Elon Musk Debates the Benefits of Bitcoin and NFTs

Elon Musk Highlights the Use of Bitcoin Ordinals

In an Oct. 31 interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk publicly mocked non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He stated that such projects should at least encode the JPEG on-chain. However, his remarks inadvertently highlighted the case for Bitcoin Ordinals, also known as Bitcoin NFTs.

Bitcoin Ordinals were launched in January by developer Casey Rodarmor, thanks to the Taproot soft fork in November 2021. This was not lost on Bitcoiners, who argued that Musk’s comments actually summed up the use case for Bitcoin Ordinals.

Crypto enthusiasts and NFT fans alike have been following Musk’s journey into the world of crypto and NFTs, as well as his musings on the best crypto podcast and the latest crypto memes.

Elon Musk’s NFT Comments

Cryptocurrency analyst Will Clemente was among those that applauded Elon Musk’s remarks, noting the 38 million and counting Ordinals inscriptions that will remain on Bitcoin’s blockchain.

“This is why Ordinals will keep on developing,” said Rohun “Frank” Vora, the creator of the NFT projects DeGods and y00ts. “It’s the most exquisite answer for one of the most pervasive critiques of NFTs.”

Ordinals developer known as “Leonidas” was so pleased with Musk’s comments that they inscribed the 19-second video into Bitcoin’s blockchain at block 814,773.

Musk’s criticisms towards NFTs are not new. In December 2021, he made fun of NFTs as a sign of psychological illness in a meme showing a patient lying on a therapist’s couch.

Crypto and NFT Projects on Ethereum and Bitcoin

Elon Musk’s comments don’t apply to all NFT projects on Ethereum. For example, Larva Labs moved its Cryptopunks NFTs on-chain in August 2021 after they lived off-chain for the first four years. The team stated that this move would further ensure the survival of the Cryptopunks images and attributes and that they could be accessed by anyone with an Ethereum client.

Metagood, the team behind the Ethereum-native OnChainMonkeys, announced in September that it would migrate its NFTs to Bitcoin.

While the firm’s CEO Danny Yang didn’t directly address the JPEG dilemma, he explained that NFTs “will win on Bitcoin” due to its secure network:

Ethereum still remains the leader in NFT trading volumes, with 84% of the market share in June, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin and ImmutableX followed with 11% and 2.5% respectively.

Crypto enthusiasts have been discussing the benefits of NFTs since November 2021, when Elon Musk tweeted about it, and the crypto meme community has been abuzz with the best crypto podcasts since January 2022.