Once 'Gah' For A Moment, Is Ordinal Bitcoin Now 'Buried'?

<p>&nbsp;Bitcoin Ordinals have sparked a phenomenon in the crypto community following its launch in January 2023. More than eight months later, ordinals have maintained their dominance in Bitcoin network activity over the past week.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite the sudden drop in sales volume, Bitcoin Ordinals are still active.</p><p><br /></p><p>Like NFTs, ordinal Bitcoins are digital assets based on the value of satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. The ability to expand on this satoshi became feasible through the Taproot upgrade that was introduced to the Bitcoin network on November 14, 2021.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to "Leonidas," the developer behind Ordinals, Bitcoin recorded a total of 530,788 transactions in the past 24 hours. Interestingly, the bulk of this activity in particular, 450,785 transactions related to Ordinals in detail. This basically means that Ordinals represented 84.9% of the activity on Bitcoin on August 21st.</p><p><br /></p><p>From Q1 to Q2, the trading volume of Bitcoin Ordinals jumped by 2,834%, reaching $210.7 million. Ordinals peaked around May after volume trades and sales nearly reached $452 million and rose above 832,000.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>However, in June, the market saw a change. Based on observations observed by DappRadar report last week with total sales declining more than 76% to $106 million. Further, total sales also experienced a sharp decline of 60.3%, plunging to 330,121, indicating limited trading interest.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite this, Bitcoin now has more than 25.6 million Ordinals, based on data from Dune Analytics, up more than 20% in just three weeks.</p><p><br /></p><p>Additionally, Taproot's Bitcoin usage is also still strong after hitting an all-time high in February which is largely attributed to the emergence of Ordinals in the network. Six months later, Ordinals continue to play a key role in Taproot's adoption. This is contrary to the figures that suggest declining interest in Bitcoin NFTs.</p><p><br /></p><p>While critics may regard Ordinals as exploitative of the network, some industry experts have praised its growth. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently praised the BRC-20 token standard, suggesting that its increased growth represents a clear departure from what he perceives as the "stagnant" politics that have plagued the Bitcoin ecosystem.</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, the Ordinals protocol team introduced a non-profit organization, known as the 'Open Ordinals Institute,' to fund their open source development. The California-based Open Ordinals Institute is a 501(c)(3) charity that aims to collect donations in Bitcoin to support the development of this protocol by focusing on their core developer group.</p><p><br /></p><p>This initiative will also focus on the development of user-friendly tools to enable users who are less skilled in technical matters to easily create "Bitcoin Digital Artifacts".</p>