Meme tokens developed on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain are becoming increasingly popular, placing Bitcoin at the forefront of a new frenzy in the crypto industry. After the first token, ORDI, was published on significant exchanges, the market capitalization of tokens constructed on top of the Bitcoin blockchain hit approximately $1 billion. As of this writing, the market valuation of all BRC-20 tokens combined is approximately $677 million, according to brc-20.io, which tracks the market for tokens issued on the Bitcoin network.
BRC-20 is an experimental framework for creating fungible tokens on the Bitcoin network utilizing the Ordinals protocol, which enables anyone to create inscriptions, which are NFT-like assets on the Bitcoin network. The creator of these coins, the anonymous on-chain data enthusiast DOMO, who released ORDI on March 8, has been operating for two months. Since that time, ORDI’s market cap has risen to almost $400 million, and other BRC-20 tokens like PEPE, MEME, PIZA, and DOMO have followed suit.
ORDI was recently listed on Crypto.com and Gate.io, indicating mainstream adoption of the experimental token on cryptocurrency exchanges. As of this writing, the price of ORDI was $23.01 on Crypto.com, representing a significant increase from its price of $3.78 just one week ago.
The emergent character of the Ordinals space is highlighted by the volatility of BRC-20 tokens, as text-based inscriptions replace image-based inscriptions. Data from Dune shows that there were approximately 399,000 text-based inscriptions yesterday, but there were just 20 image-based inscriptions.
Another Dune dashboard shows that the popularity of BRC-20 tokens is having a significant effect on Bitcoin transactions, with 65% of Sunday’s Bitcoin transactions including BRC-20 tokens. Due to the resulting network congestion, Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, has temporarily stopped accepting Bitcoin withdrawals.
Overall, the emergence of BRC-20 coins, which are following in the footsteps of Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and BONK, is a glaring indication of the expanding meme coin fever in the broader crypto market. It’s still unclear, though, if these tokens will have a long-term effect on the Bitcoin environment or if they’ll be just another fad in the cryptocurrency world.