BRC-20 Tokens Are The New Hottest Crypto Segment As Bitcoin's “New Era” Gathers Pace

BRC-20 Tokens Are The New Hottest Crypto Segment As Bitcoin’s “New Era” Gathers Pace

Updated: 16 January 2024

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BRC-20 tokens are the latest market craze as the segment’s cryptocurrencies surge and the ”new era” for Bitcoin flagged by a Binance Research report this month gathers momentum.

The asset category is bringing new possibilities to the Bitcoin blockchain and has become an outlier in the market. The tokens are rallying amid broader market gloom as excitement around spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) fades, prompting investors to look elsewhere for profits

BRC-20 token trading volume has skyrocketed 10 times from November to more than $500 million this month, said Paris-based blockchain analytics firm Kaiko Research in a Jan. 15 report. It attributes much of the increase to Binance, which launched spot and perpetual futures trading for tokens that include ORDI, SATS, and RATS.

The development follows a report by Binance Research that said BRC-20 inscription tokens introduced a “new era” for Bitcoin last year, while acknowledging the skepticism that had been seen around Bitcoin Ordinals.

BRC-20 Ecosystem will be crazy in 2024.

I’m very bullish on BRC20 ecosystem and every good ecosystem needs a Seamless bridge where you can move tokens across chains. @OrdBridge makes this possible!
You can transfer BRC-20 tokens between BTC native chain and Ethereum… pic.twitter.com/W34kLZUTUU

— Crypto Coach 🐒📈💰 (@WisdomMatic) January 9, 2024

The report also acknowledges that Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens influenced both the growth and dominance of Bitcoin in 2023. Notably, one of the greatest success stories of BRC-20 tokens is Pepe Coin (PEPE), built on the BRC-20 standard and which became a meme coin sensation last year.

BRC-20 Tokens Emerging From Within The Heart Of The Bitcoin Blockchain

Designed for use with Bitcoin, BRC-20 tokens have opened up the BTC ecosystem and its blockchain to opportunities for creating digital assets and tokenization. With this, the sector has expanded the utility of BTC beyond just digital currency.

The BRC-20 token standard is an experimental token standard that uses unique ordinal inscriptions (instead of smart contracts) to enable their minting and transfer on the Bitcoin blockchain.

However, with a market cap of $3.4 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $543 million,… pic.twitter.com/sKM32WsiBf

— CILLIONAIRE.COM (@cillionaire_com) January 16, 2024

For the layperson, BRC-20 tokens are an experimental token standard minting and transferring fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain via Ordinal inscriptions. While it is somewhat similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, the functions are different.

There are several compelling reasons why BRC-20 tokens have the potential to become a major player in reshaping the industry in 2024.

The most important reason is that the token standard can leverage the security and liquidity of Bitcoin. Secondly, it also addresses the challenges of Ethereum, including scalability and gas fees, which have caused investors to shift attention to the Solana blockchain.

But because the ecosystem is still experimental, it may be prudent for now to interact with BRC-20 tokens with caution. Long-term success depends heavily on community adoption and innovation, which is a low bar considering the Bitcoin community has that working for it in spades already.

Avalanche Inscriptions Running On BRC-20 Hype

Amid BRC-20 inscriptions and Bitcoin Ordinals hype, a new standard, Avalanche inscriptions or ASC-20 tokens, is also in the spotlight. Evidence of this was seen when Bitget Exchange hosted a Twitter Space on January 15 that attracted 585,000 listeners.

https://t.co/cbyKxdUDG1

— Bitget中文 | 一键跟单 (@Bitget_zh) January 15, 2024

Among those who attended was AVAV chief operating officer Ori, who said that the project’s roadmap would follow in the footsteps of the BRC-20 assets. AVAV is the Avalanche inscription token Avascriptions. The AVAV executive revealed that there were more than 100 inscriptions on the Avalanche blockchain since its inception in June 2023.