Why are BRC-20 NFTs suddenly increasing in value?
4 min readNon-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital assets that represent various forms of art, collectibles, gaming, music, and much more. They are one of the hottest crypto trends in 2023, attracting millions of dollars in sales and generating a lot of excitement among creators and collectors.
However, not all NFTs are designed equally. There are various standards and platforms that enable the creation and trading of NFTs, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
One of the most popular and widely used standards is ERC-20, based on the Ethereum blockchain. Dominate thanks to network effects, liquidity and the diversity of the Ethereum ecosystem ERC-20 NFTs have been on the market for a long time. But there is a new challenger: BRC-20. This is an experimental token standard that enables the minting and transfer of fungible tokens via the Ordinals protocol on Bitcoin-Blockchain enables.
Based on the ERC-20 tokens from Ethereum, BRC-20 tokens have various mechanisms and functions, such as proof-of -History, Proof-of-Stake and optional license fees. BRC-20 tokens are also compatible with the Bitcoin network, meaning they have the security, decentralization and immutability of the most established and most valuable cryptocurrency can use.
BRC-20 NFTs have gained significant traction and popularity in 2023, especially among Bitcoin enthusiasts and supporters. According to Coingecko, the market capitalization of TRAC (Ordinals ) up around 230% to $67 million in the last seven days.
BRC-20 are gradually overtaking Ethereum NFTs
BRC-20 NFTs have also surpassed Ethereum NFTs in terms of sales volume, with $35,563,933 in transactions in the last 24 hours , compared to $12,142,132 for Ethereum NFTs.
Solana, another competitor in the NFT space, is lagging behind with a sales volume of just $1,990,810.
The difference from when I first talked about it last year and this year too is huge.
So what’s driving this surge in BRC-20 NFTs? Several factors contribute to this phenomenon such as: E.g.:
- Innovation and Experimentation: BRC-20 NFTs push the boundaries of what is possible with NFTs, introducing new features and functionality that are attractive to both creators and collectors are. For example, they may have optional royalties, meaning the original creator can receive a percentage of future sales of their NFTs. This creates a passive income stream and incentivizes quality and originality. You can also have share-weighted transaction processing, i.e. H. the more shares a user has in the network, the faster and cheaper their transactions are, allowing for a more efficient and fair system. Additionally, BRC-20 NFTs can have fee-based execution priority, i.e. Users can pay higher fees to confirm their transactions faster. This creates a more flexible and dynamic market.
- Scalability and Performance: BRC-20 NFTs are designed to overcome the scalability and performance issues inherent in Ethereum NFTs appear, such as high gas fees, slow transaction speed and network congestion. Their NFTs use the proof-of-history mechanism, which allows the network to achieve high transaction throughput without compromising security or decentralization. Proof-of-History encodes time as data on the blockchain, creating a verifiable and chronological record of events. This eliminates the need for complex and costly consensus algorithms such as proof-of-work or proof-of-stake and allows the network to process thousands of transactions per second with low latency and low cost.
- Diversity and Creativity: BRC-20 NFTs attract a diverse and creative community of artists, developers and collectors who explore new possibilities and opportunities with NFTs. They are not limited to digital art but can also represent various forms of media such as music, videos, podcasts, games and more. In addition, they can be integrated into other platforms and applications, such as: social media, e-commerce, gaming and more, creating new use cases and experiences for NFTs. Finally, BRC-20 NFTs can also be combined with other NFTs to create complex and rich digital content with multiple layers and dimensions.
- Strong community and developers: The Bitcoin community and the developers are very active and committed for improving the network and creating more utility. BRC-20 NFTs are one of the results of their hard work and vision. They worked on the Ordinals protocol and the BRC-20 token standard for years before launching them in early 2023. BRC-20 NFTs represent not only a means to express and own digital art, but also a way to support and participate in the Bitcoin network to participate. They are a testament to the innovation and creativity of the Bitcoin community and developers.
The most popular and successful BRC-20 NFT projects in 2023 include:
- ORDI: ORDI is a collection of 20,000 unique and generative NFTs representing atomic numbers from 1 to 20,000. ORDI is a minimalist and elegant project that celebrates the beauty and simplicity of numbers. ORDI also has a social and charitable aspect: each NFT owner can choose a social media handle to be displayed on their NFT. A portion of the sales proceeds will be donated to various charities. ORDI is currently the largest BRC-20 NFT project in terms of total sales, with over $208 million and over 2,440 transactions.
- $RATS: RATS is a collection of 461,194 unique and generative NFTs representing different types of rats. They are one of the most popular and successful BRC-20 NFT projects in 2023. $RATS BRC-20 NFTs are not only collectibles, but also playable characters in a metaverse game developed by the team. The NFTs have various attributes such as color, size, fur, eyes, ears, tail and accessories that affect their gaming performance and value. They also have a royalty system that creates a passive income stream and incentivizes quality and originality.
NFT Collection Rankings by Sales Volume in the last 24 hours are dominated by #BRC20 $RATS $FROGS $CATS pic.twitter.com/rG3dgVaKB4
— Anndy Lian (@anndylian) November 18, 2023
Conclusion
BRC-20 NFTs are on the rise because they offer a new and exciting way to create digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain and to collect. They are innovative, scalable, diverse and creative. Plus, they have a loyal and passionate community behind them. BRC-20 NFTs are not a fad, but a force to be reckoned with in the NFT space – and this is just the beginning.
