The Litecoin blockchain network will undergo a block halving event on August 2, 2023, which is a programmed reduction in miner rewards that helps regulate inflation and maintain the cryptocurrency's scarcity. Miners are currently rewarded with 12.5 litecoins whenever a block is produced, and this will decrease to 6.25 coins per block after the next halving event.

The halving occurs after every 840,000 blocks are mined, reducing the rate at which new coins are introduced into circulation and controlling inflation. This process will continue until the block reward per block becomes zero, which is estimated to happen in 2142.

The purpose of the halving is to incentivize miners to continue participating in the network while preventing the creation of too many new coins that could devalue the currency. With each halving, the rate of Litecoin's issuance decreases, and this helps to maintain its scarcity over time. As a result, the halving event is a crucial aspect of Litecoin's monetary policy and its overall sustainability.

Knowing Litecoin's controlled supply over time is essential in understanding its current and future inflation rates, the number of coins in circulation, and the remaining ones to be mined. This information helps people rely on its programmed/controlled supply for transparency and predictability.

Litecoin's issuance is controlled by consensus among its participants, with several consensus rules in place since its inception. These include

84 Million litecoins to ever be produced

2.5-minute block intervals

Halving event after every 840,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years)

Block reward which starts at 50 and halves continually every halving event until it reaches 0 (approximately by year 2142)

 These rules ensure the stability and predictability of Litecoin's supply and inflation rates, providing users with a transparent and secure cryptocurrency that operates in a decentralized manner.

Analysis of past halving event price performance in Litecoin

The potential impact of a halving event on Litecoin's price is a topic of much debate among investors. Some argue that the market has already priced in the event, so there may be no significant changes in price. Others believe that a halving of supply should cause an increase in price, assuming that demand remains stable or increases. Historical data shows that Litecoin's price has increased significantly following previous halving events. A chart displaying the price performance during these events can help investors understand past trends and inform their future investment decisions.

$BNB which serves as the acronym and the native token for Build N Build chain, was a crypto token launched by the CeFi crypto exchange Binance in 2017. BNB chain promised its users low transaction fees with high transaction speed and this separate blockchain venture pursued by Binance was welcomed by a growing DeFi community as an alternative trading solution that would catapult Binance and its brand across both CeFi and DeFi domains to become the largest crypto company in the world. As of March 2023, Binance enjoyed an unrivalled USD 14 billion daily trading volume to earn its top spot as the largest crypto exchange while its DeFi token captured over USD 46 billion market capitalization and has secured itself a top 4 rank in market cap among all tokens traded. In essence, the BNB chain’s ecosystem consists of BNB Smart Chain, which serves as the transaction layer with its unique Proof of Staked Authority validation mechanism to ensure security against 51% attack without compromising transactional efficiency, BNB Beacon Chain which serves as the governance layer of the blockchain ecosystem through staked voting, BNB Side-chain and BNB Greenfield which emulate Ethereum’s continuous infrastructural improvement and zkBNB which applies Zero Knowledge Roll-up on the BNB Smart Chain to tackle its scalability issue by developing BNB’s own layer 2 solution.

Furthermore BNB also operates a USD-pegged stable-coin, BUSD, with Paxos and it has been regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services with periodic audits by Withum. Nevertheless, the US SEC’s sudden decision to classify BUSD as an unregistered security in February 2023 has triggered a massive outflow from BUSD to rival stable-coin Tether and culminated into BUSD’s market cap falling below USD 9 billion by early March 2023 after being de-listed by crypto exchange Coinbase. In addition, BNB’s token price has also suffered a similar fate as BNB has lost about 12% of its value since February 2023. Scrutiny and worries among the crypto community started to connect to BNB chain as reports emerged that Binance under-collateralized its stable-coin asset reserve and co-commingled client’s fund by investing client’s asset with hedge fund such as Cumberland DRW and Alameda Research in the past. As no official charges have been brought against Binance to date over the alleged misuse of client’s funds and Paxos also vowed to fight against the US SEC’s decision in court, is there any chance that Binance or Paxos could overturn the recent misfortune and BNB token would recover its value as well as the crypto community’s confidence? In the rest of this article we shall look at the reasons why one should be bullish or bearish over BNB.

