Bitcoin Ordinals Glossary — Every Term Explained

Confused by ordinals jargon? This glossary covers every term you'll encounter.

Core Terms

• Ordinal — A protocol for numbering individual satoshis on Bitcoin
• Inscription — Data (image, text, etc.) permanently written to a satoshi
• Satoshi (sat) — Smallest Bitcoin unit (1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats)
• UTXO — Unspent Transaction Output — how Bitcoin tracks balances
• Rune — Fungible token standard on Bitcoin (by Casey Rodarmor)
• BRC-20 — Older token standard using inscriptions (mostly replaced by Runes)
• Taproot — Bitcoin upgrade that enabled efficient inscriptions
• OP_RETURN — Bitcoin opcode used by Runes for token data

Collection Terms

• Floor price — Cheapest available item in a collection
• Inscription number — Sequential number of when it was inscribed
• Content type — MIME type (image/png, text/plain, etc.)
• Parent inscription — Collection identifier inscription

Tools

• Look up inscriptions: Inscription Checker
• Browse collections: ordinals.best
• View gallery: ordinals.pics