Bear to Bull Market and Ethereum NFTs to Bitcoin Ordinals
Change is in the air. Crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been in a pretty brutal bear market for almost exactly a year now, which many, including myself, had projected to last for years.
But now there are signs of life popping up all around, fueled by Bitcoin NFTs, and recent news about China opening the door for its citizens to engage with the blockchain again. The bear market may be over sooner than we thought, so let’s get into what makes me think NFTs are just back.
Notable events
China getting into NFTs and crypto, and Russia will use crypto to settle payments across borders. These two big announcements are excitement back into the NFT and crypto markets and are leading many to believe that these alone can turn the market around.
Collectors are eyeing expensive NFTs ahead of a potential inbound pump from Chinese investors looking to snap up NFT grails like CryptoPunks, BAYC and Azuki. An x-factor that not enough people are talking about yet is, what if they decided to dive into the mostly unexplored world of Bitcoin NFTs where the opportunities could be even greater than the already expensive Ethereum ecosystem?
Bitcoin NFTs are really starting to cook and yesterday was the 10 millionth Ordinal enrolled. This huge milestone was thought improbable by many just a few months ago, but those who believe in Bitcoin NFTs were never in doubt. At this point, no one can deny that Bitcoin’s NFTs are here to stay, but the question of “Will Bitcoin NFTs turn Ethereum NFTs?” is another story. I think they will.
A new token standard was created on Bitcoin yesterday called BRC-721E. This will allow traders to bridge their Ethereum NFT to Bitcoin by “burning” the Ethereum NFT and recreating it on Bitcoin. Now we’re going to see traders’ beliefs about the Bitcoin ecosystem play out in real time.
A new meta is emerging in NFTs which is to release a new cryptocurrency (an ERC-20 or BRC-20 token) and then build an ecosystem around it, probably with NFTs. $OXBT is the new hottest BRC-20 collection on Bitcoin and there are teases of upcoming utilities for this token. Fun fact$OXBT is now held by more wallets than any other individual digital asset on the Bitcoin blockchain other than BTC itself and its smaller denomination, Satoshis.
This hot new meta recently gained momentum with new meme coins like $PEPE, $TURBO, $BEN and $PSYOP looking for ways to drive more users to the token and the concept now looks set to shape the NFT scene for the foreseeable future .
Gaming on the way to take over Web3
Gaming is on the verge of taking over Web3. Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, now has over 20 blockchain games listed on their shop with some like Defimons now entering a closed beta.
If Mythos Chain’s DMarket, and ImmutableX’s Gods Unchained are any indication of what’s to come (they are), we’re in for a meteoric rise in NFT adoption. Just look at how the buyers/sellers and transactions compare to a typical PFP project.
Sales from these two projects have propelled them into the top five over the past seven days, heralding what’s to come as blockchain games begin to enter the mainstream.
Look at the lists
I don’t know about you, but I’m intrigued to see who affects Bitcoin’s growth the most, Ethereum and its layer 2s, or Solana? Notice which chains aren’t in the top 10 NFT collection rankings by sales volume over the last 7 days and you’ll see who it might be.
Nakamigos has had a sudden surge, as has Jack Butcher’s art project Openens, pushing both ahead of Milady Maker and into the top 10. Milady Maker continues to hang around with the big dogs, now with added action revolving around the new BRC – The 721E bridge that originated in the Milady project.
Bitcoin continues to fall from its previous seven-day highs, but other ecosystems such as Solana and Ethereum are on the rise. I expect this tug of war to continue until new users enter the space, bringing liquidity to be able to push both up simultaneously.
(Disclosure: The author of this comment has $OXBT)