Bull Cases

1. Ecosystem Development: The BNB chain has devoted an astounding amount of resources towards nurturing its ecosystem development. Firstly, it has an accelerator programme called Most Valuable Builder running in conjunction with Binance Lab to cultivate new and promising projects. Currently the programme is at its 6(th) cohort group and notable alumni from previous cohort include Velvet Capital, Rareboard, Meta Apes, etc… spanning across DeFi, NFT and GameFi projects on the BNB chain. Secondly, BNB chain offers a Builder Grant to incentivise developers to contribute to its ecosystem growth. For instance, open-source high-frequency market making platform Hummingbot has recently been a recipient of the grant and the Grant would help to entice developers to extend their product reach into BNB chain. Thirdly, BNB chain has recently created a European Innovation Incubator Programme running virtually in the European time zone as the blockchain targets for a wider adoption in the EU in addition to its success in Asia and Americas. Last but not least, BNB chain has promised USD 10 million fund to foster faster user growth and network adoption through promoting its ecosystem development and hence over time the funding and projects are expected to help drive for a wider adoption of the BNB token and it might thus contribute to the appreciation of BNB token in the long run.

2. DeFi Resilience: According to data from DefiLlama, despite an overall decline in Total Value Locked (TVL) across the crypto industry, BNB chain has only lost about 20% of its TVL since FTX’s collapse and it still managed to retain about USD 4.78 billion TVL in testimony to its steadfast DeFi community’s activity. As far as DeFi network diversity, the top 3 TVL platforms are composed of PancakeSwap which dominates BNB chain’s DeFi TVL with over 51% (USD 2.47 billion) followed by Venus Protocol with about 16% (USD 763 million) and Alpaca Finance with about 8% (USD 379 million). Overall, although BNB’s DeFi sector lacks sufficient diversity, its stable DeFi user volume speaks for the resilience of the sector and it resembles a well-established DeFi ecosystem such as Ethereum’s.

3. Revenue Resistance: BNB chain’s revenue share has been barely affected since FTX’s implostion in November 2022. By far, the greatest decline in the blockchain’s revenue was when Terra and Luna collapsed in May 2022 when BNB chain’s revenue fell from USD 3.8 million to USD 2.4 million which constituted to a 36% revenue loss. Since November 2022 however, its revenue has merely dropped from USD 2.3 million to USD 1.9 million in February 2023 which constitutes to 17% revenue loss or a grand total of 50% revenue loss from May 2022 to February 2023. When compared to rival blockchain networks such as Fantom or Avalanche, their revenue shares in February 2023 were USD 78,000 and USD 558,000 which represented a decline of 91% and 95% since May 2022 when both networks reported USD 878,000 and USD 10.7 million of revenue respectively. Although BNB chain’s revenue is declining, the fact that it could still maintain a healthy share of revenue generation activity compared to its rivals and the decline in its revenue has showed sign of tapering suggested that the remaining share of its revenue could be generated from loyal users and the blockchain network can maintain a decent revenue share to sustain itself from going forward.

4. NFT and GameFi Trends: BNB chain has recently shown remarkable effort in boosting its NFT and GameFi development. For instance, it has secured a partnership with Openseas to expand BNB chain on the most popular NFT marketplace. In addition, BNB chain also ran a promotional campaign during late 2022 to further boost this NFT partnership with Openseas through a 12-day campaign which has helped to catapult the blockchain into top 6 in NFT sales volume of USD 8.8 million trailing behind Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Immutable X and Cardano by February 2023. On the other hand, BNB chain has also ramped up its development of GameFi ecosystem with numerous grants provided to GameFi projects such as Gameta, Meta Apes, Puffverse, etc… Furthermore, Alien Worlds, which has the highest amount of Unique Active Wallets with over 200,000 users according to data from Dappradar, is a GameFi project built on BNB chain and thus, NFT and GameFi can sustain BNB Smart Chain’s transactional volume and offer a price floor to the BNB token.

