EthOrdinal Theory

Minting

Minting an EthOrdinal couldn't be easier, just go to the Mint page and follow the instructions. A minted EthOrdinal acts as a blank canvas that you can inscribe in a variety of ways.

Inscribing

Inscribing an EthOrdinal adds data to the EthOrdinal. All you need are two properties to make it usable as an NFT in the EthOrdinal Universe, but much more is possible. The two properties that you need to inscribe are content and metadata.

Inscribing Content

The content property contains the content of your EthOrdinal. It is usually an image or html.

Inscribing Metadata

The metadata property is a JSON file that describes you EthOrdinal. Minimal metadata looks like:

  {
    "name": "EthOrdinal Name",
    "desc": "EthOrdinal description ...",
    "category": ["main", "secondary", "secondary"],
    "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"]
  }

Collections

If an EthOrdinal has a parent, it's part of a collection. To establish a collection, create an EthOrdinal with metadata and content to represent the collection.

To add to the collection, create EthOrdinals and assign the original EthOrdinal as their parent. Child metadata primarily only needs a name; other attributes are inherited from the collection's metadata.

Using Generative Art Links

For generative art collections, a "link" property type exists. If you assign a link to the content property of a child EthOrdinal, then accessing the content will be redirected to the provided link. The format is:

/chain/ordid/property?queryparms.

The system merges query parameters from the given URL with the link's parameters, with the original URL parameters taking precedence.

Link Example

As an example, suppose you have a generative art project on the Base chain with OrdId 33 and property content. The content property is an html file that contains your generative art project logic. A link from a child might appear as:

/1/33/content?randSeed=12343.

Suppose you have a child EthOrdinal on the Base chain with OrdId 444. If you set the content to the link above, then accessing the child EthOrdinal at

https://ords.ethordinal.org/1/444/content

redirects to

https://ords.ethordinal.org/1/33/content?randSeed=1234.

This mechanism means child generative art EthOrdinals simply need a content link property type to display as intended.

TOC