During the holiday season, Casey Rodarmor’s Ordinals Protocol saw a significant surge in value, along with other BRC-20 cryptocurrencies. ORDI experienced a remarkable 37% increase in price on December 25th, with its trading volume and market capitalization rising concurrently, as reported by CoinMarketCap. Traders exchanged over $900 million worth of ORDI, marking a 131% increase from the previous day.
At the time of reporting, ORDI was priced at $72 per token, with its market cap exceeding $1.5 billion, reflecting a 35% increase. Despite no major news or developments preceding this surge, other Bitcoin inscription coins also saw notable gains during what appeared to be a period of profit rotation.
ORDI operates on the Bitcoin Request for Comment (BRC-20) token standard created by the pseudonymous developer Domo. This standard enables the creation and trading of tokens on BTC’s network, similar to ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum and the decentralized finance ecosystem.
Casey Rodarmor founded the Ordinals Protocol and its native asset, one of the earliest Bitcoin inscription projects, which began in the first half of 2023 and has since evolved into a billion-dollar cryptocurrency. The BRC-20 token category now boasts a market cap exceeding $2.1 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Despite the growing popularity of Bitcoin inscriptions and similar activities on various blockchains, some developers view the token standard as a flaw and advocate for its removal from the leading decentralized network. Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr has labeled inscriptions as fraudulent and proposed network upgrades to curb BRC-20 issuance on Bitcoin’s network, a concern that has been reported to U.S. authorities and acknowledged as a vulnerability by the National Vulnerability Database.
Despite these criticisms, inscriptions continue to gain traction across multiple blockchains, at times causing significant transaction fees and network congestion.