Despite the excitement in Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the impending halving event, Bitcoin Ordinals have been losing traction.
According to NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam, monthly sales of Ordinals dropped 61% to $335 million in January from $868 million in December, the month with the biggest sales in Ordinals history. The first version of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to be created on the Bitcoin network are called ordinals.
According to global blockchain specialist and author of “NFT: From Zero to Hero,” Andy Lian, the drop in Ordinals sales can be attributed mostly to two factors: the oversaturation of the NFT market and collections from other blockchains.
“As more artists and projects enter the market, consumers have an abundance of options at their disposal. As other blockchains, such as Solana, gained traction, the spoil-for-choices scenario became increasingly apparent, Lian told Cointelegraph.
Monthly NFT sales on Ethereum decreased by 2.2% to $355 million, but on Avalanche, NFT sales increased 89% to $46.7 million in January from $24.7 million in December.
The majority of the sales volume was made up of Dokyo NFTs; in January, the collection brought in $31.4 million for the Avalanche network, or 67% of the monthly sales total on the blockchain. Dokyo, on the other hand, barely made $7.64 million in sales in December. The 5,555 NFTs in the Dokyo collection were released under the pseudonym 0xBrando.
Sales of Dokyo NFT began to soar in November. On November 24, Dokyo’s 24-hour sales volume overtook that of Bored Ape Yacht Club, momentarily making it the most traded NFT collection on all blockchains. On January 15, Dokyo also ascended to the top of the sales leaderboard, based on statistics from CryptoSlam.
Will Interest in Ordinals Rekindle in light of the Bitcoin Halving?
In line with the decline in sales, the average Ordinals sale price dropped from $1,793 in December to $1,340 in January. Large crypto companies are still interested, despite the decline, as evidenced by Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, which announced the opening of its Ordinals marketplace on February 1.
The world’s largest provider of cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), 21Shares, stated in the 11th edition of the State of Crypto report released on February 1 that Ordinals might give Bitcoin additional applications beyond its current function as a store of value:
We anticipate that developments like BRC-20 tokens and ordinals will increase demand for Bitcoin and broaden its range of applications on the network.