When software engineer Casey Rodarmor launched the Ordinals protocol three months ago, the NFT market was losing momentum from its 2021 peak. The protocol is currently attracting a lot of interest, with crypto enthusiasts embedding a total of 385,000 “inscriptions” into Bitcoin.
“Inscriptions”, known as ordinals, are Bitcoin’s own version of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). According to Glassnode Market Intelligence, of the total inscriptions to date, 200,000 are image files, 150,000 are based on text, and 17,000 are apps. report According to Reuters.
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Ordinal sales reach millions
Rodermer launch Bitcoin mainnet ordinals on January 21st. The new protocol uses what he calls “inscriptions” to create and store his NFTs on the network. Ordinal numbers are created by adding text, audio, images, etc. to the Bitcoin blockchain.
He said the inscription would be created with Bitcoin’s smallest unit known as ‘Satoshi’ or ‘Sat’, creating a unique and ‘true digital artifact’. [that are] Decentralized, immutable, always on-chain and native to Bitcoin. ” NFTs can be retained and transferred over networks.
Since then, several Bitcoin NFT projects have emerged. This includes Bitcoin Punks, BTC Machines, Pixel Pepes, and others. His NFT traders around the world are back in profit, according to a Reuters report. Some have made millions of dollars trading Ordinal. His one such entity is Yuga Labs, creator of his popular Bored Apes NFT.
The company has created a collection called twelve timesThis is a limited edition and experimental collection of 300 generative artworks carved into Satoshi on the Bitcoin network. Yuga announced that he has earned $16.5 million (736 BTC) from the sale of his 288 images in the collection.
“These works represent complete art projects and do not have any other utility or interact with or be associated with any previous, ongoing, or future Ethereum-based Yuga projects.” said in detail.
Zodiac inscriptions: Yuga Lab
Yuga Labs isn’t the only company making money at Ordinals. Data from Galaxy Digital Research shows that other bitcoin NFTs that have done fairly well in the market range from JPEGs of rocks to images like shadows wearing crowns, selling for $213,845 and $273,010 respectively.
Growing Interest in Bitcoin NFTs
Galaxy expects the total value of Bitcoin NFTs to reach $4.5 billion by 2025, building on the growth already established by Ethereum-based NFTs.
In the shadow of the Blur vs. Opensea confrontation, “Ordinals are quietly waging their own market war.” Said Pseudonymous on-chain analyst Domodata. In late February, volume hit his 1.5 million mark on the Ordinals Market platform alone.
The exchange “uses existing Ethereum infrastructure. [emblem vaults & reservoir] Meanwhile, others are embracing new Bitcoin-native solutions. As it stands, the volume is roughly split between chains,” the analyst observed.
In early March, data from Dune Analytics showed that the total market size of Bitcoin NFTs exceeded $6.1 million, with nearly 10,000 unique users. By comparison, OpenSea, the largest market for Ethereum-based NFTs, took 14 months to achieve similar volumes.
In the shadow of Blur vs. Opensea, the Ordinals are quietly waging their own market war. 1/x pic.twitter.com/pWkZgjR0le
— Domo (@domodata) March 5, 2023
According to CryptoSlam, NFT sales totaled $1 billion last month, up more than 200% from November’s $324 million. However, this number is a tiny bit compared to his $5 billion recorded in January last year and his $2.7 billion recorded in May.
Despite being late to the party, the Ordinals have proven to be a hit with collectors. According to Glassnode data, bitcoin non-fungible tokens now account for 7% of total transactions on the bitcoin blockchain.
nightmare come true
This growth is a nightmare come true for Bitcoin fundamentalists, who feared that ordinals could lead to congestion in the Bitcoin network as NFTs compete with regular financial payments in the block space. . Worries became reality.
Ordinals have caused a huge surge in usage, fees and storage space on the Bitcoin network. Proponents see this as “a major breakthrough for Bitcoin’s application layer, allowing the narrative to shift from just a ‘store of value’ to a more pragmatic use case.”
The average cost of sending a transaction through the Bitcoin blockchain surged from $0.97 on Jan. 25, just days after the Ordinal launched, to more than $2.40 as of March 15, according to the data provider. Did. chartThis figure reflects an increase in ordinal trading.
According to further data from Blockchain.com, the average 7-day confirmation time for Bitcoin transactions rose to over 186 minutes in late February. This is his November last seen peak following Bitcoin’s plunge. The average time in January was 12-35 minutes.
Bitcoin Average Transaction Fee: YCharts
Casey Rodermer says his Ordinals protocol will take advantage of the 2021 Bitcoin Taproot Upgrade to eliminate the need to “change Bitcoin” to create non-fungible tokens on the network. Emphasized that it poses no threat. But not everyone is thrilled with the new kid on the block.
ordinal surface resistance
There have always been questions about how Bitcoin would handle huge traffic if non-fungible tokens and other decentralized applications were launched on the blockchain. It claims that it was intended to be used only for
Using the network for anything other than financial transactions undermines the original vision of the pseudonymous Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, they say.Adam Back, prominent Bitcoin core developer and CEO of Blockstream explained The ordinals were “crap” and prompted miners to censor items like NFTs as a “form of discouragement”. That tweet was later deleted.
2010 Satoshi Nakamoto responded To the question of whether or not Bitcoin should be used for non-financial purposes, answer with a strong “no”. There are no easy answers to how Bitcoin’s NFTs will develop or how much the community can collapse.
