Gone are the days of logging into your Leather wallet and seeing black boxes where your recursive inscriptions should be. 

Today, Leather users’ recursive inscriptions will be fully displayed in their browser extension app. This means that users can see their recursive inscriptions displayed in full color, animations included. 

We believe that building a complete Ordinals experience for our Bitcoin wallet users includes the ability to completely view their inscriptions in one place. This includes recursive inscriptions, which have been on the rise among Ordinals collectors since their inception.

Our goal is to give users the most interactive and engaging tools as they explore the Ordinals ecosystem. This includes offering users features that match the latest developments making waves in the Ordinals community. 

Where – and How – Can I See My Recursive Inscriptions?

Users may remember that recursive inscriptions appeared as black boxes in your “Collectibles” section.

With the latest update, users can scroll down to their “Collectibles” section and get a full preview of their recursive inscriptions that includes animations. In other words, we’ve made it so that Leather users can see their recursive inscriptions come to life within their own wallets. 

Data associated with recursive inscriptions is still available to users as well. Users simply need to click on their recursive inscription and they will be taken to a new tab with all the relevant information.

What are Bitcoin Ordinals?

Recursive inscriptions are directly related to the Ordinals protocol introduced by Casey Rodarmor in early 2023. 

With Ordinal theory, individual satoshis (sats) – the smallest denomination of Bitcoin – can be assigned a unique number that helps to identify and track each sat. Sats are numbered based on the order that they are mined and they can also be inscribed with digital content.

The ability to inscribe data to sats as Bitcoin transactions meant that users could effectively inscribe content directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain. That gave rise to the popularity of Ordinal inscriptions, which became synonymous with the Bitcoin NFT landscape.

It is, however, important to note that inscriptions are inherently different from NFTs. Inscriptions are generally considered to be digital artifacts rather than non-fungible tokens, thanks to a number of criteria that Rodarmor has laid out. 

Initially, only 4MB worth of data could be inscribed per Ordinal (the maximum block size for Bitcoin transactions. The advent of recursive inscriptions, however, expanded the inscription limit and paved the way for more complex projects on Bitcoin.

So, what are recursive inscriptions?

Recursive inscriptions essentially help users break free of the 4MB data limit by calling on data from prior inscriptions. Users can basically daisy-chain data through a series of calls, which allows them to exceed the 4MB data limit by reducing the amount of data needed to add to each satoshi.

While developers are still in the early stages (relatively speaking) of experimenting with recursive inscriptions, there are a number of projects that have already made use of the technology. For example, OnChainMonkey used recursion to inscribe collections like OCM Dimensions. Recursions allowed them to mint animated 3D inscriptions under 1KB in size adding another dimension, so to speak, to what inscriptions could be. 

And art, according to proponents of recursive inscriptions, is just the start. By minimizing the volume of data that can be inscribed on each sat, recursions have expanded Ordinals-related use cases and reduced transaction costs. This includes everything from permissionless contracts to more complicated projects like video games, expanding the possibilities of what can be built on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Your recursive inscriptions are on full display with Leather

Leather users should be able to interact with the Ordinals ecosystem as it grows. Our latest update is just another step in making Leather the go-to Bitcoin wallet for Ordinal collections.

Ultimately, we’re connecting users to the latest developments of Bitcoin Web3. Ordinals are just a piece of the wider Bitcoin Web3 puzzle, albeit an important one that represents a big milestone for the Bitcoin community.

Connect to web3 applications built on Bitcoin with the Leather browser extension. Install Leather – the only wallet you need to tap into the multilayered Bitcoin economy – today.