Bear Cases

5. Risk from Binance and BUSD: Unfortunately for BNB chain, its connection to Binance and BUSD stable-coin creates a reputational risk factor. Due to the increased scrutiny from the US SEC on Binance and on BUSD, any reputational risk related to the exchange or the stable-coin could trigger a panic sell-off on BNB token thus BNB investors or holders must be wary of a potential spillover effect and manage the risk accordingly. For instance, the recent US SEC’s decision to classify BUSD as an unregistered security has triggered a sharp selloff of BNB in February 2023 causing BNB to lose over 9% of its market value. In addition, if Binance’s alleged misuse of customer funds was proven to be true, any legal complication might ripple off to BNB chain and hefty liquidation of BNB token might happen overnight and investors must factor that in for their BNB investment. Therefore, multiple risk factors are on the horizon and it is yet unclear how likely Binance and BNB chain would prevail over time.

6. Capital Outflow: Since 2023, Binance, BUSD and even BNB chain have experienced a continuous trend of capital outflow. For instance, in early 2023 CeFi exchange Binance has reported huge capital outflow equivalent to 25% of its asset value. Then BUSD has lost over USD 6 billion of capital as investors switched to safer asset due to worry about BUSD’s long term sustainability in light of the US SEC’s decision. Furthermore, even BNB chain has witnessed over USD 4 billion of capital outflow in 1 month as the blockchain’s market cap plunged from circa. USD 49 billion in February 2023 to circa. USD 45 billion in March 2023. Overall these worrying trends represent that investor confidence is fading fast regarding anything related to Binance and it is not likely to see the trend reversed within a short period of time.

7. Developers Activity: Last but not least, developers activity has slowed down by 28% in the last quarter of 2022 as reported by Messari. Corresponding to the fact that the crypto industry is shrinking due to the current harsher business environment, it raises a big question as to whether now is a good time to invest in BNB as slowness in developer activity might spell long term growth trouble for the blockchain. However, BNB chain has certainly stepped up its effort in promoting developer activity through its arrays of grants and hopefully they would succeed in enticing developers towards building on BNB chain.

Conclusion

Overall, BNB chain represents an interesting yet stressed investment opportunity for any investors who can tolerate the short to medium-term risk of an uphill legal battle that Binance and BUSD might face in the months ahead and the increased scrutiny that might result in damaging Binance and any related entity’s reputation if further evidence is found over its misuse of customer funds. However, risk also brings return as BNB token has depreciated over 58% from its all-time-high price due to the worsening crypto market condition and capital outflow from investors who have lost confidence. Meanwhile a very resilient BNB chain user base has shown such staunch support that can generate a little less than USD 2 millions of monthly revenue and thus investors interested in BNB should ask themselves when will be the best time to “buy the dip”.

Intro

In our previous blog post, we briefly introduced our protocol, ZKCross, which aims to connect Web2 and Web3 effortlessly without adding unnecessary complexity. We also highlighted the current issues plaguing the Web3 industry, which hinder true decentralization, efficiency, and accessibility for developers. This blog post will delve deeper into how we plan to overcome these problems and achieve our goal of seamlessly linking Web2 and Web3.

Before we get into the specifics, let’s review what ZKCross is about!

What is ZKCross?

ZKCross is a groundbreaking platform that aims to bridge the gap between two versions of the internet, Web2 and Web3. It uses a WebAssembly virtual machine called zkVM and a “zk-shadow layer,” making it easy for different platform parts to work together. This approach allows Web2 developers to use programming languages such as C/C++, Java, or Python.

Our platform also employs a unique layer that connects the on-chain and off-chain environments seamlessly. This layer, known as a “zk-shadow layer,” facilitates the connection between zkWASM and the on-chain layer through zk-proxy contracts. Consequently, this allows us to break the barrier between Web2 and Web3 while facilitating high throughput and accessibility for any user or developer.

