Ordinals, inscriptions, and BRC-20: practical guide to using Unisat on Bitcoin

Okay, so check this out—Bitcoin isn’t just for money anymore. It’s a ledger that now stores tiny digital artifacts: images, text, code, and even token standards like BRC-20. At first glance this feels wild. My instinct said: “Wait, Bitcoin as an NFT platform?” But then reality set in—Ordinals and inscriptions are simple and powerful, and they changed how people use satoshis. Here’s a clear, practical rundown for folks working with Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, and how to use unisat as a handy wallet/interface.

Short version: Ordinals let you number sats and inscribe data onto them. BRC-20 is an experimental token standard built on that capability. Unisat is a browser-wallet and manager that supports both inscriptions and BRC-20 workflows. But the devil’s in the details—fees, mempool dynamics, and persistence of data matter a lot.

What are Ordinals and inscriptions?

Ordinals are a numbering scheme for satoshis—each satoshi can get a serial number based on transaction ordering and then carry an inscription, which is literally data written into a transaction output. This isn’t a sidechain or layer-2 trick; it’s on-chain storage using SegWit and taproot-friendly patterns.

Inscription is the act of embedding arbitrary data into a satoshi. That data can be an image, a short script, or structured text. The network treats it like any other transaction output, but indexing software tracks the inscription content and maps it to the satoshi’s ordinal number.

Why people care: it’s immutable, permissionless, and uses Bitcoin’s settlement guarantees. Why some worry: it’s expensive and can bloat the chain when used at scale, raising debates about priorities and long-term node storage.

How BRC-20 tokens work (high level)

BRC-20 borrows the idea of “inscribing JSON metadata” to represent token state changes. Think of it as a stamp-based ledger: you inscribe a JSON with an operation like deploy, mint, or transfer. Indexers read that history and construct token balances offchain by replaying the inscriptions.

Important caveats: BRC-20 is not an on-chain smart contract. There’s no enforced execution or guaranteed atomicity. Transfers are a sequence of inscriptions that indexers interpret. That makes tooling fragile: different indexers may disagree on edge cases, and front-running/mempool reordering can affect outcomes.

On the positive side, BRC-20 is extremely permissionless—anyone can create a token by inscribing the right JSON. On the downside, token supply, provenance, and transfer semantics rely on convention and indexer consistency rather than protocol-level enforcement.

Why use Unisat (and how it fits)

unisat is a browser wallet and extension that focused early on Ordinals and BRC-20 support, providing UI for inscription creation, browsing, and simple token operations. It’s the go-to for many collectors and traders of inscriptions because it integrates inscription crafting, fee estimation, and a built-in explorer-like view.

Use cases where Unisat shines: creating inscriptions (images, text, small files), participating in BRC-20 mints, and managing ordinals you hold. It reduces friction compared to raw bitcoin-cli/manual PSBT flows, while still giving you control over inputs and outputs like a proper self-custody wallet.

How to inscribe with Unisat — practical notes

Stepwise, roughly: pick the data you want to inscribe (keep it small), prepare funds in your wallet, create an inscription transaction via the Unisat UI, set an appropriate fee, and broadcast. Sounds simple. In practice you must think about fees, UTXO selection, and change outputs, because a poorly crafted transaction can cause your inscription to be expensive or even fail to index properly.

Fees: inscriptions are larger-than-normal transactions, so estimate with current block demand in mind. If you’re minting many small inscribed items (like BRC-20 mints), spreading them across blocks or using different fee strategies may be necessary. Also, mempool behavior can reorder inscription operations, which affects BRC-20 mint outcomes—so time-sensitive mints need a bit of luck and quick reactions.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Here’s what bugs me about the space: newcomers often treat inscriptions like cheap NFTs. They’re not. Storage costs real Bitcoin, and if you’re not careful your UTXO set can get messy. Also, don’t assume every explorer indexes every inscription—if an indexer misses your transaction, it might not show up on some marketplaces.

Best practices: consolidate UTXOs beforehand if possible (avoid dust), double-check fee rates, and test with small inscriptions before committing large data. Keep backups of your wallet seed; if you lose your keys there’s no “recover inscription” option—ownership is purely key-based.

Security and custody considerations

Inscribed sats are ordinary sats from a protocol perspective, so custody follows usual Bitcoin rules. If you control the private keys, you control the inscriptions. That means hardware wallets and strong seed management are your friends. Be mindful when using hot wallets or browser extensions—phishing is a real risk. Unisat can be used with hardware devices depending on your setup; verify that before moving high value items.

Also, be mindful of metadata leaks. When you inscribe something public, the content is permanently stored on-chain and visible. Don’t inscribe private keys, personal info, or copyrighted content you don’t own—there are legal and ethical levers to worry about.

Future, scalability, and the cultural layer

On one hand, inscriptions added a creative and cultural layer to Bitcoin that the community didn’t expect. On the other hand, widespread inscription usage stresses bandwidth and storage and forces a conversation about priorities. There are proposals and tooling tweaks to improve efficiency—like better indexer standards, off-chain metadata that references content instead of embedding it, or fee-market adjustments that make spam less profitable.

I’m biased toward experimentation. This part excites me. But I’m also cautious: the ecosystem must balance novelty with long-term node health. It’s a tension worth watching.