BRC-20 Arrives On Bitcoin In Explosive Fashion

Bitcoin Ordinals have been one of the most exciting developments of the Web3 space in 2023 so far. Their emergence onto the scene breathed a fresh lease of life into a tired, worn-down and battered market that had weathered the unmitigated disaster that was…well, the whole of 2022.

What’s been exciting about watching Ordinals develop has been the swiftness of innovation that has taken place. It wasn’t long ago that the only way to buy an inscription was making a dirty, back-alley deal with a fellow stranger in a freshly opened Discord server. Reasonably soon after, platforms such as Ordinals Wallet, Unisat, Magic Eden on Bitcoin and Generative.xyz launched their platforms to facilitate trading for this new technology.

This innovation has not been slowing down, as BRC-20 tokens were launched and have now accounted for over 90% of inscription volume, driving Bitcoin transfer fees up to bull market levels.

What Is BRC-20?

BRC-20, similar to ERC-20 for Ethereum, is a token standard based on Bitcoin created by @domodata on March 8th 2023.The BRC-20 token standard utilizes Ordinal inscriptions to deploy token contracts – again, similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20.

BRC-20 tokens can be transferred, traded and stored, and are inscriptions of a “text-based type” opposed to the image types which kicked the Ordinals movement off.

BRC-20 coins cannot fall foul to a rugpull. No charlatan founder can disappear with the mint funds, as minting costs nothing but the transaction fee to the miners. Additionally, there are no commissions on secondary sales. Token creators have no control over the asset.

That said, there are some negatives. BRC-20 tokens cannot interact with smart contracts, cannot be divisible by decimals, and are ultimately lack a lot of the functionality that makes ERC-20 so special.

Top Coins

$ORDI was the first BRC-20 deployed and has enjoyed the most success in trading volume, no doubt in large part due to the historical aspect it holds. Then came $MEME, with its supply of 93,999 (6000 tokens were burnt during their NFT mint) which has also garnered a lot of love from market participants.

$PEPE, for it’s inevitable memability. and $WZRD, a token issued by @mavensbot – the artist who created the Bitcoin Wizard – along with the aforementioned make up a stable top 4 of BRC-20 tokens.

Newer tokens which have been picking up steam include $OSHI which has a super small supply of 13,337, and $NOOT which is a token created by Ordinal Penguins and has an iron strong community backing it.

Furthermore, The ExtraOrdinals launched their BRC-20 token earlier today, $XTRA. You can read more about XO in this feature.

What’s Next?

With Bitcoin transaction fees going through the roof because of BRC-20 minting, we may see a slow down in the near future. However, platforms such as Unisat and Ordinals Wallet are continuously developing new features to accommodate the exceptional rate of growth that Ordinals is experiencing – and no doubt that will continue.

Furthermore in a huge piece of news which dropped on 30th April, Huobi announced that they will soon be supporting selected BRC-20 tokens.

Where Can I Learn More?

There are some excellent resources available to read up and learn more about Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. @layer2323 has been dropping threads packed full of stats, analysis and considerate projections endlessly. Layer is well worth a follow if you’re looking for insights on all things Ordinals, not just BRC-20, so do go check them out.

If you’re looking for info on how to mint a BRC-20 token, The ExtraOrdinals included a guide in their token announcement tweet which gives you a step-by-step walkthrough of the process.

The XO team are experts of the space and there aren’t many other better places to get education and alpha on all the latest happenings in Ordinals. You can join their Discord here.

Final Thoughts

BRC-20 is an interesting concept which has taken over not just Ordinals as of late, but Bitcoin itself.

Are they just a passing fad? It’s possible, but strike while the iron is hot as they say. If you’re reading this now, you’re early and present at a time where the infrastructure of the technology is not yet fully built out. As Layer correctly points out in one of their threads “Not easy = alpha.” If accessibility to an asset is easy to comprehend or obtain, you’re probably a lot later than others.

Don’t be late again, anon.