The wonders of Zero-knowledge technology

Zero Knowledge (ZK) technology refers to a class of protocols that allow one party (the prover) to demonstrate knowledge of a secret to another party (the verifier) without revealing any information about the secret itself. The concept was introduced in the late 1980s and has since found many applications, including cryptographic authentication. A ZK-proof typically involves a series of interactions between the prover and the verifier, during which the prover convinces the verifier of the knowledge of a secret without revealing it.

To be considered a ZK-proof, a protocol must satisfy completeness, soundness, and zero knowledge. Completeness means that an honest prover will always convince an honest verifier of the truthfulness of the statement being proven. Soundness means that a dishonest prover cannot convince the verifier of a false statement with a high probability. Finally, zero knowledge means that the protocol does not reveal any information about the secret to the verifier other than that the prover knows it. This means that even if an attacker intercepts all the communications between the prover and verifier, they will learn nothing about the secret.

The limitations of ZK dApp development

Developing ZK applications can be challenging due to limitations in programming language choice. Many blockchains use a specialized programming language called Solidity, tailored for writing smart contracts. It is not the most user-friendly language and has a steep learning curve that can challenge unfamiliar Web2 developers. thus leading to accessibility concerns for these developers.

To address this challenge, developers are exploring new solutions that allow more programming language flexibility when building ZK applications. One approach involves using a WebAssembly (WASM) virtual machine, which can allow developers to code in their preferred high-level programming languages, such as C/C++, Java, or Python. This allows Web2 developers to leverage their existing skills and experience to build ZK applications without learning new programming languages. Additionally, tools and frameworks (e.g. ZKCross SDK) are being developed that abstract away some of the complexity of writing smart contracts, making it easier for developers to create secure ZK applications.

zkVM, the holy trinity of development

ZKVM is short for Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine, a technology used in the ZKCross protocol to help Web2 developers write smart contracts for Web3 without learning new programming languages. The zkVM leverages a WASM virtual machine, which allows Web2 developers to code in their preferred programming languages. WASM is incredibly popular for web-based applications and is used in all significant web engines. Thus, using the zkVM allows millions of developers to create Web3-ready applications without any steep learning curve. On the other hand, zkVM utilises zk-SNARKs; a cryptographic proof that allows one party to prove to another party the knowledge of a specific piece of information without revealing any information about it. SNARKs provide a way to validate computations on the blockchain without exposing sensitive (personal) data, such as personally identifiable information.

One of the major advantages of SNARKs is their succinctness. Unlike other types of ZK- proofs, which can be very computationally expensive and require many rounds of interaction between the prover and verifier, SNARKs can be highly efficient and require only a single proof that can be verified quickly.

Another advantage of SNARKs is their scalability. SNARKs can be used to verify the correctness of large computations without revealing any of the details of the computation itself. This makes them particularly useful for verifying the correctness of smart contracts in blockchain networks, where the computations can be very complex and require a lot of computational resources.

ZkVM advantages

zkVM offers a range of benefits for developers looking to build decentralized applications.

High Flexibility: With zkVM, developers can write smart contracts in their preferred high-level programming language, C/C++, Java, or Python, instead of being limited to specific programming languages.

Improved Scalability: The zkVM allows faster transaction execution and higher throughput, essential for building scalable decentralized applications.

Saw Modularity and Composability: With zkVM, developers can quickly build complex decentralised applications using different modules without worrying about language or platform compatibility issues.

Enhanced Security: The zkVM utilizes ZK-proofs, known as SNARKs, to provide high security by enabling computation verification without revealing sensitive data.

Decentralization: The zkVM promotes decentralization by allowing the execution of smart contracts in a distributed manner across multiple nodes, thus eliminating the need for central authorities.

In upcoming blogs, our unique and revolutionary ecosystem will be further explained in more detail, highlighting use cases, taking a deep dive into the architecture, and much more!

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have already reached a trading volume of $35 billion in the Ethereum ecosystem, becoming an important category of cryptocurrency assets. However, due to the block size limitation in $BTC 's earlier days, the NFT market could not be formed in the Bitcoin ecosystem as it requires large amounts of data to be stored on the blockchain, and the 1MB block size of Bitcoin is clearly insufficient. It was not until the implementation of SegWit and Taproot in Bitcoin that the NFT ecosystem on Bitcoin began to develop. However, in the Bitcoin ecosystem, it has an exclusive name called Inscriptions. Let's explore the differences between Inscriptions and NFTs.

