What is BRC-20?

BRC-20 is a fungible token standard built on Bitcoin Ordinals. It was introduced in March 2023 by the developer called Domo.

  • BRC-20 uses JSON inscriptions

  • Each token’s rules—such as ticker, supply, and minting limits—are defined in a small JSON file inscribed on Bitcoin.

  • The protocol relies on off-chain indexers to track balances, transfers, and mint events, since Bitcoin itself doesn’t enforce token logic.

How It Works

  1. Deploy – A JSON inscription defines the token’s parameters (e.g., ticker name like “ORDI”, supply, mint limit).

  2. Mint – Users inscribe new JSON files to mint units of the token until supply cap is reached.

  3. Transfer – Transfers are also JSON inscriptions.

Tickers BRC20 tickers can be 4, 5 or 6 bytes (characters) in length

6 byte tickers are new to BRC-2.0, they provide an improvement with anti sniping features and self mint functionality (more here)

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