STAMP

STAMPS: A Protocol for Storing Images On-Chain in Transaction Outputs Immutably on Bitcoin IMPORTANT NOTICE: STAMPS IS A BLOCKCHAIN-AGNOSTIC PROTOCOL. FOR RULES SPECIFIC TO THE BITCOIN STAMPS PROJECT, PLEASE VISIT:

Storing "Art on the Blockchain" as a method of achieving permanence is often a misnomer in the NFT world. Most NFTs are merely image pointers to centralized hosting or stored on-chain in prunable witness data. We propose a method of embedding base64-formatted image data using transaction outputs in a novel fashion.

The means by which this is achieved is encoding an image's binary content to a base64 string, placing this string as a suffix to STAMP: in a transaction's description key, and then broadcasting it using the Counterparty protocol onto the Bitcoin ledger. The length of the string means that Counterparty defaults to bare multisig, thereby chunking the data into outputs rather than using the limited (and prunable) OP_RETURN. By doing so, the data is preserved in such a manner that is impossible to prune from a fullnode, preserving the data immutably forever.

Given the cost of preserving data in this manner, we suggest the following guidance: 24x24 pixel, 8-colour-depth PNG or GIF. The constraints of this "canvas" are ideal for pixel art. In particular, the CryptoPunks use a native resolution of 24x24 pixels.

STAMPS will be numbered based on the transaction timestamp. This is to ensure that the STAMPS directory is ordered chronologically. The first STAMP will be the first transaction to include the STAMP: string with a valid base64 string appended in the description key, and so on. A transaction with an invalid or indecipherable base64 string will not be considered a STAMP. The STAMP number will begin at zero and continue indefinitely.