#Ordinals #Collectibles

Inscriptions are always immutable

Essentially, the creator and owner of an Inscription cannot make any changes to the inscription's content once it has been minted. This means that once an Inscription is minted, it inherently possesses immutability, a property that is maintained by the entire Bitcoin node network.

The Ethereum ecosystem also has completely immutable NFTs, which require the NFT's metadata to be stored on the Ethereum blockchain, often resulting in high minting fees. Therefore, most NFTs in the Ethereum ecosystem are not immutable, and can even be transferred or deleted by the contract creator, as long as the appropriate permission backdoors are left during development.

To ensure the minting of permanent, immutable NFTs on Ethereum, the relevant NFT contracts need to be audited, which requires a relatively high level of expertise in EVM virtual machines and Solidity language for auditors and developers.

For a non-technical person, it is difficult to determine whether an NFT is immutable or not. Additionally, Ethereum NFT trading platforms do not check whether an NFT has undergone contract auditing or is immutable, but rather allow users to upload and trade NFTs freely. As a result, the Ethereum ecosystem is filled with many NFTs that hold no value.

Inscription content is always on-chain

Content on Inscription cannot exist off-chain and cannot reference off-chain content. This makes Inscription more durable because its content will not be lost easily, but will be stored in the hard drives of all Bitcoin network full nodes, backed up completely redundantly by a distributed and decentralized node network. At the same time, Inscription creators pay a corresponding fee to miner nodes to store data, making it more scarce.

Ethereum NFTs, on the other hand, are somewhat different. Many NFT creators choose to store metadata on Arweave, IPFS, or centralized cloud services. This metadata is not on the Ethereum chain, but the data's hash is stored on the Ethereum chain. This reduces the cost of creating NFTs to a certain extent, but also brings a problem: NFT metadata is easy to lose because it does not exist on-chain but is stored in a distributed storage network. As for storage networks like Arweave, they rely on incentive economic models to encourage miners to store data, but it is very likely that permanent data loss will occur when the economic model fails. This is even more true for centralized cloud service networks. Once the subscription is terminated or accidents occur, user data is permanently lost.

For ordinary people who do not understand the technical principles, if they cannot delve into the design and implementation of NFTs, they will not understand where Ethereum NFT data is stored.

Inscriptions are much simpler

NFTs on Ethereum are based on the Ethereum network and virtual machine, they are very complex, constantly evolving, and introduce upgrades through backward incompatible hard forks.

However, Inscription relies on the Bitcoin blockchain, which is relatively simple and conservative, and introduces upgrades through backward compatible soft forks.

Inscriptions are more secure

Inscription inherits the transaction model of Bitcoin, which allows users to accurately see which Inscriptions are being transferred before signing the transaction. Inscriptions can be sold through partially signed transactions without the need for third-party services such as exchanges and NFT markets to represent users in transferring their NFTs.

In contrast, Ethereum NFTs are plagued by end-user security vulnerabilities. Blind signed transactions and unlimited authorizations for third-party applications expose users' assets to risks, and once a contract goes wrong, the user's on-chain assets will be transferred away. Such security incidents have been seen repeatedly, creating dangerous minefields for Ethereum's NFT users, while Ordinals users do not need to worry about these security issues.

Inscriptions are scarcer

Inscriptions require Bitcoin to mint, transfer, and store. At first glance, this may seem like a disadvantage, but the reason for the existence of Digital Artifacts is scarcity, hence having scarce value.

On the other hand, Ethereum NFTs can be minted with almost unlimited quantity through a single transaction, making them inherently less scarce, leading to a plethora of valueless NFTs on the Ethereum network.

