Morning Minute | Are NFTs on Bitcoin In Trouble?
TylerD's Market Summary
Crypto is rallying and BTC enthusiasts are feeling great. But there might be a big problem looming for Ordinals fans.
🤯 Are Ordinals Dead in the Water?
NFT trading on Bitcoin (via Ordinals) has been hot.
In fact, BTC bested ETH to become the #1 blockchain by NFT sales volume over the past 30 days, $448M compared to $385M*.
*CryptoSlam removes wash trading and thus discounts most Blur farming on ETH, and this total for BTC also includes BRC-20s
Caveats aside, there's been a ton of action on BTC even as the token price has soared to a new yearly high of $44,000.
But that might all be at risk of going away.
What Happened?
One of the lead BTC core developers and spokesmen for the blockchain has taken a strong stance against inscriptions.
Enter Luke Dashjr, sharing thoughts on X:
"PSA: “Inscriptions” are exploiting a vulnerability in #Bitcoin
Core to spam the blockchain...Bitcoin Core is still vulnerable in the upcoming v26 release. I can only hope it will finally get fixed before v27 next year."
It's a pretty damning stance from a core dev.
When asked in the replies what this means for Ordinals, he replied:
"Ordinals never existed to begin with. It's all fraud. The exploit here is the spam attack of Inscriptions."
So it seems that if Luke has his way, Inscriptions will be blocked via the v27 Bitcoin code release in 2024.
And Ordinals and BRC-20s would be officially shut down.
Are Ordinals Ded?
Well, though that might be Luke's wish, it's not clear he has the power to make it happen.
It all will depend on what the miners choose to do and support, given the decentralized nature of the blockchain.
And the miners are printing money based on the spike in activity Ordinals and BRC-20 trading has brought to BTC.
Just yesterday, NFT transactions on BTC (via Magic Eden) took hours to process (I know, because I was transacting) with BTC gas fees upwards of $60-$100.
The Ordinals crowd will certainly not go down without a fight.
The movement has garnered strong support as the narrative that the #1 blockchain should also be home to NFTs and trading of all kinds has gotten louder this year.
Ordinals has also helped inspire L2 development on BTC, an effort to enable more transaction volume while lowering fees (as on ETH and other chains).
But my opinion aside - what does the market think?
Market Response
BTC led all blockchains in trading volume on CryptoSlam yesterday with $17.5M in volume (compared to ETH's $15M wash-adjusted volume). Solana was in 3rd at $7.7M.
Ordinals and BRC-20s haven't gone to 0, at least yet.
In fact, yesterday was a major day, with a new Ordinals art project "Golden Ratio" jumping 250% to a 0.035 BTC floor.
And a new mint Fomojis 2.0 seeing 6.85 BTC volume and reaching a 0.018 BTC floor.
Though the recently hot PFP Bitcoin Frogs did fall about 40% to 0.122 BTC (hit 0.2).
In BRC-20s, $ORDI fell 10% to a $44.89 price (and $940M mc), though still up 120% on the week.
The $SATS token ($400M mc) fell 15% overnight after rallying more than 50% on the week.
So some mixed action.
Clearly there was pull back in the BRC-20s and some of the leading Ordinal NFTs.
But each that pulled back had been on a massive run, so a pull back certainly is not surprising (several memecoins pulled back last night as well).
Conclusion
This leads us to the question - are Ordinals and BRC-20s ded?
Certainly not yet.
But for those heavily invested in this ecosystem, it would be smart to be monitoring this situation and the broader conversation closely over the coming weeks and months.
Personally, I hope that Luke and the laser-eye BTC maxis on his side don't get their way.
Stopping NFT development on BTC would be a massive centralization decision.
And one of the foundational premises of BTC is its decentralization.
Giving in here would be a slippery slope...
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- Trading volume fell on Tuesday to $29M; the leaderboard was mostly red
- Gaming projects led top movers, with Treeverse (+33%) and its Timeless PFPs (+58%), and TOPIA Worlds +46% to a 4.59 ETH floor leading the way
- The PFP leaders chopped or saw red, with Pudgy's -7% to 8.8 ETH, while BAYC (29.95) and Azuki (6.65) held steady
- Mad Lads jumped 26% on the day to a 217 SOL floor and new ATH (flipping MAYC), while the broader SOL NFT ecosystem rallied (Claynos +17%, Quekz +29%, Tensorians +17%)
- An Opepeng sold for 9 ETH in a new ATH sale for that set, as Opepens catch love from the Pudgy Penguin run
- ThirdWeb reported the discovery of a critical vulnerability in popular open-source smart contract library, impacting DropERC20, ERC721, ERC1155, and AirdropERC20 contracts among others
- Yuga Labs announced Season 2 of Legends of the Mara went live on Tuesday along with several notable updates
- Golden Ratio, a generative art project on Bitcoin, soared from its 0.01 BTC mint to a 0.035 BTC floor amidst Ordinal fud
- Summer Wagner's "Numerology 44" started minting with PROOF and saw 109/250 mints at its 0.22 ETH price on day 1
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors saw major green on the day; BTC +5.5% at $44,187; ETH +2.8% at $2,270; SOL +5.3% at $63.62; other L1s were up more, AVAX +17%, TIA +16%
- DOGE popped 14% on the day to $0.10, sparking a potential memecoin rally
- Solana memecoin (and protocol) $GUAC jumped 155% on the day to a $43.5M mc; while the SOL meme leader BONK was +25%
- CyberKongz is raffling off 10 Origin Axies and 2 Mystic Axies to those who stake $RON via its newly established Ronin Validator
- Immutable's Gods Unchained partnered with Amazon Prime Gaming, with Prime Gaming users able to access to exclusive in-game items as part of Gods Unchained Season 2
🚀 NFT Total Volume
- BAYC (3,371 ETH, 29.95 ETH Floor)
- Pudgy Penguins (1,620 ETH, 8.8 ETH)
- MAYC (540 ETH, 5.77 ETH)
- TOPIA Worlds (444 ETH, 4.59 ETH)
- The Captains (390 ETH, 5.05 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
- Timeless (58%, 0.41 ETH Floor)
- Frontier Pass (46%, 0.34 ETH)
- TOPIA Worlds (46%, 4.59 ETH)
- NFT Worlds Avatars (38%, 0.21 ETH)
- Treeverse (33%, 0.77 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today is another day of drops heavily featuring art and memes.
The Noble Gallery has its Season 2 finale, Art Blocks is back with Lumina and the meme card is from Rocketgirl.
The INSP token launch from the Inspect.xyz team has opened at $0.20 (and a $200M FDV) in early trading - we'll see how it trends as the U.S. wakes up.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
- INSP token (5:00 a.m. ET)
- Noble Gallery - Season 2 finale (9:00 a.m. ET)
- Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
- Art Blocks Presents "Lumina" (1:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
