Inscribing
Last updated
Last updated
This page describes inscribing in general. For more specific details about inscribing if you are creating a Generative PFP Collection, see Payment and Inscribing.
There are several places throughout the GeneratOrd website where you can inscribe, and in each case the UI displayed is the same (shown below). The two most important settings to understand are the Inscription Destination and the Fee Rate
The inscription destination is the address that GeneratOrd will send the inscriptions to. Any Bitcoin address will be accepted, but you should ensure that the address can send and receive inscriptions. By default, all inscriptions created will be send to the same address, but if you want to inscribe each item in your collection to a different address, you can select Send to Many (Send to Many is only available if you are inscribing your collection. e.g. if inscribing traits only, it is not available).
Make sure any addresses you provide GeneratOrd are correct and can receive and send inscriptions.
GeneratOrd takes no responsibility for lost inscriptions due to an incorrect destination address.
If you want to send the inscriptions to your connected wallet, you can simply press Send to Connected Wallet to auto fill your ordinals address.
If you do not want all inscriptions to go to the same address, you can select the Send To Many option. This is very useful to Airdrop to a list of addresses you have previously collected.
When Send To Many is selected, two fields will appear as seen below.
In the first field, simply enter in the list of addresses you want to send your collection to. Each address must be on a separate line, and there must be nothing except the address (i.e. no punctuation such as comma's). You will need as many addresses as there are items in your collection. e.g. If your collection size is 999, you must enter exactly 999 addresses.
The order of the addresses determines which item is sent to which address. The address on the first line will get Token ID 1, the second line will get Token ID 2 and so on. So, if it is important which person receives which item, make sure the addresses are in the right order.
It may be useful to collate your addresses in Excel, Google Sheets, or a text editor with line numbers, so you can easily see which addresses correspond to which token ID's. You can copy directly from Excel/Google Sheets to GeneratOrd and the addresses will be formatted correctly.
The second field is the Treasury Address. Ideally this is an address you own, and it will receive all the the inscriptions that are required to make the recursion work. This includes:
The images of your traits (if inscribing traits through GeneratOrd)
The Javascript Config file
The collection Metadata
Selecting the correct fee rate can be difficult, so if you are not sure, we highly recommend to use the default fee rate that GeneratOrd recommends.
Selecting a fee rate that is too low can result in transactions taking a very long time to confirm, and in some cases can lead to them never confirming.
If your transactions are stuck in the mempool due to a low fee rate, we cannot do anything resolve this for you.
Fee rates fluctuate a lot and are largely unpredictable. The advice below is guidance only, and will not be correct in every situation. You should only edit the recommended fee rate if you have a good understanding of Bitcoin fees, transaction priority and the mempool.
The fee rate determines how much you spend in network fees, and also determines the priority of your transactions in the Bitcoin mempool. Selecting the right fee rate is critical, since if it is too low your transactions will have a low priority, and will take a long time to confirm. Conversely, you can save a significant amount by using a low fee rate, since the network fee you pay is proportional to the fee rate.
You can edit the fee rate by clicking the Edit button next to the fee rate.
When you click edit, a dialog will pop up giving you three options for the fee rate that are suggested based on the current network fees.
Bitcoin fees and confirmation times are unpredictable, so it is difficult to know how long a transaction will take to confirm, but very approximately, the three fee rates correspond to:
Low: Typically confirms in around one hour.
Normal: Typically confirms in the next block (roughly 10 mins). However, if the fee rates spike it may take longer.
High: Also typically confirms in the next block (roughly 10 mins). However, if the fees spike, it will be quicker than if you choose Normal. Use high if it is important for your transactions to confirm in the next block, or you suspect fees rates may spike.
Custom: If you are not happy with the suggested fee rates, you can set the fee rate to anything you like using a custom fee rate.
Saving Bitcoin on fees is more about timing, than it is about selecting the correct fee rate. Fee rates fluctuate wildly, so inscribing at the wrong time can result in you overpaying enormously (you could pay 10x or more than you need to by inscribing at the wrong time). The best strategy to saving Bitcoin is to have everything ready to inscribe very early, and then watch fee rates and inscribe when they are low. mempool.space is a fantastic place to monitor fee rates. It has loads of useful information you can use to analyse fee rates to estimate when is the best time to inscribe. Here are some useful pages within mempool.space you should checkout to understand fee rates better:
Home Page: This shows you recently confirmed blocks, which gives an indication of what fee rates have been mined recently. It also shows you the fee rates currently in the mempool, to give you an idea of the transactions you are competing against. The Incoming Transactions graph is also useful as it indicates if the incoming transactions are more, or less than what the Bitcoin network can handle.
FAQ: There is heaps of useful information in the FAQ section which explains both Bitcoin and fee rates in general, as well as how to interpret the information shown on mempool.space.
Mempool Graph: The mempool graph shows historical information about the amount of data in the mempool at different fee rates. You can use it to get an idea of current trends (i.e. is the size of the mempool growing or shrinking). It is also very useful to see how much data is in the mempool at different fee rates, which can give you an idea of how quickly fee rates will fall as the mempool clears.
Padding typically doesn't need to be edited. It has no impact on the collection so it is fine to leave it on the default value if you are not sure.
The padding is the number of sats that is stored with each inscription. Padding is sometimes called Postage. The more sats you include in padding, the more expensive it is, but the actual value of the padding is largely irrelevant, so it is typically best to leave padding at the default of 546 sats (the minimum value supported by GeneratOrd).
Padding can be edited the same way as you edit the fee rate. Simply click the edit button next to the fee rate.
This will open the following dialog.
10,000 sats is provided as the standard padding size, as this is what ord uses by default. ord uses a large padding to so that inscriptions can be sent and transferred without adding extra fees (the fees can be taken of the padding). This is useful if you are storing inscriptions in a wallet that does not natively support inscriptions, but these days it is largely unnecessary because most people keep inscriptions in wallets that support ordinals and automatically add fees when transferring inscriptions.
Because of this, it is more common to use a smaller padding sizes to reduce the cost of inscription, and the smallest you can use with GeneratOrd is 546 sats.
If you have a discount code, you can apply it by clicking Add Discount Code. Discount codes are single use, but they apply to all transactions made for the collection they are applied to. So, if you create a collection, and then inscribe your traits, pay for download, then inscribe the collection, then the same discount will apply to all 3 transactions. Simply apply the code the first time you make a payment, then the discount will automatically be applied to all subsequent payments for the same collection.
The costs of inscribing is shown at the bottom of the inscribing form, and is split into several categories. All costs are reported in sats (100 million sats = 1 Bitcoin) and US dollars.
Padding: This is the cost due to the padding, which is the sats that are attached to each inscription. It is equal to your padding (typically 546 sats) multiplied by the number of inscriptions.
Service Fee: The fee sent to GeneratOrd for use of the platform.
Network Fee: The transaction fees associated with the Bitcoin transactions created by GeneratOrd. This fee is sent to Bitcoin miners and is proportional to the fee rate, and the total size (in kb) of all the files you are inscribing.
The total cost is shown at the bottom. This may differ slightly from the actual amount paid, so it is important to verify the cost you pay in your wallet, as the value shown in the wallet is the actual amount paid.
If you want more details about the breakdown of the costs, you can click on the Detailed Costs button, which will open the dialog shown below. Each category (Padding, Service Fee and Network Fee) is broken down into subcategories indicating where the costs are coming from. Depending on what you are inscribing/paying for, you may see different items from the screenshot below. You can also toggle between showing the costs in sats and USD, by clicking the checkbox in the top right of the dialog.
