The number of Bitcoin Ordinals NFT inscriptions does not seem to want to stop, and to date the 9 million mark has been surpassed.
Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy, called this phenomenon a “catalyst for BTC adoption.”
Summary
Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs: tripled the number of inscriptions in May
The Ordinals protocol, which allows objects such as artwork, profile pictures, memes, apps and games to be “inscribed” on Bitcoin’s Blockchain, is reaching incredible numbers.
And indeed, in May alone, the number of Bitcoin Ordinals NFT inscriptions tripled, surpassing 9 million. Earlier this month, inscriptions were over 3 million, despite the fact that transaction fees had skyrocketed.
Looking at Dune’s data, at the time of writing, there are a total of 9,230,732 Bitcoin Ordinals NFT inscriptions, of which more than 8 million are of the text type, followed by the image and application type. The transaction fees totally paid as of today turn out to be more than 1,500 BTC, with a counter value of more than $40 million.
Certainly, the fee situation has settled down more than at the beginning of the month. For example, as of yesterday, there were a total of nearly 150 thousand Bitcoin Ordinals NFT registrations, against 20.3 BTC in fees paid.
Not only that, supporters of the new Bitcoin Ordinals NFT also include Michael Saylor, the co-founder of MicroStrategy, who had said the following in a PBD podcast in early May:
“Every time someone builds an application that’s cool on Bitcoin, like all the Ordinals and inscriptions and whatever that are driving up transaction fees, it’s a catalyst.”
Hence, Saylor believes the protocol is acting as a catalyst for the mass adoption of Bitcoin (BTC).
Bitcoin Ordinals: the history of the BRC-20 token standard
The Ordinals protocol is a product that was launched on Jan. 21 by software engineer Casey Rodarmor, who from the outset made headlines for precisely being able to create NFTs on Bitcoin’s Blockchain.
This was followed in March by the official release of the BRC-20 standard, Bitcoin Request for Comment number 20, which made possible the minting of new tokens on the BTC network.
Then, in this month of May, BRC-20 tokens experienced tremendous growth, partly driven by the emergence of new memecoins such as Pepe (PEPE) and Memetic (MEME).
And indeed, in addition to the increase in NFT inscription of Bitcoin Ordinals, there has also been a surge in the market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens, which has risen from $95 million to an impressive $279 million in just four days.
Investors and crypto enthusiasts are eager to participate in this emerging trend involving the queen of crypto assets: Bitcoin.
With this movement, NFT marketplaces have also taken steps to add their support for Ordinals. Magic Eden did so back in April, while Binance NFT only this May.
Not only that, The Ordinals NFT protocol has since expanded to the Litecoin Blockchain and the Dogecoin Blockchain.
The price of BTC does not increase in the past 30 days
Given that May was the month of Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs and that Michael Saylor claims they are a catalyst for BTC adoption, it is fitting to look at the price performance of the queen of crypto assets.
Unfortunately, however, the result does not live up to expectations, and in fact the graph shows that BTC has had a 7% price dump in the last thirty days, going from $28,400 to the current $26,390.
BTC’s total market capitalization has also followed the same price trend, and today stands at $511 billion.
In any case, there is no shortage of optimists. In fact, a new forecast was recently given for Bitcoin’s price to rise above $160,000 following the halving of 2024.
