Ordinal Inscriptions, similar to non-fungible tokens (NFT), on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain, have been making up the major chunk of network activity over the past week amid plunging NFT prices and choppy cryptocurrency market.
Introduced in January 2023, Bitcoin Ordinals have gathered tremendous steam creating new use cases for the the largest digital asset, allowing developers and artists to create and store digital artefacts directly on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. The introduction of this technology had also sent Bitcoin metrics skyrocketing during the early months of this year.
Bitcoin Ordinals Not “Dead” Yet
Interestingly, the trend has not yet stopped despite the ongoing market slump since the last week, owing to several reasons such as crumbling foreign currencies, Chinese economic worries, Elon Musk’s SpaceX selling its entire BTC holdings of $373 million and bond yields ripping to multi-year highs.
On August 21, Ordinals developer “Leonidas” took to X to reveal that Bitcoin (BTC) had 530,788 transactions over the past 24 hours, with 450,785 of those transactions being Ordinals related. The announcement also seems to invalidate floating rumors that suggested the hype around Bitcoin NFTs have “died.”
Over the past 24 hours Bitcoin had 530,788 transactions.
450,785 of those transactions were Ordinals related.
In the midst of everyone claiming "Ordinals are dead" they have literally accounted for 84.9% of the activity on Bitcoin.
You can't make this stuff up.
— Leonidas (@LeonidasNFT) August 20, 2023
As per the announcement, nearly 85% of BTC network activity has been dominated by inscriptions and BRC-20 minting in the recent past couple of days. Leonidas wrote,
“In the midst of everyone claiming “Ordinals are dead” they have literally accounted for 84.9% of the activity on Bitcoin.”
The resurgence of Ordinals was further affirmed by other crypto data aggregators with Dune Analytics disclosing there were more than 400,000 ordinal inscriptions on August 20. Ordinals have also played a significant role in Bitcoin’s network’s fee generation. Dune noted the total number of Ordinal inscriptions is 25.5 million which has generated a staggering $53.4 million in fees on the Bitcoin (BTC) network.
In addition, Bitinfocharts reported a daily Bitcoin transaction count of around 556,000 on the same day. Meanwhile, market researcher Eric Wall stated that 54% of the transactions on the Bitcoin network were Ordinals.
NFT Prices Plummet Owing to Market Turmoil
This comes shortly after DappRadar reported that Ordinals’ trading volume and sales count have fallen by more than 97% since May. The number of unique active wallets trading Bitcoin Ordinals has also decreased by 90%. This downturn mirrors a wider slowdown in the NFT sector in the wake of several upheavals.
According to a recent CNN report, a group of four investors who invested in the popular NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has filed a class action suit against the project’s creator, Yuga Labs, and 29 other companies including Sotheby’s Holdings, sportswear giant Adidas and crypto payments firm MoonPay, among others for misleadingly promoting the collectibles as their prices continue to spiral down.
This decision has not been an easy one.
However, unforeseen challenges and shifts in the business landscape have made it increasingly difficult for us to continue providing the level of service and dedication that we have always strived to maintain.
— RECUR (@RecurForever) August 18, 2023
On the other hand, Recur, a NFT startup, announced it is winding down as it is unable to weather the the ongoing crypto winter that has dragged digital tokens to trade in red. On August 19, the company wrote,
“Unforeseen challenges and shifts in the business landscape have made it increasingly difficult for us to continue providing the level of service and dedication that we have always strived to maintain.”
