This new crypto hype could be a “multi-billion dollar” opportunity as the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum plummet
BitcoinBTC, ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies have fallen back from their early 2023 highs this week despite predictions that a seismic shift in crypto sentiment may be underway.
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The price of bitcoin has fallen back after the latest inflation data showed prices have remained stubbornly high, weighing on expectations of a central bank from the Federal Reserve’s program of rate hikes and weighing on the price of ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.
Now, as new bitcoin-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called Ordinals spark a wave of user interest and push up the price of the protocol’s stacks of cryptocurrency, researchers have predicted that the hype could turn it into a “multi-billion dollar”- token.
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“Since Ordinals are embossed directly on [bitcoin] blockchain, they are considered to be ‘digital artifacts’ due to their permanence and immutability on the distributed ledger, unlike traditional NFTs that can be changed by smart contract developers,” Markus Thielen, head of research at Matrixport, wrote in a research report this week.
The hype surrounding Ordinal’s NFTs has pushed up the price of stacks cryptocurrency (STX) by around 200% through February. Ordinal’s NFTs, similar to ethereum and other smart contract NFTs, use the smallest unit of bitcoin, satoshis, to encode digital art, profile pictures, videos, audio and images directly onto the bitcoin blockchain.
“The full potential of the Stacks Network is starting to be recognized, which could cause the STX token to rally even more,” Thielen added.
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The NFT craze has faded in recent months amid a bitcoin, ethereum and crypto price crash that has removed about $2 trillion from the combined crypto market.
“The merger of NFTs and the bitcoin network provides greater security, transparency and traceability, opens up more use cases and rekindles interest around NFTs,” Thielen wrote, pointing to the number of newly minted Ordinal NFTs on the bitcoin blockchain surging past 100,000 — milestone last week.
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