Inscribing your Traits
In this section we discuss how, and when you should inscribe your traits
When Should I Inscribe my Traits?
Your traits do not have to be inscribed at the same time as you inscribe your collection. They can be inscribed at any time after the artwork is ready. Here are some considerations regarding when you should be inscribing your traits:
Inscribing your traits will likely be the majority of the cost of your collection. As such, it is important not to overpay on transaction fees when inscribing your traits. We recommend you have your artwork ready early, then watch the fee rates for several days, or even weeks if you have the time, and inscribe your traits when fee rates are low. Doing this can save you quite a lot in inscription costs. mempool.space is a great place to keep track of fee rates. The FAQ section in their docs also has lots of great information regarding fee rates.
TLDR: We recommend you have your artwork ready early, then watch the fee rates for several days, or even weeks if you have the time, and inscribe your traits when fee rates are low.
If you have a lot of large traits, it can take quite a while for your traits to confirm after you have inscribed them. If you inscribe your collection before all your traits are inscribed, then your collection will not render properly until all traits are confirmed. Each Bitcoin block has a maximum of 4mb of data in it, but in practice, you will typically not get more than 1-2mb of your traits in each block (since other peoples transactions will also fill up blocks). Since there is only one block mined every 10 minutes, it can take time for large collections to have all their traits confirmed. For example, if you had 20mb of traits, then best case scenario, it would take 10 blocks (2mb per block) which would take around 100 minutes (close to 2 hours). However, if the network is busy, and/or fee rates rise, it could take significantly longer, perhaps even days to confirm all the traits. Therefore, we recommend you inscribe your traits at least a day (preferably more) before you inscribe your collection, particularly if you have a lot of data to inscribe.
TLDR: We recommend you inscribe your traits at least a day (preferably more) before you inscribe your collection, particularly if you have a lot of data to inscribe.
Inscribing your traits is final. Once done, it cannot be undone, and you cannot edit the images/artwork. Thus, you want to be 100% sure that the artwork is completed before inscribing. It's not uncommon to realise changes need to be done to the artwork after you start generating the collection and seeing the traits combined into complete images, so consider if you should start generating the collection before you inscribe your traits. If you have inscribed your traits, and find you do want to edit your image, your only option is to reinscribe that trait, costing extra Bitcoin.
TLDR: You want to be 100% sure that the artwork is completed before inscribing, because it cannot be undone.
If you are planning to inscribe the collection yourself, or through a third party such as a launchpad, then you will need to have your traits inscribed before you pay the fee to download your collection.
If you are planning to inscribe the collection through GeneratOrd, the traits can be inscribed at the same time as you inscribe the collection. This is fine for smaller collections, but probably not for larger collections, with lots of large traits. See the 2nd point above about large collections.
Inscribing your Traits
Once you have uploaded all your traits, you can inscribe your traits by navigating to the Traits Tab and clicking Inscribe Traits
This will open the following dialog which is described in detail on the Inscribing Page. The destination address is the ordinals address the traits will be sent to. It does not matter what address this is (the recursion will work regardless of where your traits are), but we recommend you use a fresh address that you own (i.e. an empty address).
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