TL; DR
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During his last appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Elon Musk discussed how most NFTs don’t actually contain images, but instead: links to images.
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…and the Bitcoin community had a great day with it!
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Why? Because Bitcoin NFTs (aka ‘Ordinals’) don’t link to images, but actually store the entire image file on the Bitcoin blockchain – making it more permanent than most other options.
Full story
In life we are destined to experience a wide variety of “Oh, I didn’t know that” moments, for example:
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‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia is actually a cover.
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If you folded a sheet of paper 50 times, it would reach a third of the way to the sun (that’s the power of connection, baaaby!).
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And most NFTs don’t actually contain images, but instead: links to images.
The latter was just announced to the wider world by Elon Musk during his last appearance about the Joe Rogan experience.
…and the Bitcoin community had a great day with it!
Why? Because Bitcoin NFTs (aka ‘Ordinals’) don’t link to images, but actually store the entire image file on the Bitcoin blockchain – making it more permanent than most other options.
Think of it as saving a file to your laptop’s hard drive instead of saving it to Google Drive.
You have ultimate control over what happens to the image file while it is on your hard drive. If Google were to crash/lose a bunch of user data/go bankrupt, your image file (and the link) would be at risk.
…OK. Permanent/semi-permanent – who Real does it matter?
(Almost) no one.
Digital sustainability isn’t really something we have to worry about in our daily lives…
Buuuut:
When you’re spending millions of dollars on a digital work of art, you want to know that it will stand the test of time.
On-chain image hosting (that is available across multiple blockchains, but guaranteed on Bitcoin) helps assure buyers of the durability of an NFT.
Okay, now you know!