Bitcoin-Based NFTs: Ordinals and Runes Surge in Market Cap and Popularity, Reports CoinGecko

The total market cap of the top 10 Bitcoin-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs), comprising Ordinals and Runes, has surged to $1.03 billion, with a daily average trading volume of $2.25 million in May 2024, according to CoinGecko. This increase highlights their growing influence within the Web3 ecosystem.

Market Leaders: NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, and Runestone

Leading the charge are collections like NodeMonkes, with a market cap of $198.25 million (2,880 BTC), Bitcoin Puppets at $144.12 million (1,815 BTC), and Runestone with $87.85 million (1,124 BTC). These collections have demonstrated significant sales volumes, with NodeMonkes and Bitcoin Puppets showing average daily volumes of $0.52 million and $0.51 million respectively as of May 2024.

User Adoption Trends

In terms of user adoption, Bitcoin Puppets experienced a 15.3% month-on-month growth in unique holders from January to May 2024, increasing from 3.8k to 6.7k holders. Similarly, NodeMonkes grew by 10.1% in the same period, from 3.8k to 5.6k unique holders. Runestone also saw a substantial number of unique holders, totaling 77 thousand in May 2024, the largest among the top collections.

Global Interest and Financial Gains

Interest in Ordinals has soared globally, with Google searches for “Ordinals” peaking in April 2024, up 58% since January 2024. Searches for “Bitcoin NFTs” also reached an all-time high in March 2024. Despite lagging behind Ethereum, Solana, and Ronin in sales volume, the growing buyer interest suggests potential for increased user adoption on the Bitcoin network.

Early adopters have seen significant financial gains. For example, participants in the Dutch auction-style mint for NodeMonkes could see returns of 426% if comparing the starting price of 0.21 BTC with the project’s all-time high of 0.895 BTC, or 38% if compared with the average sale price of 0.29 BTC.

A Brief History of Ordinals and Runes

Ordinals, launched by engineer Casey Rodarmor in January 2023, differ from traditional NFTs by having all data inscribed directly on-chain, making them akin to digital artifacts. As Ordinals gained traction, an anonymous developer created the BRC-20 token standard, which was later refined by Rodarmor into Runes. Runes address the issue of excessive unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) by optimizing and reusing these dormant UTXOs, enhancing efficiency and reducing network congestion.

Runes present new opportunities for scalability and user experience on the Bitcoin network, potentially leading to innovative decentralized applications (DApps) and tokenized assets.

Getting Started with Ordinals and Runes

For those interested in exploring Ordinals and Runes, CoinGecko offers detailed guides and listings of popular NFT projects built on the Bitcoin network. 

Methodology

The study analyzed data for the top 10 Bitcoin-based NFT collections as of May 26, 2024, on CoinGecko, along with Google Trends data as of May 31, 2024. The top collections include NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, Rune Pups, Ordinal Maxi Biz, RSIC Metaprotocol, Bitcoin Frogs, Runestone, Prometheans, Natcats, and Pizza Ninjas.

Image source: Shutterstock

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