A cloned, knock-off version of the original, 30-year-old video game Doom can now  be played on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Wait, what? On the Bitcoin network?

Yeah, there’s a bit of a kerfuffle about this sort of stuff – about Satoshi’s sacred blockchain being used as anything that distracts from its “hard money” and “store of value” narratives. Which, don’t get us wrong, are great narratives.

You may not have heard about this, but there’s a new project, recently launched, called Ordinals – which effectively enables Bitcoin-native, on-chain non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Anyway, thanks to this controversial (with Bitcoin maxis, at least) tech, someone has now uploaded the cloned, admittedly rudimentary version of the video game classic as an “inscription” on chain, via the Ordinals NFT protocol.

 

Bitcoin NFTs are not new. According to a Decrypt article, largely inaccessible-to-mere-mortals NFTs have been floating about the chain since about 2014.

What is new, however, is a drive to make them more accessible and visible and tradable, too, by the likes of projects such as Ordinals.

And ever since the Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade in November, it seems the technology can allow content to be inscribed on single satoshis (one millionth of a Bitcoin – its smallest fraction or denomination).

The Doom version was added via block 774526 to the Bitcoin blockchain on Wednesday this week.

Ordinals store texts, images and HTML code on-chain and can be authorised through a transaction. The inscriptions, or NFTs can also be bought, stored and gifted.

The Ordinals creator, a former Bitcoin core development contributor named Casey Rodarmor, believes content on the Bitcoin network is special compared with NFTs found on other chains. In a recent blog post, he wrote:

“Inscriptions are immutable and on-chain, on the oldest, most decentralized, most secure blockchain in the world,” Rodarmor said. “They are not smart contracts, and do not need to be examined individually to determine their properties. They are true digital artifacts.”

The version of Doom will now live forever on Bitcoin’s immutable blockchain, which will please fans of the “It Runs Doom” meme, which celebrates the extremely niche hacker movement that strives to upload the Doom game to just about any tech with a screen that you can imagine.

According to The Block, hackers have been able to code Doom into calculators, ATMs, smart watches, high-tech toasters, Pelotons and even pregnancy tests.

Incidentally, Stockhead‘s editor, as well being a self-proclaimed legend at 1997’s Sega Bass Fishing, is an OG Doom player/fan. Here’s some sort of evidence…

Seven out of 10, though? Seems harsh, EDGE magazine.

 

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