Bitcoin NFT Surge: Over 13,000 Ordinals Minted

Despite sparking controversy within the Bitcoin community, Ordinals NFTs have garnered increasing attention, with over 13,000 Ordinals minted in just two months since launch.

As previously reported by Coin68, the Bitcoin community has been divided over the network’s primary use case—whether it should be focused solely on payments or something broader.

The controversy began when Ordinals allowed users to encode images and upload this data onto the Bitcoin blockchain, effectively creating NFTs similar to those on Ethereum. This led to a surge in image data on the blockchain, pushing Bitcoin’s block size to new limits.

Bitcoin network reached a record 4 MB block due to… NFTs, quadrupling the usual 1 MB limit.

With such characteristics, Ordinals has increasingly attracted attention. BitMEX’s research unit recently released a report showing that over 13,000 Ordinals NFTs have been minted since the project's launch on December 14, 2022.

“Ordinals data as of February 7, 2023:

– Over 13,000 Ordinals transactions (equivalent to the number of mints);
– Utilized over 526MB of block space;
– Cost 6.77 BTC (approximately $155,000 at the time of reporting).”

The highest price ever paid for an NFT so far is 4.178 BTC (about $96,000).

However, this record price may not last long as the community is fiercely bidding for Ordinals Punks, inspired by CryptoPunks. Interestingly, with no marketplace for these Bitcoin NFTs yet, transactions are being conducted via… Excel sheets.

“Hey guys, the new OpenSea competitor looks pretty sleek!”

On the flip side, this development has faced significant criticism from the "conservative" faction, who argue that Ordinals NFTs are spam, wasting block space with mere JPEG images. Rene Pickhardt, a Bitcoin and Lightning Network developer, expressed frustration:

“CEO Adam Back invented hashcap to limit transaction spam. Then, Satoshi used it to address the double-spending issue.

And now, you guys are wasting precious block space just to spam JPEG images (?!)

What’s the point of creating the Lightning Network if the main network is allowing this junk (?!)

Seriously?!”

It's no surprise that Bitcoin maximalists are harshly criticizing this trend. While Ordinals NFTs account for less than 3% of all transactions on the network, they consume over 70% of block space.