There are currently over 25.6 million Ordinals on the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin Ordinals created a frenzy in the community soon after its launch in January 2023. More than eight months later, the Ordinals inscription still maintains a prominent position in Bitcoin network activity over the past week.

Despite the sharp drop in volume, Bitcoin Ordinals remains very active.

Ordinals account for 85% of Bitcoin activity

Much like NFTs, Ordinals are digital assets engraved on Satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. The ability to engrave these Satoshis was made possible through the Taproot upgrade introduced to the Bitcoin network on November 14, 2021.

According to "Leonidas," the developer behind Ordinals, a total of 530,788 transactions have taken place on Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. Notably, a large portion of this activity (specifically, 450,785 transactions) is closely associated with Ordinals. This essentially means that Ordinals accounted for 84.9% of Bitcoin activity on August 21.

Bitcoin Ordinals trading volume surged 2,834% from Q1 to Q2, reaching a staggering $210.7 million. Ordinals peaked around May after trading volume and sales approached $452 million and over $832,000, respectively.

However, as DappRadar reported last week, “the tide turned in June,” with sales plunging by more than 76% to $106 million. In addition, the number of transactions also fell sharply by 60.3% to 330,121, indicating low trading enthusiasm.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin currently has over 25.6 million Ordinals inscriptions, according to Dune Analytics, an increase of more than 20% in just three weeks.

Additionally, Bitcoin Taproot utilization has also remained strong after hitting an all-time high around February, thanks in large part to the emergence of Ordinals on the network. Fast forward to six months later, and Ordinals continue to play a vital role in Taproot adoption, contradicting numbers that suggest interest in Bitcoin NFTs is waning.

Bitcoin Developer Nonprofit

While critics may see Ordinals as taking advantage of the network, some industry experts have applauded the growth. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently praised the BRC-20 token standard, saying its growing significance represents a clear departure from what he sees as the “stagnant” politics that have been affecting the Bitcoin ecosystem.

At the same time, the Ordinals Protocol team introduced a nonprofit organization called the Open Ordinals Institute to fund its open source development. The California-based Open Ordinals Institute is a registered 501(c)(3) public charity that aims to collect Bitcoin donations to support the development of the protocol by focusing primarily on its core developer group.

The initiative will also focus on creating user-friendly tools that will allow users with less technical expertise to easily create Bitcoin digital artifacts. #比特币  #Ordinals