ...