- Elon Musk was on Joe Rogan to talk about all things crypto, and he said that the biggest problem with NFTs is that they aren’t on-chain.
- Bitcoin maxis praised Musk as NFTs on the Bitcoin network, known as Ordinals, are fully on-chain.
Elon Musk has a history of striking the right chords with Bitcoin fans, and in his latest Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he did it again. The multi-billionaire criticized NFTs for not being on-chain, attracting the praise of Bitcoin maxis on social media platforms.
Musk has been a longtime NFT critic, and this time, he took shots at NFTs for not being stored on-chain.
“The funny thing is the NFT is not even on the blockchain — it’s just a URL to the JPEG,” he told host Joe Roga, adding that this makes them prone to fraud.
You should at least encode the JPEG in the blockchain. If the company housing the image goes out of business, you don’t have the image anymore.
Musk’s criticism is valid. In the past, some companies that house the assets NFT holders claim ownership of have imploded and left them holding worthless tokens. In the recent case of FTX, once the exchange’s servers went down, some of the NFTs it had issued on its platform stopped working.
The Ordinals Way: Musk Praised by Bitcoin Maxis
Bitcoin maxis praised Musk because, with ordinals, all the data is on-chain. Ordinals are NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, which developer Casey Rodarmor launched in January. Ordinals inscribe the artwork—or any other asset—onto the Bitcoin blockchain. The asset ties to a satoshi with a unique identifier.
Ethereum, which houses over 80% of NFTs, relies on smart contracts. However, some projects like Moonbirds have been going the Ordinal’s way.
.@elonmusk you just laid out the case for Bitcoin ordinals – image/text inscriptions directly on the most secure open source monetary network on the planet. There are currently 38 million of these inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain. pic.twitter.com/WASj1qpkz8
— Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) November 1, 2023
Dogecoin creator Billy Markus was among those praising Musk.
“This is why I’ve generally said ordinals are cooler as well,” he tweeted.
