Magic Eden Bitcoin NFT Launchpad Debuts as Ordinals Total Approaches 1 Million

The Ordinal’s protocol for recording digital assets on Bitcoin-equal NFTs on Ethereum and other blockchain networks – have taken off in a big way so far this year. And now with the total number of Ordinals topping 1 million, Magic Eden is rolling out a platform that allows creators to launch new collections.

The multi-chain marketplace, which recently launched on Bitcoin and quickly took the rivals as for Ordinal’s trading volume, announced today that it will debut its Bitcoin launch pad on Friday. The launchpad is a primary sales platform for creators who have submitted artwork or media to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Magic Eden’s first launchpad project on Bitcoin is Deadjiraa spinoff from the Ethereum NFT project Godjira, featuring a series of 107 pixelated lizards profile pictures (PFP) which was entered in February.

The launchpad will feature a few more Ordinal drops over the following week, including from Solana-based NFT gaming project Genopets, other existing NFT projects Lazy Lions and Humanoids, and a project from popular rapper Lil Durk.

Initially, the launchpad will allow creators to sell Bitcoin Ordinals already written into the blockchain, or Magic Eden itself can help facilitate the inscription process if requested.

Creators can use an approval list if desired to allow certain wallet addresses to mint Ordinals, and then users will “get minted in a credible mint form, and that will essentially execute the sale of the pre-inscribed Ordinal to the approved user’s wallet for the coin. price,” a Magic Eden representative told Decrypt.

Magic Eden’s launch pad is a business initiative that complements its secondary marketplace, providing a “white glove service” for creators to debut new projects. It’s a revenue-generating venture for Magic Eden, although it’s currently unclear what cuts or fees the firm takes for Ordinals launches. Decrypt asked, but did not immediately receive an answer.

The firm’s Ordinals marketplace has routinely topped the charts for trading volume since its launch in March, although it remains a relatively small market. Magic Eden has racked up about $3.3 million in sales volume with Ordinals so far, per data from Dune, serving only about 2,700 unique wallets.

Ordinals rise

Inscribing ordinals or “digital artifacts” on the Bitcoin blockchain is a different process than minting NFTs on a chain like Ethereum or Solana.

On those chains NFT projects use smart contracts—which contains the code that drives decentralized protocols and software– to activate functionality such as embossing as needed. It allows creators to drop things like PFP projects where images are generated from a pool of possible properties, or generative works of art created from an artist’s custom algorithm.

Ordinals launched in January, allows people to enter artwork, media and text directly into the Bitcoin blockchain by tying them to an individual Satoshi, the smallest unit of measurement for Bitcoin (1/100,000,000 BTC). However, writing in is a more complicated process than deploying NFT projects on other top chains, and the Ordinals infrastructure is early and constantly evolving.

But that hasn’t stopped creators from embracing the concept. More than 930,000 inscriptions has been made in just over two months, and given that a single-day record of over 76,000 inscriptions was set on Tuesday this week, the total could well top the million mark before the end of this week.

Magic Eden Head of Marketing Tiffany Huang told Decrypt that “many creators understand the value it offers, how it differs from other blockchains, and how having a presence on Bitcoin can be complementary to a collection or brand.” But she added that entering and selling Ordinals “can also be quite fraught with friction to get off the ground.”

Along with original projects, Ordinals has so far attracted notable NFT creators from other chains, e.g. Bored Ape Yacht Club maker Yuga Labs with its Twelve times generative art project, DeLabs with BTC DeGodsand photographer Justin Aversano. Magic Eden believes the launch pad will help even more creators embrace the burgeoning Ordinals space.