Leonidas, the pseudonymous founder of Ord.io, an ordinals explorer, has reported one of the biggest sales of inscriptions, the so-called Bitcoin native non-fungible tokens (NFTs), to date. Leonidas stated that the second inscription on the Bitcoin blockchain had been sold for 24.48 BTC (over $1.1 million), predicting that more sales will beat this record in the short term.
Inscriptions Market Registers Biggest Sale to Date: 24.48 Bitcoin
Ordinal inscriptions, a protocol that allows the representation of images and other data directly on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, are breaking sales records. Leonidas, the founder of ord.io, an inscriptions browser/ explorer, stated the largest ordinals sale ever registered on February 28, when the second inscription in the Bitcoin blockchain changed hands.
This inscription was sold for 24.48 BTC, worth about $1.1 million at the time of writing. The non-fungible token (NFT) is part of the Bitcoin Budgies collection and shows an animation of a cartoon budgie moving its head against a black background. The asset was inscribed on December 19, 2022, for 2,479 sats. The inscription reached its record price in a year and two months.
Leonidas showed his optimism for the future of the ordinals protocol in the short term as part of a looming cryptocurrency bull market. He stated:
1 sat sold for over 1 million dollars for the first time last night. Before this cycle is over I predict 1 sat will sell for over 100 million dollars. Ordinals is just getting started.
There have been relevant sales involving significant sums of money for ordinals before. For example, “Genesis Cat,” a unique piece of the Quantum Cats collection, was sold for $254,000 at a Sotheby’s auction held in January. “Genesis Cat” managed to smash its sales estimate by 6X.
However, inscriptions continue to be at the forefront of a debate that faces two sides, one that considers them an evolution in the usage of the Bitcoin block space and a new enabling technology, and those who believe that it is spam that does not conform with the rules of the Bitcoin network.
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