Starting in late May 2023, Binance will support Bitcoin ordinals on its NFT marketplace — similar to NFTs on Ethereum.
This means that Binance users will no longer need a separate Bitcoin wallet that supports Ordinals inscriptions, making transactions much easier.
“Binance users can also purchase and trade Bitcoin NFTs directly using their Binance accounts,” said a statement from Binance. “This integration provides Binance users with more seamless and efficient transactions.”
The largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange also said it will provide “royalty support” and other ways to generate revenue for bitcoin NFT creators.
Binance product lead Mayur Kamat told Blockworks that it’s too early to tell how transformative the introduction of Ordinals to the NFT platform will be, but “time will tell.”
"From the beginning, everyone has wondered what uses Bitcoin could have beyond [an] inflation hedge or [a] store of value. Not only has it demonstrated tremendous value, but we are now seeing that the network can aspire for more," Kamat said.
Ordinals, launched in January, allow users to “carve” text, audio, art and even video games into satoshis, the smallest unit of BTC. They reside entirely on the blockchain.
News of Binance’s integration of Ordinals comes after Bitcoin processed its highest transaction volume in its 14-year history on May 1, 2023, according to on-chain data.
More generally, Bitcoin transactions broke an all-time record — with 444,000 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool on Monday morning.
The surge in trading volume and soaring fees were the reason Binance temporarily suspended Bitcoin withdrawals on Sunday. The company said it would adjust fees to "prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future" and was considering possibly integrating Bitcoin's lightning network to speed up transactions.
Binance NFT added support for the Polygon POS network in March 2023 and support for the Ethereum network in October 2021.
