What is the Difference Between your Bitcoin and Ordinal Address?
What is an Ordinal/Inscription
The terms Inscription and Ordinal are often used synonymously, but they aren't the same. Ordinal refers to a numbering scheme assigned to individual satoshis based on the order in which they were mined (created). This system allows for the tracking and transferring of individual satoshis. An inscription is created when data is inscribed and then associated with one of these individual satoshis.
Just like each US Dollar is divisible by 100 cents, each Bitcoin is divisible by 100 million satoshis. Imagine you scratch your name, a smiley face, or any other piece of data onto a penny. You have just inscribed data onto that penny.
The Difference In Addresses
There is a Bitcoin spending and receiving address for general network transactions. Then you have an Ordinal address for storing your inscribed satoshis. All Ordinal addresses utilize taproot and will always begin with ‘bc1’.
Why have different addresses
Using our penny example, if you were to go buy a box of cereal and hand over the change in your wallet to the cashier, you wouldn’t want to hand over your “inscribed” smiley face penny!
So that penny must be kept separate from your other coins that you are planning to spend. Just like an individual penny with your smiley face scratched onto it, you don't want to spend the satoshis with data inscribed on them when making regular Bitcoin transactions.
Wallets like Xverse will automatically generate a separate Ordinal address for you alongside your regular Bitcoin spending address to avoid the accidental spending that would otherwise be commonplace without this organizational measure.
How can I view my Ordinals
Wallets compatible with Ordinals will display your Ordinals in a fashion similar to NFTs on other chains ex. Metamask or Phantom. They manage multiple addresses for you so that you can continue to spend from your main wallet accounts and also hold onto and collect Ordinals.
Safety
Ordinal wallet providers have made this process easier to manage but it is still on the individual user to make sure they are transacting with the proper wallet for what they intend to do. Always double-check that the address you are using is correct before submitting any transaction. Wallet providers will not be able to help you recover lost assets if sent to the wrong location.
Do not send Bitcoin to your Ordinal receiving address and do not send Ordinals to your Bitcoin receiving address.
The terms Inscription and Ordinal are often used synonymously, but they aren't the same. Ordinal refers to a numbering scheme assigned to individual satoshis based on the order in which they were mined (created). This system allows for the tracking and transferring of individual satoshis. An inscription is created when data is inscribed and then associated with one of these individual satoshis.
Just like each US Dollar is divisible by 100 cents, each Bitcoin is divisible by 100 million satoshis. Imagine you scratch your name, a smiley face, or any other piece of data onto a penny. You have just inscribed data onto that penny.
The Difference In Addresses
There is a Bitcoin spending and receiving address for general network transactions. Then you have an Ordinal address for storing your inscribed satoshis. All Ordinal addresses utilize taproot and will always begin with ‘bc1’.
Why have different addresses
Using our penny example, if you were to go buy a box of cereal and hand over the change in your wallet to the cashier, you wouldn’t want to hand over your “inscribed” smiley face penny!
So that penny must be kept separate from your other coins that you are planning to spend. Just like an individual penny with your smiley face scratched onto it, you don't want to spend the satoshis with data inscribed on them when making regular Bitcoin transactions.
Wallets like Xverse will automatically generate a separate Ordinal address for you alongside your regular Bitcoin spending address to avoid the accidental spending that would otherwise be commonplace without this organizational measure.
How can I view my Ordinals
Wallets compatible with Ordinals will display your Ordinals in a fashion similar to NFTs on other chains ex. Metamask or Phantom. They manage multiple addresses for you so that you can continue to spend from your main wallet accounts and also hold onto and collect Ordinals.
Safety
Ordinal wallet providers have made this process easier to manage but it is still on the individual user to make sure they are transacting with the proper wallet for what they intend to do. Always double-check that the address you are using is correct before submitting any transaction. Wallet providers will not be able to help you recover lost assets if sent to the wrong location.
Do not send Bitcoin to your Ordinal receiving address and do not send Ordinals to your Bitcoin receiving address.
Updated on: 08/03/2024
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