A new daily all-time high has been recorded for the number of Ordinals inscribed on the Bitcoin BTC tickers down $27,705 network due to a recently launched “token standard” for the blockchain.
Bitcoin Ordinals reached 58,179 inscriptions on April 2, smashing the previous all-time high of 31,692 on March 9 by 83.5%, according to Dune Analytics data.
The surge is believed to be driven by the recent creation of “Bitcoin Request for Comment” (BRC-20) tokens on the Ordinals protocol by a pseudonymous on-chain analyst named Domo in early March.
Ordinals are digital artifacts on the Bitcoin network that can contain various forms of data, such as text, images, PDFs, videos, and audio. The BRC-20 token standard uses Ordinals to deploy, mint, and transfer tokens, similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard. This became possible through the Taproot soft fork, which was implemented on November 14, 2021, and allowed for the integration of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens into the Bitcoin network.
On April 2, more than 55,000 Ordinals inscriptions were in the form of text-based ones, which were mainly represented by BRC-20 tokens, according to the host of an Ordinals-focused podcast, Leonidis.
He explained on Twitter that this surge was due to the recent development of new tools that make it easier to interact with BRC-20 tokens. Although there was a lot of excitement about BRC-20 when it was first launched a month ago, the hype eventually died down. However, during this period, developers continued to work on improving the user experience (UX), resulting in increased interest in BRC-20 tokens. Leonidis emphasized that UX is essential for widespread adoption of any technology.
Several new tools, including Ord.io, UniSat Wallet, and BRC-20.io, have been developed to interact with BRC-20 tokens. According to BRC-20.io, 1,600 tokens have been created since the creation of the BRC-20 standard. The most popular BRC-20 tokens are “pepe,” “ordi,” and “punk,” with market caps of $2.5 million, $2.1 million, and $900,000, respectively.
Over the last 24 hours, more than 42,700 BRC-20 tokens have been minted, mainly from the tokens wzrd, domo, BAYC, meme, and pups. While the current market cap of BRC-20 tokens is less than $10 million, Galaxy Digital, a digital asset investment firm, predicts that the “Bitcoin NFT” market could reach $4.5 billion by 2025.
There is still a divide among members of the Bitcoin community regarding the suitability of Ordinals for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Some advocates, including Dan Held, believe that it opens up more financial possibilities for Bitcoin, whereas others argue that it deviates from Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of Bitcoin as a decentralized cash system.
What is Bitcoin Ordinals?
Bitcoin ordinals refer to the process of identifying and tracking specific units of Bitcoin within a blockchain. The blockchain is essentially a digital ledger that records all Bitcoin transactions, and each transaction involves a specific amount of Bitcoin units. Ordinals are used to keep track of these units, allowing users to identify and verify specific amounts of Bitcoin.
In essence, ordinals provide a way to measure and track Bitcoin in the same way that traditional currencies are measured and tracked. This is important because it allows users to make precise transactions and avoid errors or misunderstandings when dealing with Bitcoin. Ordinals can also help to prevent fraud and ensure the accuracy and reliability of Bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin ordinals are typically expressed as decimal fractions of a Bitcoin unit, with the smallest unit being a Satoshi (0.00000001 BTC). Other common units include the mBTC (milli-bitcoin, or 0.001 BTC), and the cBTC (centi-bitcoin, or 0.01 BTC). These units can be used to specify precise amounts of Bitcoin in transactions or other contexts.
Overall, Bitcoin ordinals play an important role in the functioning and utility of the cryptocurrency. They allow for precise and reliable transactions, and provide a way to measure and track Bitcoin in the same way that traditional currencies are measured and tracked. As the use and adoption of Bitcoin continue to grow, understanding and using ordinals will become increasingly important for all users of the cryptocurrency.