Bitcoin Ordinals-based ORDI Token Surpasses $1 Billion Market Cap

The Bitcoin (BTC) Ordinals-based ORDI token has become the first BRC-20 token to top a $1 billion market capitalization after staging triple-digit monthly and weekly percentage gains. ORDI notched a new all-time high of over $65 on Dec. 5, surging more than 850% from around $6.80 on Nov. 5, per CoinGecko data. ORDI is up 216% in the last seven days.

The sudden ORDI price uptick saw it become the first BRC-20 token to reach a $1 billion market cap on Dec. 5, it currently commands a value of $1.3 billion. ORDI has dropped slightly from its high and is trading for under $61, which is still an over 2,000% increase from its Sept. 11 all-time low of $2.86. ORDI has gained over 850% in the past month.

Bitcoin Ordinals was first launched in January by Casey Rodarmor. The protocol allowed for inscribing content onto the Bitcoin blockchain, including nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and entirely new tokens using the BRC-20 token standard.

Ordinals-inscribed assets rapidly gained in popularity with the wider blockchain community. After suffering a brief and sudden decline in inscription activity in October, Binance’s decision to list ORDI on Nov. 7 seemed to reignite enthusiasm for the assets. Bitcoin Ordinals saw a brief decline in activity in October but quickly rebounded.

According to Dune Analytics data, more than 48 million Ordinals assets have been inscribed since the protocol’s inception and have seen more than $146.9 million in fees paid to the Bitcoin network. On Nov. 20, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network flipped those of Ethereum amid a rush to inscribe new NFTs and BRC-20 tokens. Additionally, on Nov. 17, the Ordinals-based project Taproot Wizards announced a $7.5 million seed round.