History of Metaprotocols on Bitcoin | with Adam Krellenstein
From Bitcoin Rails | Isabel Foxen Duke by Isabel Foxen Duke
February 19, 2026 · 1h 27m
About this episode
The episode explores the history of metaprotocols on Bitcoin, featuring an interview with Adam Krellenstein about his experiences and the evolution of NFT protocols.
Metaprotocols on Bitcoin have a long and complex history—stretching far before the launch of Ordinals, the most widely used metaprotocol in Bitcoin’s history. Ordinals’ creator Casey Rodarmor credits much of his inspiration to these early projects—including Yoni Assia’s Colored Coins, Erik Voorhees Satoshi Dice, and of course, CounterParty (widely considered the first NFT protocol) developed by Evan Wagner and Adam Krellenstein. While CounterParty was not originally intended for the use of on-chain art, its use for art developed a cult following—used by projects like RarePepes, which remain some of the most valuable NFTs on the market. In this interview, I sit down with Krellenstein to review the full history of metaprotocols on Bitcoin—the complex history of the first NFT protocol in history—and why, after a long hiatus from Bitcoin, Krellenstein is back in action with metaprotocol Kontor …with the aim of giving all Layer 2s a run for their money. In this episode, Adam and I cover: - Why early Bitcoin metaprotocols (pre-Ethereum) didn’t take off for DeFi—and what's different today - His personal experiences with Luke Dash jr and the early “spam wars” of 2014 - Why Adam left the…
People in this episode
Host: Isabel Foxen Duke
Guest: Adam Krellenstein
Topics covered
- metaprotocols
- Bitcoin history
- NFTs
- CounterParty
- DeFi
- Kontor
- Ordinals
Keywords
- Bitcoin
- metaprotocols
- NFTs
- CounterParty
- DeFi
- Ordinals
- Kontor
- RarePepes
- spam wars
- Colored Coins
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: CounterParty, RarePepes, Kontor
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