Ordinals (ORDI) have been making price moves these recent days after getting listed on Binance and being mistakenly introduced as the Ordinals Protocol token when actually, it doesn't have any association with it. Per information, ORDI is a token without a team, an official website, or any presence on social media.¹
ORDI is a BRC-20 token standard that was deployed on the Bitcoin network on the 8th of March 2023 and apparently, all 21 million of it were minted within 18 hours.²
It was first listed on Crypto.com in May and per historical information from Coinmarketcap, it had an ATH of $29.16 on May 8th and an all-time low of $2.86 in September.
The token's listing on the world's top crypto exchange (Binance) obviously had an impact and ignited people's speculation and sentiments, hence the price is now hovering around the $17 to $20+ range and has a current market cap of almost $400 million.
Token Info
- Ticker: $ORDI
- Type: BRC-20
- Maximum/Circulating Supply: 21 million
- ORDI Contract Address
- ORDI Explorer
Apart from Binance and CryptoCom, ORDI is also listed in various centralized exchanges (CEXs) including Gate.io, Kucoin, Bitget, OKX, and Bybit just to name a few.
ORDI was seen as the contributing factor in the recent spike of over 2000% in Bitcoin transaction fee.³
Brief Intro to Bitcoin Ordinals Protocol
It was mentioned that ORDI is the very first token created on the Ordinals Protocol. Here's to share a quick overview of what the protocol is about.
The Ordinals Protocol (bitcoin) is a "system that allows inscription and the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. It provides a numbering scheme for satoshis, giving them individual identities and making them distinguishable from each other, allowing them to be tracked (based on their chronological order of creation), transferred, and imbued with unique meanings through inscriptions. Each satoshi (sats) can be inscribed with data, such as pictures, text, or videos, through a Bitcoin transaction. Inscriptions can be up to 4 MB in size."⁴
It was created by a programmer named Casey Rodarmor who introduced inscriptions on Bitcoin Mainnet in January this year which paved the way for Ordinals NFTs.⁵
Accordingly, what differentiates Ordinals NFTs from others is that they (including all their metadata) "exist directly on the Bitcoin network which levels up their immutability. In other blockchain NFTs, the actual image file of the art is typically stored off-chain, and the metadata just includes a link to the image file."⁶
Personal Conclusion
ORDI is a new token hence it poses a higher level of risk and just like any other digital asset, it is subject to volatility so one must be careful when investing.
Additionally, the token doesn't have any utility yet so it will be interesting how it goes when the hype dies down. Will it remain a memecoin (as categorized by Binance) for people's speculation? We shall see. I also wonder if the creator of this token will come forward or would just be as elusive as Nakamoto, lol!
The Ordinals Protocol is still relatively new (less than a year old) and it is gaining popularity to date. Will be nice to see further developments on it including marketplaces to trade Ordinals collections. By the way, collections, inscriptions, and BRC-20 tokens can be viewed via the Ordinals Wallet or on Ordiscan.
Info Sources: Ordinals / Bydfi / Cointelegraph / Coincodex / Born2invest / CMC / Cryptopolitan / CryptoCom / Coindesk
