- The ongoing banking crisis and hyperinflation are the other catalysts Saylor believes could boost the adoption of Bitcoin.
- Ordinals have caused a surge in activity on the top blockchain.
Bitcoin’s famous maximalist and co-founder of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, says that the latest enthusiasm around Ordinals is a catalyst for Bitcoin adoption.
Speaking on PBD Podcast, Saylor added that the growing cases of bank failures, soaring inflation, and the clampdown by the regulators on digital assets were the other key factors that could drive the next bull run.
“Every time someone builds an application that’s cool on Bitcoin, like all the Ordinals and inscriptions and whatever that are driving up transactions fees, it is a catalyst, he said, adding that “a company like Microstrategy buying another $100 million worth of bitcoin,” is also a catalyst.
Indeed, the Ordinals are taking Bitcoin and the entire crypto space by storm, judging by the recent surge in activities reported on the blockchain. The feature surfaced at the beginning of the year, allowing users to store media on the blockchain by inscribing data on the smallest unit of bitcoin, Satoshi, as non-fungible tokens.
The result has been a jump in the transaction fees for the transfer of bitcoins on the network. According to BitInfoCharts, the average transaction fee on Bitcoin was $20 at press time, representing a jump of more than 500% before May 2023.
Ordinals Push BTC Transaction Fees for Miners Above the Mining Rewards
Besides, for the first time since 2017, some Bitcoin miners received more rewards for validating transactions on the blockchain than they were getting for minting new tokens, thanks to Ordinals.
A new fungible standard, BRC-20, introduced in March atop Ordinals, has also brought new use cases of the Bitcoin block space to meme tokens. The current market cap for the BRC-20 tokens, according to brc-20.io, is more than $500 million.
Colin Harper, head of content for mining pool Luxor Technologies, agrees with Saylor concerning the potential of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. Recently he commented that the development is a “cool example of how, just when you think Bitcoin has become boring, something is waiting around the corner that surprises everyone.”
MicroStrategy added 7,500 bitcoins last quarter, bringing its total holding to 140,000, according to the firm’s first quarter 2023 financial results. The company also reported that its digital asset impairment losses had narrowed to $18.9 million from $197.6 million in the prior quarter.
