Bitcoin minting usually means creating Ordinals inscriptions, BRC-20 tokens or Runes on the Bitcoin blockchain, or minting a wrapped version of BTC on another chain. Nobody can mint new bitcoin on request, because new BTC appears only through mining. This guide explains each meaning, how minting services work, and how to check a service before you use it.
Four meanings of bitcoin minting
| Term | What happens | Who can do it |
|---|---|---|
| Mining new BTC | A miner finds a valid block and claims the block subsidy plus the fees in the block's coinbase transaction. | Miners, who compete with the hashrate of the whole network |
| Inscribing an Ordinal | A transaction writes data, such as an image, text or code, into its witness, and the Ordinals protocol links that data to one specific satoshi. | Anyone with a Taproot wallet and enough BTC for fees |
| Minting a BRC-20 token or a Rune | A user deploys and mints a fungible token under a protocol that indexers read. | Anyone, within the mint terms of each token |
| Minting wrapped BTC | A custodian or bridge locks BTC and issues a matching token on another chain. | Approved merchants, or users of a bridge |
Mining: the only way to mint bitcoin
The Bitcoin protocol releases new coins on a fixed schedule, and the subsidy for each block halves about every four years, or every 210,000 blocks. Since the April 2024 halving, the subsidy is 3.125 BTC per block, and the total supply will stay just under 21 million BTC.
A miner earns new BTC only by doing proof of work and getting a block accepted by the network. The bitcoin mining software guide covers hardware, pools and mining costs.
Ordinals inscriptions
Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol in January 2023. It gives each satoshi a serial number and lets users attach content to a satoshi through an inscription. Two earlier Bitcoin upgrades make inscriptions possible: SegWit gives witness data a fee discount, and Taproot, active since November 2021, removed most size limits on scripts in the witness.
An inscription takes two transactions:
- The commit transaction creates a Taproot output that commits to a script holding the content.
- The reveal transaction spends that output, and the content then appears in full in the reveal transaction's witness, on the blockchain.
Points for anyone who mints inscriptions or runs a minting service:
- Bitcoin nodes do not track Ordinals. Indexers outside the core protocol, such as the reference
ordclient, track who owns each inscription, and a wallet must avoid spending an inscribed satoshi as a fee. - Fees grow with the content size and with demand for block space, so a large image costs a lot to inscribe when blocks are full.
- Collections reach buyers in two ways. A creator can inscribe the items and then send them out, or the public can mint the items through a launchpad that builds the transactions for each buyer.
The ordinals marketplace guide covers trading venues for inscriptions, including listings built on partially signed Bitcoin transactions (PSBTs).
Fungible tokens on Bitcoin: BRC-20 and Runes
BRC-20 appeared in March 2023 and uses small JSON inscriptions to deploy, mint and transfer tokens. Every action needs its own inscription, so BRC-20 creates many extra outputs on the chain, and its balances exist only in indexers.
Runes is a second token protocol by Casey Rodarmor that went live at the April 2024 halving block. Each Runes transaction stores its token data in one OP_RETURN output, called a runestone. The protocol fits Bitcoin's UTXO model, so transfers create fewer junk outputs than BRC-20 transfers.
To create a token with Runes, a creator first "etches" a rune, which sets these properties:
- A name of 1 to 26 letters, and an optional one-character symbol.
- Divisibility, which is the number of decimal places.
- An optional premine for the creator.
- Optional open-mint terms: the number of mints allowed, the amount per mint, and the block heights when minting starts and ends.
While the mint is open, anyone can send a transaction that mints the fixed amount. A malformed runestone, called a cenotaph, burns the runes in that transaction.
BRC-20 and Runes both depend on indexers that apply the same rules, and a bug in one indexer can show different balances in different wallets. Exchanges and marketplaces that list these tokens must run or trust an indexer and watch for such differences.
Wrapped bitcoin
To use BTC in DeFi on Ethereum or Solana, holders mint a wrapped token such as WBTC or cbBTC. A custodian holds the real BTC and mints a matching token on the other chain, and burning the token releases the BTC. The holder's risk moves from Bitcoin's security to the custodian or the bridge.
Other designs reduce trust in one custodian, for example with threshold signatures held by many signers or by verifying Bitcoin transactions on the other chain. Each design rests on its own security assumptions.
How bitcoin minting services work
Inscription and Rune launchpads take your file or token settings and build the commit and reveal transactions. Some launchpads ask you to sign in your own wallet, and others ask you to pay into a temporary address that the launchpad controls.
Check these points before you use a launchpad:
- Prefer a service where you sign in your own wallet with a PSBT, instead of sending funds to an address the service controls.
- Read the fee breakdown. The total has three parts: the network fee, the "postage" (the satoshis held in the inscription output) and the service fee.
- Use a wallet that understands Ordinals, so it does not spend inscribed satoshis by mistake.
- Check the result on an independent explorer that runs its own indexer.
Teams that build their own minting flow can use the front-end and queue patterns in the NFT minting platform guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I mint my own bitcoin?
No. Only miners create new BTC, through proof of work, at a rate that the protocol fixes. You can create tokens or inscriptions on Bitcoin, but those are not bitcoin.
What is the difference between Ordinals and Runes?
Ordinals inscriptions attach data to single satoshis and are used mostly for unique items. Runes is a protocol for fungible tokens that stores its data in OP_RETURN outputs and fits the UTXO model.
Are Ordinals NFTs?
Ordinals work like NFTs: each one is unique and can be transferred. The content sits on-chain in Bitcoin transaction data, while many Ethereum NFTs point to content at a URL.
Why do inscription fees change so much?
The fee depends on the content size and on demand for Bitcoin block space. When many people send transactions or inscribe at once, the fee per virtual byte rises fast.