The inscription of Bitcoin Ordinals exceeded 10 million, but the founder of the protocol retired

Bitcoin Ordinals hit 10 million inscriptions on Monday, how does the new leader plan to fill protocol creator Casey Rodarmor's position?

**Written by: **André Beganski

Compilation: M7e Metaverse Commando

The red-hot bitcoin protocol Ordinals hit a sizable new milestone on Monday, just days after its creator said he would back down. But Casey Rodarmor won't disappear entirely, the project's new caretaker told Decrypt.

Ordinals, launched by Rodarmor in January, allow the creation of NFT-like assets called inscriptions on bitcoin, in which unique bits of data can be assigned to "satoshis" — bitcoin's smallest divisible unit.

Just under 660,000 inscriptions were created just two months ago, but Ordinals have grown in popularity recently thanks to the use of the protocol to build an experimental token, BRC-20, on top of Bitcoin. The total number of inscriptions created surged to more than 10 million on Monday, May 29, according to Dune's dashboard.

Some crypto exchanges have rolled out support for BRC-20 tokens — which are modeled on ERC-20 tokens like PepeCoin on Ethereum, and NFT marketplaces like Magic Eden have also moved to Adapted to the Ordinals inscription.

Despite the growing attention, Rodarmor tweeted over the weekend that he was stepping down as the protocol's lead maintainer, handing over the reins of the project to a developer who goes by the pseudonym Raph ( ).

"I have never been able to give [Ordinals] Due attention," Rodarmor said on Twitter, and Raph had "agreed to serve as lead maintainer."

Similar to the way Bitcoin Core developers get support through philanthropic acts, Rodarmor said Raph "was [Ordinals] The work will be funded entirely by donations".

Even though Rodarmor's title has changed, he will still be involved in the project, Raph told Decrypt in an interview, explaining that Rodarmor "just doesn't want to be [Ordinals] public image".

Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, left after his creation became popular. But Raph's new role included regular phone calls with Rodarmor, he said.

Rodarmor did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

Raph, who says he works in Germany and is currently studying for a degree in education, said his role will be part-time. But as the project's lead maintainer, he will have greater control over maintaining Ordinals' codebase on Github, where the protocol's latest software can be downloaded.

“Casey was a little bottleneck because I always had to wait for his approval for code reviews and stuff like that,” Raph said. “He’s still doing stuff on GitHub too, and he just wanted me to be his shield.”

Raph pointed out that the project's codebase has been moved from Rodarmor's personal GitHub to an account ( ) belonging to Ordinals as its own organization. He also pointed out that he is not the only one who can release new code or make modifications.

While Ordinals has attracted talent from across the digital asset industry and piqued the interest of companies like MicroStrategy, the protocol has not been fully embraced by the bitcoin community. For example, some Bitcoin hardcore have expressed concern about the high transaction fees imposed by BRC-20 tokens.

Raph said one area of his shifting focus in the coming weeks is documentation, explaining that there will be a community-led effort to provide material on GitHub that will better help people understand the technical elements of Ordinals.

Raph said he's no stranger to Ordinals or Rodarmor, having worked on the project for nearly 10 months -- before the protocol went live.

"I'm very familiar with the codebase. And, more importantly, I'm very familiar with how Casey likes to do things," says Raph, "and that's why I'm the perfect fit for the role."