Inscriptions do not pretend to support on-chain royalties

On-chain royalties may be a good idea in theory, but it does not always work out in practice. If there are external forces that are too strong, on-chain royalty payments cannot be enforced. The Ethereum NFT ecosystem is currently struggling to solve the confusion surrounding copyright fees and is working together to tackle the challenges of on-chain royalties.

inscription avoids this situation entirely by making no commitment to support on-chain royalties, thus avoiding the chaos and negativity seen in the Ethereum NFT situation.

Inscriptions unlock new markets

Bitcoin's market value and liquidity far surpass Ethereum's. Most of Ethereum's NFTs cannot achieve good liquidity because many Bitcoin holders are reluctant to interact with Ethereum's ecosystem due to security, simplicity, and decentralization considerations. Compared to Ethereum NFTs, Bitcoin advocates may be more interested in inscription, unlocking a new category of collectibles.

Inscriptions have a richer data model

An inscription consists of a content type (also known as a MIME type) and content (any byte string). This is consistent with the data model used on the web, allowing inscription content to evolve with the web and support any type of content supported by web browsers without changing the underlying protocol.

Summary:

Bitcoin's Inscription has similarities and significant differences compared to Ethereum's NFT. We are excited to see interesting innovations and new things emerging in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and we look forward to Inscription and NFT changing our daily lives!

Ordinal protocol enables the issuance of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) on the Bitcoin blockchain. You can think of the Ordinal protocol as a system that assigns a unique serial number to each satoshi, similar to our identification card system. This gives each satoshi its uniqueness, and the protocol supports Inscriptions, which can write text, images, audio, video, and other content into sats. This is different from NFTs on Ethereum, where the data is stored on other infrastructure networks. NFT data on Bitcoin is directly recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Since there can only be 21 million BTC in total, the total number of sats is also limited to 2.1 * 10^7 * 10^9 (1$BTC = 100,000,000 SAT).

Ordinal numbers have several different representations:

Integer notation: 【2099994106992659】Ordinal number assigned based on the order in which the satoshis were mined.

Decimal notation: 【3891094.16797】The first number is the block height where the satoshi was mined, and the second number is the position of the satoshi in the current block (also known as an offset).

Degree notation: 【3°111094’214“16797”’】Expresses the rarity of a satoshi using degree notation.

Percentile notation: 【99.99971949060254%】Expresses the position of a satoshi in the Bitcoin supply as a percentage.

Name: 【satoshi】Encoded using ordinal numbers from a to z.

In addition, the Ordinal protocol defines the rarity level of each satoshi based on some periodic time intervals in Bitcoin:

Blocks: A new block is produced on the Bitcoin chain approximately every 10 minutes.

Difficulty adjustments: The Bitcoin network adjusts the mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks (approximately every 2 weeks) based on the current network hash rate.

Halvings: Every 210,000 blocks (approximately every 4 years), the number of bitcoins created in each block is halved.

Cycles: After 6 halvings, something special happens: halving and difficulty adjustment occur at the same time. This phase is called a cycle and happens approximately every 24 years. We have not yet experienced the end of the first cycle, which will occur around 2032.

Based on these periodic events, we have defined the following rarity levels for sats:

Common: Any sat that is not the first sat in its block.

Uncommon: The first sat in each block.

Rare: The first sat in each difficulty adjustment period.

Epic: The first sat in each halving period.

Legendary: The first sat in each cycle.

Mythic: The first sat in the genesis block.

Is Ordinals the only NFT protocol on Bitcoin? Actually, before Ordinals, many projects tried to issue NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain, with RGB and Taro being typical examples.

RGB and Taro are both second-layer asset protocols built on top of Bitcoin. Compared to Ordinals, they are much more complex, and their main use cases are for fungible tokens. Therefore, the user experience of Ordinals may be simpler and more refined compared to the NFTs on RGB and Taro. On the other hand, RGB and Taro store content off-chain, which requires additional infrastructure and may be lost. In contrast, Ordinals stores content on-chain and will not be lost. Overall, Ordinals is very simple and pure, and the content files are completely preserved on the Bitcoin network. It does not require the issuance of additional tokens, the construction of sidechains, or any changes to Bitcoin, which is the biggest difference from various Bitcoin NFT projects in the past.

