What are Atomicals?
Digital objects that live inside ordinary Bitcoin outputs, identified by the transaction that created them and interpreted by an Atomicals validator.
Protocol behavior Verified 2026-08-31
Describes the Atomicals protocol itself at the pinned reference revision. It does not promise that any product exposes it.
- Page ID
-
start/what-are-atomicals - Normative authority
- Atomicals reference implementation
- Networks
- mainnet
- Documentation version
- 2026.08
- Audience
- everyone
- Owner
- bitcoin-universe-docs
- Sources
-
- Atomicals ElectrumX
at
v1.5.2.0 - Atomicals protocol guide
at
unversioned
- Atomicals ElectrumX
at
- Known limitations
-
- The pinned reference revision is one implementation. Another validator version can interpret the same transaction differently.
An Atomical is a digital object created by a Bitcoin transaction and carried by a Bitcoin output. There is no side chain, no separate token ledger, and no smart contract account. The object exists because a validator reads your transaction and applies the Atomicals rules to it.
- Where it lives
- A Bitcoin UTXO
- What names it
- The transaction that created it
- What decides truth
- A pinned validator revision
The three parts of an Atomical
Section titled “The three parts of an Atomical”Identity, location, and history
An Atomical has three separate facts. Its identity is the Atomical ID assigned at mint and never changes. Its location is whichever unspent output currently carries it, which changes on every move. Its history is the ordered list of operations applied to it. Confusing location with identity is the most common integration mistake.
Identity is the Atomical ID, written <txid>i<output-index>. It is assigned once and never
changes. A number is also assigned in mint order, but the ID is the durable identity to store.
Location is the UTXO that currently carries the object. Spending that UTXO moves the object, or destroys it, depending on how the outputs are arranged.
History is the ordered set of operations applied to the object: the mint, any state updates, and every move.
How an operation is written
Section titled “How an operation is written”Commit and reveal
An Atomicals operation is created in two Bitcoin transactions. The commit transaction pays to a Taproot output whose script contains the operation envelope. The reveal transaction spends that output and exposes the envelope in its witness. A validator reads the revealed envelope, applies the operation, and assigns the resulting Atomical to the reveal transaction's output zero.
The envelope is not executed by Bitcoin. It is data inside a Taproot script path. Bitcoin does
not know what atom means. An Atomicals validator does.
The protocol family
Section titled “The protocol family”| Kind | What it is | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Atomicals NFT | A single non-fungible object with metadata and media | NFT overview |
| ARC-20 | Fungible tokens where one unit is one coloured satoshi | ARC-20 overview |
| Container | A named collection that items can prove membership in | Containers |
| DMINT | Decentralised minting of Container items against a sealed manifest | DMINT |
| Realm | A top-level name owned as an Atomical | Realms |
| Subrealm | A child name claimed under a Realm’s rules | Subrealms |
| Payname | A Realm used as a payment destination | Paynames |
| AVM | A sandboxed script interpreter, beta and separately scoped | AVM |
What an Atomical is not
Section titled “What an Atomical is not”- It is not proof of who made something. A ticker or a Realm name is an allocation, not an identity check.
- It is not a contract account. There is no balance row to debit.
- It is not safe to infer from metadata. Metadata is arbitrary data supplied by the minter.
- It is not final because Bitcoin confirmed it. See confirmation and reorgs.