zOrdinals Handbook
A guide to zOrdinals — ordinal theory and inscriptions on Zcash.
zOrdinals is a numbering scheme for zatoshis that gives every individual unit of ZEC an identity, and a protocol for attaching content to those units. Numbered zats can be collected, traded, gifted, lost and rediscovered, and content inscribed onto them becomes a Zcash-native digital artifact.
The scheme requires no sidechain, no separate token and no change to Zcash itself. It is a convention for interpreting transparent transactions that anyone can verify independently.
Zats, not coins
One ZEC is 100,000,000 zatoshis. zOrdinal theory numbers zats in the order they were mined and tracks them through transactions using a first-in-first-out rule. Zat number zero is the first zat of the genesis block; the last is the final zat of the final subsidy.
Inscriptions
An inscription binds content — an image, a text file, a JSON record — to a single zat. The content lives in a Zcash transaction, so an inscription is as immovable and as durable as the chain itself. Inscriptions are transferred by spending the zat that carries them.
Two parts of this handbook
- The protocol — how zats are numbered, how rarity is defined, how inscriptions and provenance work.
- zOrdinals.fun — the launchpad and infrastructure project built on top of the protocol: coins, bonding curves, trading and NFTs.