The world of Ordinals is a rapidly expanding one, and this new class of tokens/digital collectables are unlikely to go away anytime soon.
The Ordinals protocol was introduced in early 2023 and has completely boomed ever since.
We now have Bitcoin-based NFTs becoming more popular by the minute, as well as a new token standard called BRC-20 tokens accumulating billions in market cap.
Let's go over how big these tokens are becoming, and which ones you should keep an eye out for, for when the crypto market starts to wake up once again.
The trading volume of BRC-20 tokens has surged tenfold since the end of 2023, according to a recent report released by Kaiko, a Paris-based blockchain analytics firm.
Kaiko estimates that these trading volumes have hit around $500 million or more in January 2024 alone, after skyrocketing from a relatively meagre $10 million in November.
Kaiko's analysis notes that most of this growth came from Binance, because of its recently launched trading pairs for some of the biggest BRC-20 tokens like ORDI and SATS.
Kaiko notes that Binance currently holds around 50% of the market share.
This figure also used to be much larger, considering how Binance used to hold around 63% of the BRC-20 trading volume.
At the same time, Binance still has the lead and is followed closely by OKX with 35%.
Kaiko also notes that the boom of BRC-20 tokens has boosted demand for block space as of recently, leading to the Bitcoin network (and others) being forced to expand, to accommodate demand.
The popularity of Bitcoin ordinals and BRC-20 tokens continues to grow, despite backlash from certain Bitcoin developers who believe that ordinals are "spam on the blockchain", and should not exist in the first place.
The "ordinal" war started on Twitter in late 2023, when Luke Dashjr, a core Bitcoin developer called the ordinals protocol "spam on the blockchain", and stated that they only exist because of a "bug" in Bitcoin's code.
Meanwhile, others like Udi Wertheimer have defended ordinals, joining in the fight as both pro and anti-ordinals "soldiers" sling everything from insults to criticism at one another.
The war between both sides over whether the Ordinals should exist or not will likely continue to brew for a while.
In the middle of it all, which of these new tokens should you be keeping an eye out for?
Let's find out:
ORDI is by far the most popular BRC-20 cryptocurrency, and rightly so.
The cryptocurrency is currently green on all timeframes and is even u by about $51% over the last month.
Its price, however, is on the high side compared to the rest, considering how it has rallied so steeply since October last year.
The rally on ORDI, however, is far from over, and there is no telling how far up it can go, as soon as Bitcoin wakes up once again.
SATS is the second most popular BRC-20 token after ORDI and has a market cap of around $1.33 already.
This shows how much of a big deal this cryptocurrency already is.
SATS is closer to a memecoin than an actual cryptocurrency, and trades at around $0.000632.
RATS is the most bullish cryptocurrency by far on this list, judging by its 51% price rally over the last week alone.
RATS is climbing the crypto market's ranks and currently trades at around $0.0003239.
It currently has a market cap of about $330 million and has been going up since its launch in November 2023.
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