Magic Eden Launches Bitcoin NFT Ordinal Marketplace
Magic Eden, a cross-chain non-functional token marketplace, announced on Tuesday that it is expanding to integrate Bitcoin NFT Ordinal Inscriptions into the marketplace, which will allow users to buy and sell the new digital collectibles.
Bitcoin Ordinals are a new type of non-fungible token, or NFT, that can be “written into” the Bitcoin blockchain. They are a type of crypto-asset that can represent a digital collectible such as a document, image, video file or video game object, which can then be entered into the smallest unit of Bitcoin, the satoshi. By owning that satoshi, users can show that they also own the collectible inscribed on it, creating a tradable version of the collectible on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Unlike NFTs supported on other chains, such as Ethereum, Ordinals write storage data for the collectible directly on the chain instead of using a link to the media. That means it cannot go offline or get lost, so it is always directly linked to the satoshi – “enrolled” to it – and remains with the owner of the NFT.
The marketplace is the largest Solana-based NFT marketplace by market share and expanded last year to support Polygon and Ethereum. The added support for bitcoin NFT provides even more opportunities for the marketplace audience to explore even more possibilities.
“Bitcoin Ordinals bring a whole new dimension into the universe of NFTs,” said Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden. “On Bitcoin, not all media uploaded to the chain can be changed or removed. This simplicity is embraced by many creators who want to create true collectibles that are written into the chain.”
Earlier this week, the number of Ordinal inscriptions passed more than 500,000 since the protocol’s initial launch on 21 January. Crypto-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital Ltd. predicted that Ordinals would become one extremely large marketwhich estimates that the underlying market could reach $4.5 billion by 2025. In comparison, the total NFT market reached almost 24.7 billion dollars in organic trade during 2022.
At launch, the marketplace is partnering with 13 different collections that publish Bitcoin NFT Ordinals, including Taproot Wizards, Inscribed Pepes, and Bitcoin Bandits. All collectibles will appear the same as other NFTs on Magic Eden and include metadata such as ordinal rarity, age, name, and inscription number. The marketplace also said it will continue to update the feature as more collections come online and create more advanced tools to support Ordinals.
To facilitate the process of buying, selling and trading Ordinals, Magic Eden partnered with and integrated two non-custodial wallets, Hiro and Xverse. They will provide what the company says will allow users to process transactions and provide an experience similar to the Solana-based one The Phantom wallet.
Users can buy, sell, trade and trade using Bitcoin NFT Ordinals today by going to the new Ordinals marketplace section now and connecting to their wallet.
