Bitcoin ecosystem reinvigorated by meme coins, new protocols

Record-breaking profits for Bitcoin miners are partially due to higher on-chain fees. With BRC-20 tokens hitting a $4 billion market valuation quickly after their debut in January, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen a tremendous comeback. Bitget’s study report states that daily mining revenue from block rewards topped $40 million in November, while miners’ revenues from on-chain fees increased from 1.7% in August to 19.57% in November. The market value of bitcoin has increased by 161% so far this year. BRC-20 tokens, developed by Bitcoin engineer Casey Rodarmor, represent a major technological advance in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The Ordinals (ORDI) Token: Leading the Meme Coin Wave

By making use of the Bitcoin Ordinals numbering system, these tokens make it possible to monitor and transfer unique digital assets straight on the Bitcoin network. The market values the Ordinals (ORDI) token, the pioneering memecoin developed under the BRC-20 standard, at $1.34 billion. Other token standards, like ARC-20 from Atomicals Protocol, contribute further to increasing the value of the ecosystem.

“Unlike Ordinals, which rely on third-party sorters to order asset transactions, the Atomicals protocol’s ARC-20 standard uses Bitcoin’s smallest unit, Satoshi, as the smallest unit for issuing assets. This allows Atomicals assets to trace a complete transfer history without relying on any third-party sorter.”

At the moment, the Atomical Protocol consists of many components: nonfungible tokens, ARC-20 tokens, Bitcoin domain names called “realms,” and on-chain data object storage called “Collection Containers.” The most recent statistics show that 366,879 mints have occurred on the Atomicals Protocol, totaling 55.8 BTC ($2.4 million). Additionally, the cumulative mints on this protocol represent 2.69% of all mints on Ordinals, demonstrating its increasing popularity.

There is strong community demand for minting BRC-20 tokens even with high gas costs. Researchers used the SATS (SATS) memecoin as a case study and found that, despite gas fees exceeding $15 million, SATS accomplished full minting on September 24. It has amassed an outstanding 21,107,258 mints and an extensive holding base of 36,061.

Future Outlook: Layer-Two Solutions and Bitcoin Adoption

Researchers noted in their analysis how popular minting BRC-20 tokens has remained over time and predicted that demand would continue to grow. In terms of the future, the researchers believe that “Layer-two solutions such as the Lightning Network will serve as the largest technical foundation supporting the adoption of Bitcoin payments on a larger scale” by 2024. This view emphasizes the need for creative solutions in tackling issues such as excessive petrol taxes and places Layer-two solutions at the cutting edge of encouraging widespread acceptance of Bitcoin payments.