What Is The Witness Discount?

The witness discount refers to the reduction in data “weight” given to the witness portion of a Bitcoin transaction — the part that contains the signatures used to prove ownership. Implemented as part of the 2017 segregated witness (SegWit) upgrade, this discount effectively lowered the fees for SegWit transactions by making the witness data count for less when calculating the total size of a transaction. In simpler terms, the witness data gets a 75% discount, meaning that it only counts as one-quarter of its actual size when determining how much…

What Are BRC-20 Tokens? An Introduction

Introduction BRC-20 tokens are an experimental and inefficient token standard designed for creating fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. Inspired by Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens, BRC-20 tokens leverage the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol to inscribe data onto individual satoshis, making them transferable and tradable. Origins of BRC-20 Tokens The BRC-20 token standard was introduced by a pseudonymous developer named Domo in March 2023. This development came shortly after the launch of the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol in January 2023 by Casey Rodarmor, which allowed users to inscribe data onto individual satoshis, enabling the…