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?