With just hours until the Bitcoin halving and the associated rollout of the Rune-based fungible token standard, collectors on the top chains may be wondering: what does this have to do with Ordinals NFT-like inscriptions on-chain? And what about BRC-20 fungible tokens built on the Ordinals protocol?
Unlike Ethereum’s “merge” transformation in late 2022, there is no reason to worry about what will happen to the on-chain Bitcoin asset after the halving. The halving simply refers to the reduction in mining rewards every four years, which slows the supply of new Bitcoins entering the market and often leads to an eventual price surge.
Bitcoin will continue to generate blocks, so any Ordinals or BRC-20 tokens will remain in your wallet without you having to do anything. But the bigger question revolves around demand for Bitcoin-related assets, and how the launch of the new Runes token protocol will affect interest in BRC-20 tokens.
Ordinals have seen a surge in demand in recent months, with NFT trading volumes surpassing long-time leader Ethereum. The shift has propelled cross-chain marketplace Magic Eden to the top of the list, while Ordinals series that promise to release rune tokens to holders, such as Runestone, have also surged.