Bitcoin Ordinals volume hits $210M in Q2 — DappRadar

The creation of Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain has led to over $210 million in trading volume, according to the latest quarterly report from DappRadar.

The data, which has been independently verified by Cointelegraph, shows that Bitcoin Ordinals’ booming popularity led to a sharp increase in trading volume through the second quarter of 2023.

Bitcoin Ordinal trading volume increased from $7.18 million in the first quarter of the year to $210.7 million by the end of June. DappRadar pins the quarterly increase at 2834%.

The report also notes that all-time Ordinals trades amounted to over 550,000 in Q2, with some 150,000 unique traders contributing to the inflated trading volume midway through 2023.

A Dune blockchain analytics dashboard reflecting several Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace metrics from the user, domo, also shows that unique users increased sharply from May 2023. UniSat, an open-source Chrome browser extension for Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, Magic Eden and Ordinals Wallet account for the majority of unique users by marketplace.

The popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals has had an interesting effect on the nonfungible token (NFT) landscape. Near the end of May 2023, Bitcoin surpassed Solana to become the second-most popular NFT blockchain, leaving the preeminent cryptocurrency blockchain only behind Ethereum in NFT trading volumes.

Related: Bitcoin Ordinals surpass 10M inscriptions as creator Rodarmor steps down

Ordinals have also been a boon to the Bitcoin mining industry. BTC miners have netted around $184 million through the first half of 2023, with Coin Metrics highlighting Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens for their role in the boost to fees which has already surpassed the 2022 total for BTC miners.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also credited Bitcoin Ordinals for reigniting a “builder culture” in the Bitcoin ecosystem in a Twitter Space on July 6.

Magazine: Ordinals turned Bitcoin into a worse version of Ethereum: Can we fix it?