What is the Jubilee?

The "Jubilee" is a update to the ord client that makes certain types of inscriptions on Bitcoin Ordinals no longer cursed. Let's dive in and learn more about it!

Today, in about 7 hours at Bitcoin Block #824,544, something magical happens. Inscriptions on Bitcoin Ordinals will no longer be cursed. This means that if you use one of the inscription methods such as "batch inscription" or different "offsets", your inscriptions will begin being recognized by the ord client.

How did we get here

When Casey Rodarmor initially released the ord reference client, it had many "bugs" or "oversights" due to it's early alpha stage (it is still, according to ordinals.com, in "alpha"). This is because Bitcoin is complex and what Casey was doing was extremely unconventional. Because of this, the client did not recognize many types of inscriptions.

In response, Casey put forth the idea of calling these "cursed" inscriptions and assigning them negative numbers, so that they are at least identified and possibly recognized in the ord client some time in the future. Casey coined the term "Jubilee" for when the different causes of cursed inscriptions would begin being recognized by the ord client.

Casey then set a block height, #824,544, to be the block at which the Jubilee "happens". Many clients such as Bitcoin Core set block heights and then release an "activation client" which hard codes that block height for all clients to switch over at the same time.

Turning back the clock, here is ord repo maintainer Raph listing some of the original curses (some of these have been adjusted in ord versions since). This goes back to the "Inscription numbering debate" where there was dispute about renumbering inscriptions to recognize cursed inscriptions in the order they were inscribed on-chain over the order in which the ord reference client began to recognize them.

What does the Jubilee do?

The Jubilee does NOT make the formerly cursed inscriptions "uncursed". Those cursed inscriptions will have negative numbers forever. What it does do is allow many of the inscription techniques such as batch inscription, inscribing on sat offsets, unconventional enveloping to be recognized by the ord client going forwards.

This significantly increases the efficiency of creating inscriptions that are recognized by ord. With batch inscription & inscribing on different sat offsets within a UTXO, you can reduce fees, inscribe significantly faster, and probably allow more creativity for projects on Bitcoin ordinals.

We wish you all a Happy Jubilee!