Binance to add Bitcoin Ordinals as the number of subscriptions doubles in a week
Top global crypto exchange Binance plans to add support for Bitcoin Ordinal subscriptions to its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in late May, the company said in its blog post. Over the past week or so, the number of Ordinals on the Bitcoin chain has nearly doubled to 4.8 million.
Binance will add support for Bitcoin Ordinals in late May
Binance is set to add support for Bitcoin Ordinals to its NFT marketplace later this month, the company announced in a statement on Tuesday. As a result, Binance users will no longer need to use a separate wallet to trade Ordinal Inscriptions, also referred to as Bitcoin NFTs.
“Binance users will also be able to buy and trade Bitcoin NFTs directly with their Binance accounts. This integration provides even more seamless and efficient trading for Binance users.”
– Binance announced in a blog post on Tuesday.
The move comes in the wake of the rapid growth of Ordinals on the Bitcoin network. Over the past eight days, Ordinal inscriptions have shot from 2.5 million to 4.78 million, marking a near doubling.
In its statement, Binance also said it would add “royalty support” for Bitcoin NFT issuers and other ways to increase their revenue. The world’s largest crypto exchange will begin supporting Ordinals at the end of May after adding support for Ethereum, Polygon and BNB chains in recent years.
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Ordinals attract mixed responses in the Bitcoin Community
Launched in January 2023, Ordinal Inscriptions are digital assets inscribed in one satoshi – the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin. Ordinals reside exclusively on the blockchain and allow users to engrave text, audio, art, or even video games into Bitcoin.
Earlier this week, the unprecedented demand for Ordinals caused a significant bottleneck on Bitcoin, with more than 450,000 unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain. Similarly, Ordinals’ growth led to a massive jump in daily Bitcoin fees of $3.5 million, the highest in two years.
While many in the crypto community have been eagerly awaiting the day they could issue and trade NFTs on Bitcoin, not everyone has embraced the idea. The so-called Bitcoin purists see Ordinals as a departure from the original intent of Bitcoin, which was designed to be used as a medium of exchange and a decentralized store of value. That said, Bitcoin purists believe that Ordinals have introduced elements of centralization and undermined the idea that Bitcoin is a purely digital and value-neutral currency.
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Have you recently issued or traded Bitcoin Ordinals? If so, tell us about your experience in the comments below.
About the author
Tim Fries is the co-founder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate in the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division and is also a co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
