On Monday, DeGods, the popular NFT collection born on Solana, announced it had inscribed 535 DeGods that were once burned onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
The move was made possible by Ordinals, a company that connects NFT-like media and assets to the Bitcoin blockchain using a single Satoshi — the smallest measurement of BTC. An extra infrastructure and platform are necessary to transact and manage the digital asset, but the “Ordinal” and media are stored on-chain.
DeGods is a deflationary NFT collection of PFP avatars from Dust Labs that launched in October 2021. The 535 DeGods NFTs were first burned during the initial phase of DeGods’ launch. But now they’re being brought back to life on Bitcoin.
Kevin from DeGods said Dust Labs worked with Bitcoin miner Nick Hansen to put all 535 NFT inscriptions on a single, exclusive block processed by DMG Blockchain solutions. The pictures were resized to 210X210 in .webp format to save space, and are now preserved on the Bitcoin ledger.
Frank DeGods said that “Bitcoin is the best brand in crypto,” and that aligning with the cryptocurrency he described as “global sound money” is a “no-brainer.”
Ordinals recently made news when it announced it would be inscribing NFT-like metadata onto Bitcoin blocks. In a short period of time, the project has inspired CryptoPunks clones and Web3 games on Bitcoin. This is to the chagrin of Bitcoin maximalists, who say Ordinals increases network congestion and transaction fees, and ultimately, is unnecessary.
But from the perspective of Dust Labs, the idea that “every single node on the planet is now verifying and backing up” the image of the 535 DeGods is powerful. The Web3 studio also said it believes in having a presence on all blockchains. Now it can add Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency and blockchain, to the mix.
DeGods Has Been Busy in Web3
DeGods is a deflationary NFT collection from Dusk Labs that dropped on the Solana blockchain in 2021, and quickly became a top collection. Its global community of entrepreneurs, artists, creators, developers, and athletes are extremely prolific in Web3. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve written several stories about DeGods recently. Here are some of the headlines.
First, early last year, the DeGods DAO bought a basketball team in Ice Cube’s Big3 3X3 basketball league. The DAO reportedly spent $625,000 on the deal, and will receive “fire-tier NFTs” that include event experiences, partial IP rights to the team, and other perks.
Next, in September, Dust Labs announced it had raised $7 million in a strategic funding round. Some of the investors in Dust Labs ecosystem included Foundation Capital, Solana Ventures, Jump, and Metaplex.
Finally, on Christmas day, Rohun Vora, also known as Frank DeGods, revealed that DeGods and y00ts are moving to the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains in the first quarter of 2023. Dust Labs will also bridge its services to Ethereum and Polygon.
Although DeGods is not as well-known as collections like CryptoPunks, BAYC, and Azuki, it’s certainly made a name in the NFT space. For now, the move to mint never-seen-before NFTs onto a Satoshi block could be seen as a publicity stunt by skeptics. But as Dust Labs’ founders are aware, the DeGods’ name and brand are inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain hypothetically forever — and that’s something.