What’s Happening With Ordinal NFTs?

You can’t have missed the explosion of interest in Ordinals, which are, basically, NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. You can dive into the tech, and some of the controversy around Ordinal NFTs, in this great introduction article here.

Something to keep in mind is that Ordinals are still early, meaning there’s been plenty of minting, but supporting apps are still being built. By the way, we should probably say inscribing, rather than minting, as Ordinals have their own terminology, but you get the idea.

If you’re looking for the OpenSea of Ordinals, then you won’t quite find it yet, but things are heating up and new developments are coming through thick and fast, so let’s look at some top collections, along with some of the wallets and platforms that are on the way.

Ordinal NFT Collections

As NFTs are simultaneously the most innovative and the most idea-cloning creative space around, the first big collection had to be, inevitably, punks. But on Bitcoin. Like it or not, these inscriptions have rocketed in value, to the point where an Ordinal Punk was traded for a CryptoPunk. There are 100 Ordinal Punks, all contained in the first 650 Ordinal inscriptions.

No blockchain ever limits itself to just one punks collection, so here’s another option. These ones are cleanly made and are actually more original than some of the others, and have been trading, recently, for around 1 ETH.

Created by Udi Wertheimer, who’s spent the past few weeks trolling Bitcoin maxis who object to NFTs invading the blockchain, Taproot Wizards feature the Bitcoin Wizard, whose powerful, meme-magical presence dates back to 2013. Ten years later, these updated Taproot Wizard JPEGs now have their own place in Bitcoin history too, locked in right there on-chain.

Just to give a little background (and complicate matters), there actually (kind of) already were NFTs on Bitcoin, which pre-date Ordinals and were minted through a protocol called Counterparty. This is technically different since it’s a Layer 2, while Ordinals are directly on-chain, but anyway, an iconic Counterparty collection is Rare Pepes, some of which are highly valuable.

That all in mind, it makes perfect sense that at least one top Ordinals collection would have to include Pepe the Frog (the Matt Furie-created character featured in Rare Pepes), and so we have 69 inscribed Pepes. 

There are three planned stages to the Ordinal Loops project, with the first chapter, Do Not Fiat, consisting of seven animated, retro-tech cyberpunk-looking loops. These are among the earliest Bitcoin inscriptions, and also collaborated with another very early project, Bitcoin Rocks, to create 42 RockLoops.

On the Edge of Oblivion caused an early stir, partly because it could be traded easily through ERC-721 tokens on OpenSea. Each token corresponds to an On the Edge of Oblivion piece inscribed in its own Bitcoin wallet, that can be taken control of later when the Ordinals space is better supported.

The images are inspired by photographs of a black hole, and the collection is the work of a creative developer called Nullish. At one point, these pieces soared to around 3.5 ETH, they’ve now, at the time of writing, corrected all the way back down to around 0.3 ETH, but their positions as early inscriptions are locked in.

If you check what’s happening with Nullish now, then the more recent activity is around another of his projects, called Distortion. This also features NFTs on Ethereum, the Distortion Genesis tokens, which are linked to early inscriptions on Bitcoin (through an airdropped Claim Pass), while also functioning as access passes to future work by Nullish.

If you’re into Solana NFTs, you’ll be familiar with top collection DeGods. The creator of the collection, Frank DeGods, caused a stir when he announced plans to migrate DeGods from Solana over to Ethereum, and now he’s expanded onto the Bitcoin blockchain too.

Specifically, what he’s done is take 535 DeGods PFPs that were burnt from the original Solana collection over a year ago, and place them in a single Bitcoin block, stating for dramatic effect that “what is dead may never die” as he did so.

This collection doesn’t provide a roadmap, utility plans, a token proposal, or any of the things you might be used to when assessing NFT projects, but, basically, Bitcoin Machine items are early inscriptions and have attracted attention as cool-looking collectibles, so it’s one to be aware of.

Ordinal NFT Trading

The way to buy and sell Ordinals at the moment is over-the-counter (OTC), meaning you have to personally set up a trade. This means jumping into Discord servers, where there are channels set up for buying and selling. Either go to the Discord of the specific collection you’re interested in, or go to The Ordicord, which lists projects and is a hub for activity and resources. The Ordinals Wallet Discord also lists some mints and has useful information.

Development is moving fast, though, and it’s likely only a matter of time before the majority of trading moves onto marketplaces. Some platforms to keep an eye on are OrdSwap, Gamma (primarily a Stacks Layer 2 platform), Scarce City, and Ordinals Market.

The last of those, Ordinals Market, uses a bridge-like service called Emblem Vault, which ties Ordinals to tokens on Ethereum. By the way, Stacks, like Counterparty, is a Bitcoin Layer 2 which can handle NFTs and also predates Ordinals.

There’s also Generative, which specializes in generative art, and just integrated MetaMask, a significant development that creates an Ordinals-compatible Bitcoin Taproot wallet through your MetaMask address.

Another platform called Ordinal Hub is shaping up to be a useful place to keep on top of the many collections that are being inscribed. Ordinal Hub has been acquired by Bitcoin mining firm Luxor Mining, and it’s looking clean and user-friendly.

Ordinal NFT Wallets

Buyers can use a Sparrow wallet to receive Ordinals, which is technical, but doesn’t require running a Bitcoin node. The Ordinal Theory Handbook details how to do this, and–very importantly–cautions to use this as a receive only wallet.

There are now more user-friendly options becoming available, though, and the main contenders are Ordinals Wallet, Xverse, Hiro Wallet, Alby, and the Ordswap platform mentioned above also has its own wallet.

Overall, the Ordinals space is in a state of such energetic development that we should expect rapid change and plenty of surprises.