The entire Quran became an immutable digital artifact on the Bitcoin blockchain using Ordinals this month.
The Quran on Bitcoin project represents the next step in digital accessibility and immutable preservation of the Quran by inscribing all Quranic text onto Bitcoin using Ordinals. Ordinals is a relatively new technology that allows arbitrary data to be inscribed on Bitcoin.
Inscriptions are special Bitcoin transactions designed to record data on Bitcoin blocks. These transactions involve sending digital data, such as text or images, along with a fee for storage and network costs to Bitcoin. Once accepted by the network, the data is permanently recorded on Bitcoin and can be transferred by the owner of the transaction.
These properties of inscriptions have enabled the creation of digital collectibles on Bitcoin, which have become a multi-billion dollar asset class. Inscriptions of images, songs, or even games are bought and sold on secondary markets.
To ensure that the Quran is displayed correctly, a specific font designed by the King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex for digital viewing of the Quran, was also inscribed onto Bitcoin.
The digital availability of the Quran began in the 1990s, and by the early 2000s, it was accessible on the web. However, ensuring accuracy was challenging due to the lack of verification processes, encoding constraints, and typography not optimized for Arabic script. Fortunately, collective efforts to verify authenticity, establish encoding standards, and refine Arabic typography have now made it possible to access an authentic digital Quran.
Quran on Bitcoin has resulted in a complete, unchangeable, Unicode-compliant digital Quran text, accessible to anyone on the most enduring network of our era. Additionally, the project carries a collectible status as it is the first of its kind.
Notes from the Editor: On 14 April 2024, at block height 839199, the Quran was successfully inscribed onto the decentralized network. Quran on Bitcoin can be viewed through public ordinals services like ordinals.com.
