‘Sour grape’ maximalists hate him: How Casey Rodarmor brought JPEGs to Bitcoin

by Davis Quinton, Frank Chaparro, and Tim Copeland

Layer 1s • March 3, 2023, 7:20AM EST

UPDATED: March 28, 2023, 11:47PM EDT

Episode 17 of Season 5 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro & Tim Copeland and the creator of Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor.

Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Feedback and revision requests can be sent to [email protected].

Casey Rodarmor is the creator of Ordinal Theory — a numbering scheme for Bitcoin's atomic unit, 'satoshis' or 'sats,' which allows individual sats to be inscribed with information, thereby unlocking a new frontier of possibilities and use cases for Bitcoin.

In this episode, Rodarmor explains how Ordinals are causing veteran members of the bitcoin community to confront their own beliefs about what sort of information should be recorded on-chain, and why he believes his project is a continuation of Satoshi's original vision for Bitcoin.

During this episode, Chaparro, Copeland and Rodarmor also discuss:

The historical connection between money and art
Yuga Labs' bitcoin project
Bitcoin inscriptions vs. Ethereum NFTs

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Circle, Railgun, Flare Network

About Circle
Circle is a global financial technology company helping money move at internet speed. Our mission is to raise global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value. Visit Circle.com/Scoop to learn more.

About Railgun
Railgun is a private DeFi solution on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum and Polygon. Shield any ERC-20 token and any NFT into a Private Balance and let Railgun’s zero-knowledge cryptography encrypt your address, balance and transaction history. You can also bring privacy to your project with Railgun SDK, and be sure to check out Railgun with partner project Railway Wallet, also available on iOS and Android. Visit Railgun.org to find out more.

About Flare
Flare is an EVM-based Layer 1 blockchain designed to allow developers to build applications that can use data from other blockchains and the internet. By providing decentralized access to a wide variety of high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, Flare enables new use cases and monetization models. Build better and connect everything at Flare.Network.

About Authors

Davis Quinton is the Director of Podcasts at The Block and runs our flagship podcast called The Scoop, hosted by Frank Chaparro. Since joining The Block as an 'intern' in early 2022, he has worked closely with leaders across departments to translate The Block's written content into engaging multimedia formats. He holds a degree in Social Research & Public Policy from New York University in Abu Dhabi and is based in Sydney, Australia.

Frank Chaparro is Host of The Scoop podcast and Director of Special Projects. He also writes a biweekly newsletter. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. For inquiries or tips, email [email protected].

Tim is the Editor-In-Chief of The Block. Prior to joining The Block, Tim was a news editor at Decrypt. He has earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of York and studied news journalism at Press Association Training. Follow him on X @Timccopeland.