Magic Eden, the preeminent NFT market for the Solana blockchain, has launched a Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace. The company announced the news via Twitter today, calling itself the first audited Ordinals market and a place where users could safely trade their Bitcoin Ordinals:
Jack Lu, the CEO and founder of Magic Eden, said that Bitcoin Ordinals bring “a whole new dimension” to the world of non-fungible tokens. He made note especially that because Ordinals are inscribed on-chain and cannot be altered, they appeal to creators who want “true collectibles.”
Bitcoin Ordinals are similar to NFTs on other blockchains, but with a minting process called “inscribing.” They gained steam in February and March, with now there are over 400,000 Ordinals inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain. Some major NFT projects that already have Ordinals collections include Solana’s DeGods and Ethereum’s OnChainMonkey. Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, also rolled out an Ordinals collection called “Twelvefold.”
For the debut of its Ordinals marketplace, Magic Eden partnered with 13 collections, including Taproot Wizards, Inscribed Pepes, and Bitcoin Bandits. The company is known for its cross-chain hosting of NFT collections. In 2022, it expanded to the Polygon blockchain. Bitcoin will be the third chain for which it provides marketplace services.
Bitcoin Ordinals Make Noise in 2023
Although the NFT market continues to struggle compared to 2021 levels, the Bitcoin Ordinals movement has breathed new life into the space. From crypto influencers rocking Taproot Wizards PFPs to Ethereum and Solana collections launching their own sets on the Bitcoin blockchain, the NFT space has taken to Ordinals. And the movement has made news as well. Here are two stories we have covered about Bitcoin Ordinals in the past two months.
First, two weeks ago, Yuga Labs made $16.5 million with its “Twelvefold” Ordinals drop. The set featured 288 generative art pieces (done by an in-house artist) that explored the concept of time. The bids ranged from just over 7 BTC to 2 BTC.
Next, two months, we covered the debut of Ordinals on the Bitcoin blockchain. Casey Rodarmor started the project, converting satoshis (the smallest unit of measurement on the Bitcoin blockchain) to unique serial numbers, making the files trackable across transactions.
As the infrastructure develops for the Ordinals system, we are likely to see the number of inscriptions rise even further. And given that heavyweights like Magic Eden are getting involved, it’s almost certain that Ordinals will be a player in the NFT space for quite some time.