The Bitcoin community has witnessed the largest-ever sale of Ordinals inscription in the context of the revival of digital artifacts on the largest blockchain.
According to a tweet from Magic Eden, Ordinals inscription #8 from Honey Badgers was sold for 10.4 Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $450,000 USD.
Data on Magic Eden’s website shows that the Honey Badgers collection has a total supply of 10,000 Bitcoin NFTs, ranging from 81557 to 1029518.
Inscription #8 was purchased by a user with the handle X, who is tagged as a legend in Magic Eden’s post. They explained that the inscription was created on January 15th at a rate of 1 satoshi per byte (sat/vB) when almost no one cared about Ordinals inscription.
Ordinals inscription is art like text, images, and videos inscribed on the BTC blockchain. As a product of the Taproot soft fork, this mechanism is designed to number individual satoshis, the smallest denomination of BTC. Inscription of data on the Bitcoin network eventually led to the emergence of Bitcoin NFTs.
Magic Eden launched the marketplace for Bitcoin NFTs in March to allow Ordinals enthusiasts to easily trade their collectibles. Bitcoin inscriptions have inspired the creation of similar protocols on other blockchains, such as Ethscriptions on Ethereum.
According to data from blockchain ecosystem analysis platform Dune, approximately $148 million has been spent on fees related to over 46.5 million Ordinals inscription since the protocol was launched in December 2022.
Unfortunately, Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr has recently called for the shutdown of the Ordinals protocol, claiming that inscriptions are exploiting vulnerabilities and causing blockchain spam.