Nick Hansen (Luxor) on Ordinals, Blockspace, and Mining Pools (EP.407)

Nick Hansen is the cofounder and CEO of Luxor, a Bitcoin mining pool. He joins to talk to us about his excitement around ordinals and inscriptions, and how Luxor is thinking about the opportunity.

The history of ordinals and how Luxor got started in the space How Luxor mined the first 4MB block in Bitcoin Luxor’s decision to acquire Ordinalhub and their intentions with the project Risks Luxor incurred by mining the first 4MB block Transaction standardness versus validity How ordinals increase the overall quantity of Bitcoin blockspace The risks of out of band fees to Bitcoin Does Bitcoin already have MEV? How does the block reward decay make reorgs more likely? Where Luxor sees opportunity in ordinals Have inscriptions had a material impact on miner rewards? The effect of inscriptions on fees Transacting with PSBTs versus standard NFT marketplaces Nick’s confidence in the long-term persistence of Bitcoin state Why it’s virtually impossible to purge state in Bitcoin Are ordinals and inscriptions a violation of the implied Bitcoin social contract? Have inscriptions inadvertently ossified Bitcoin at the protocol level?