The birth of Ordinals has sparked a lot of controversy, but this is also the charm of the Bitcoin community, which is completely decentralized. The development path is entirely determined by the community, allowing Bitcoin users to determine the direction and path of its development. Regarding the appearance of Ordinals, there are pros and cons, supporters and opponents, and different standpoints and demands. We only need to let time and the market verify it, and believe that Ordinals will become the choice of more users.

Silicon Valley Bank is most likely a precursor to the outbreak of the financial crisis in the United States.

The U.S. and Chinese economies have each other and rely on each other. The key to whether a crisis will break out is the ability of each to control risk. Winning returns must be accompanied by consideration of risk and hedging against it.

The birth of Bitcoin marked the arrival of a decentralized electronic cash system through which people have been introduced to the concept of blockchain technology ➕ the consensus mechanism of Proof of Work (POW).

The powerful programmability of Ethereum as a world computer and innovative contract platform has shown great promise in the fields of finance, social, and gaming.

#SVB #SVBBank

The explosive growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the art world has taken the market by storm. This category of digital assets has witnessed unprecedented growth in both value and popularity, with some works selling for millions of dollars. But will the market for another type of digital asset, Ordinals, experience the same explosive growth as NFTs?

Ordinals are a digital asset representing a unique number or sequence. Similar to NFTs, they are a unique digital asset that can be bought and sold on the blockchain. However, unlike NFTs, they do not have the same visual appeal as they are represented by numbers or sequences of numbers.

Unlike other public blockchain ecosystems, such as the NFT ecosystem on Ethereum, which has already given birth to many categories and standards, such as widely adopted NFT standards like ERC721, ERC1155, and some semi-fungible tokens, hierarchical NFT standards, etc. The applications have expanded to various fields, such as art, bonds, memberships, tickets, music, movies, games, and gradually become a breakout application. However, the Inscription category cast using the Ordinals protocol has poor programmability and may not give birth to too many creative NFT applications. It may not have good scalability in composable NFTs compared to other NFT ecosystems with EVM Turing-complete chains.

Despite this, the market for Ordinals has seen some growth in recent years. In fact, some investors believe that Ordinals have the potential to become the next big thing in the world of digital assets. Bitcoin has the best liquidity and is held by most wealthy people. Bitcoin believers tend to be more inclined to participate in the Bitcoin ecosystem, so Inscriptions issued based on Ordinals may capture a large amount of funds and form an independent ecosystem with trading volume and TVL surpassing other NFT categories, as it has scarcity and permanent decentralization properties like BTC.

However, it remains to be seen whether the market for Ordinals will experience the same explosive growth as NFTs. Factors such as market saturation, regulatory changes, and the overall state of the digital asset market could all play a role in determining the future of Ordinals. The potential applications for Ordinals are vast, but the market is still in its infancy. Only time will tell whether Ordinals will become the next big thing in the world of digital assets.

Another factor that could influence the growth of the Ordinals market is the level of interest from collectors and investors. NFTs became popular in part because of the excitement generated by high-profile sales and celebrity endorsements. If similar interest can be generated for Ordinals, it could help to drive growth in the market.

However, there are also some potential limitations to the Ordinals market that could impact its growth. For example, the fact that Ordinals are primarily represented by numbers may make them less appealing to some collectors and investors who are looking for visually striking digital assets. Additionally, the relatively low level of awareness and understanding of Ordinals within the broader public could limit their appeal.

Despite these challenges, there are some reasons to be optimistic about the potential growth of the Ordinals market. One key advantage that Ordinals have over NFTs is their versatility. While NFTs are primarily used for representing digital art and collectibles, Ordinals can be used for a wide range of purposes. This means that there is a potentially much larger market for Ordinals than there is for NFTs.

Overall, the growth of the Ordinals market is difficult to predict. While there are some factors that could limit its growth, there are also many potential use cases for Ordinals that could help to drive demand. As the market for digital assets continues to evolve and mature, it will be interesting to see how Ordinals fit into the broader landscape.