Nick Hansen (Luxor) on Ordinals, Blockspace, and Mining Pools (EP.407)

Nick Hansen is the cofounder and CEO of Luxor, a Bitcoin mining pool. He joins to talk to us about his excitement around ordinals and inscriptions, and how Luxor is thinking about the opportunity.

  • The history of ordinals and how Luxor got started in the space
  • How Luxor mined the first 4MB block in Bitcoin
  • Luxor’s decision to acquire Ordinalhub and their intentions with the project
  • Risks Luxor incurred by mining the first 4MB block
  • Transaction standardness versus validity
  • How ordinals increase the overall quantity of Bitcoin blockspace
  • The risks of out of band fees to Bitcoin
  • Does Bitcoin already have MEV?
  • How does the block reward decay make reorgs more likely?
  • Where Luxor sees opportunity in ordinals
  • Have inscriptions had a material impact on miner rewards?
  • The effect of inscriptions on fees
  • Transacting with PSBTs versus standard NFT marketplaces
  • Nick’s confidence in the long-term persistence of Bitcoin state
  • Why it’s virtually impossible to purge state in Bitcoin
  • Are ordinals and inscriptions a violation of the implied Bitcoin social contract?
  • Have inscriptions inadvertently ossified Bitcoin at the protocol level?

Check out this episode!