Bitcoin Meets Wu-Tang: Rapper Ghostface Killah Is Releasing Music via Ordinals

Ghostface Killah, a founding member of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan, is launching a collection of music-themed Ordinal Inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain, the hip-hop icon announced on Twitter on Monday.

Born as Dennis David Coles in New York City, Ghostface Killah partnered with Nakamotos on BTC—creators of the NakaPepes Collection—Rare Scrilla, and Ordinals inscription platform OrdinalsBot to add the tracks to the Bitcoin network.

“We Bitcoin OGs. When everyone in the industry was on Opensea, I was rocking with the Rare Pepe fam on Counterparty and FakeRares,” Ghostface Killah continued, tagging the old-school digital collectible projects on Twitter. “My guy [Jason Williams] put us on to the culture, and the rest was history. I got more grails coming with Nakamotos On BTC.”

While Ghostface Killah did not say when the drop would happen or how to get on the waitlist, posts on the Ordistorians Telegram channel linked from the Nakamotos on BTC Twitter account suggested that buying a NakaPepe v2 inscription was the easiest way.

The NakaPepes collection will consist of 10,000 Ordinal inscriptions that can be minted for free, with each NFT tagged with a Creative Commons license. The inscriptions have a floor price of 0.000898 BTC on Magic Eden, or around $60.

“We are really excited to be working together with Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah, in partnership with the NakaPepes collection to bring more art and music to the Bitcoin blockchain,” OrdinalsBot head of Strategy Toby Lewis told Decrypt.

While OrdinalsBot said the project is targeting an April drop for the Ghostface Killah inscriptions, the date is yet to be determined based on when all sides finish their end of the project, at which point a snapshot and mint date can be announced.

“The music will have a status art image as cover art by famous pepe artist Rare Scrilla, and Ghostface Killah has written an original verse for this project directly,” Lewis said.

Thanks to features in the Ordinals protocol launched last year, Lewis said, its now possible to inscribe high-quality audio on Bitcoin. Recursive inscriptions were introduced as part of the BRC-69 standard launched in July. They are a mechanism that allows users to extract data from existing inscriptions and use them to create new ones, making it possible to include software, smart contracts, video games, music, or even movies on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Earlier this month OrdinalsBot collaborated with Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital to mint the largest Ordinals inscription to date, the Runestone. The hefty collectible weighed in at 3.97MB and used two full blocks to complete.

“We see milestones like this as key to a future where bitcoin is not just about finance, but rather the blockchain is able to act as a platform to create music, art, and all of the data necessary for identity, business settlement, and ownership,” Lewis concluded.

Representatives for Ghostface Killah did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.