Bitcoin Ordinals, a method of generating Bitcoin non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through a process called inscribing, has seen a surge in activity following the launch of the BRC-69 token standard. According to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, the number of new inscriptions rose to over 350,000 on Monday, a 250% increase since the launch. Luminex, the Ordinals launchpad, said that the modified version of the BRC-20 standard was launched to reduce the cost of inscriptions for Ordinals by over 90%.
The brilliance of BRC69 lies in its simplicity, Luminex said in a Tweet thread. Minters only need to inscribe a single line of text instead of a full image. This text allows the final image to be automatically rendered on all ordinals-frontends, using solely on-chain resources, thanks to recursive inscriptions.
Data tracked by Dune Analytics shows that the daily fees paid for inscriptions remain stagnant, despite the surge in activity. Ordinals went live in January, bringing the NFT and smart contracts narrative to the Bitcoin blockchain and spurring investor interest in tokens like STX, the native token of Bitcoin layer 2 Stacks Network. Glassnode’s weekly report published Monday said that the second wave of activity, which began in May, was an order of magnitude larger than the first wave.