During the holidays, the Ordinals ecosystem seems relatively calm, with the main developments being:

- Ordinals protocol founder Casey Rodarmor has listened to community feedback and promised to maintain the stability of positive ordinal inscription numbers, ending the controversy over the variability of "inscription numbers". (Recommended reading: Ordinals "Inscription Number" Controversy: Preserve Culture or Develop Technology?)

- Although Casey is unsure whether creating a new FT protocol for Bitcoin is good or bad and has a negative attitude towards FT, he still took action. Casey created a Github page for the Rune protocol, and discussions related to it have already begun on it. (Recommended reading: "New FT protocol for Bitcoin appears, founder of Ordinals can't bear BRC anymore")

But the most interesting thing is that during the week of September 25th to October 2nd, the cost of casting image-based inscriptions finally accounted for more than 50% of all inscription casting costs for that week, reaching 65.2%. This is the first time since the end of April that image-based inscriptions have counterattacked against BRC-20 coin-based inscriptions.

The casting of BRC-20 Token $SATS, which lasted for more than half a year, has finally come to an end. As a "social experiment" with high expectations, $SATS swallowed up more than tens of millions of dollars to complete all the casting, but the final market performance was disappointing. Lack of new hotspots, coupled with the impact of Casey's proposed Rune Protocol on BRC-20, BRC-20 finally cooled down.

The cooling of BRC-20 also caused the overall cooling of the Ordinals ecosystem. From the data, we can clearly see that BRC-20 is the biggest contributor and "engine" of the Ordinals protocol going mainstream.

After all $SATS were minted on September 24th, the daily gas consumption of the Ordinals protocol quickly decreased. Compared to the gas consumption on September 24th, it has dropped by more than 90%.

September 25th - October 2nd, the ratio of new BRC-20 coin inscriptions to new image-based inscriptions has decreased to approximately 4.38:1. This is the closest ratio since late April.

Regarding such on-chain situations, Casey said that "this is recovering well." It seems that my previous statement in the article introducing the Rune Protocol, where I said that Casey's attack on BRC-20 was "a bitter medicine," was quite accurate...

Of course, if only relying on the temporary unilateral cooling of BRC-20, it cannot declare the victory of "art" in the Ordinals ecosystem. In addition to the above data, there are two interesting phenomena worth our attention:

- The "Prints" feature on the Bitcoin NFT trading market Gamma.io is receiving increasing attention.- The heat of Bitcoin NFT projects has spilled over to the emergence of new BRC-20 Tokens.

Gamma.io's "Prints"

Let's talk about Gamma.io's "Prints" feature first. I have always been looking forward to a platform on Bitcoin that allows creators to quickly issue Open Edition NFT series, similar to Zora/Manifold. Gamma.io's "Prints" feature basically achieves the user experience of Zora/Manifold for collectors.

Gamma.io's "Prints" feature

For creators, if they want to use the "Prints" function, they need to apply to participate in the artist collaboration program with Gamma.io first. As long as they are successfully selected for the program, creators can use the "Prints" function to issue Open Edition on Bitcoin, and Gamma.io will also provide a series of support from promotion to offline exhibition activities.

I used the "Prints" function to buy two works of art, one of which is ACSM by Nullish, one of the most influential artists in the Bitcoin NFT community. The original version of this work is engraved on Rare Pepe and was successfully sold for 0.48 BTC. Then, another 299 versions were created using recursive inscriptions and sold through Gamma.io's "Prints" function for 75,000 satoshis (about $20). They were all sold out in just over a minute.

Another influential artist in the Bitcoin NFT community, @billyrestey, closely followed suit and also released "ENTROPY" on Gamma.io with a total supply of 50, each selling for 121,000 satoshis (approximately $30), and ultimately sold out successfully.

When I first heard about the Recursive Inscription, I immediately thought of the new solution for Open Edition on Bitcoin. Now, Gamma.io is poised to break free from the battle in the Bitcoin NFT trading market through its "Prints" feature, and catalyze the creator ecosystem of Bitcoin NFTs.

先有「鹅」，后有「鹅币」

translates to

First came the "goose", then came "goose coins".

"Goose" is actually a typical Ordinals hype model - information gap, concentrated chips, and almost no cost after fission. Since the Ordinals ecosystem is still relatively cold, players who have been tracking it in this circle for a long time often feel like "it's hard to start, but once it starts, it can last for three years."

"Goose", the cost can be as low as less than 1 U per one, and at its peak, one can be worth over 40+ U. Looking at this series with a total quantity of 10K, there are only 1.2K holders...

"Goose" is not actually an NFT project released by a specific artist on Bitcoin, or even an NFT project released by a specific artist on a particular chain.

"鹅爹" is the famous generative artist Dmitri Chernia, also known as the creator of the star project "Ringers" on Art Blocks. In June of this year, Ringers #879 was sold at a hammer price of $5.4 million at a Sotheby's auction (with a total price of $6.2 million including buyer's commission), creating the second highest transaction volume in the history of generative art. Its new owner is the famous crypto collector @punk6529, while its previous owner, 3AC, has gone bankrupt. The auction of Ringers #879 is part of the liquidation of 3AC's NFT assets.

Ringers #879, also known as "The Goose", you see, does it look like a cute goose?

However, the value of "The Goose" is not due to the rarity system of PFP-type NFTs, but rather because the randomness and unpredictability of generating art have made "The Goose" a crystallization of countless wonderful coincidences.

To commemorate Ringers #879 "The Goose", Dmitri Chernia set up such a creative theme in the MoMA Postcard project - if you design a simple, 10 x 10 pixel, 10K PFP with "goose" as the theme for MoMA, what would you make? Other artists in the project use the generator he provided to create "goose".

(Here's a brief introduction to MoMA Postcard: It's probably the most influential art museum to personally explore the NFT world so far. 15 artists from 35 cities, 11 countries, and 5 continents collaborated, each proposing a creative theme and contributing a work of art to someone else's theme. In the end, they came together to create 15 different themed MoMA Postcards.)

"Goose" is very popular, but what really made it tradable in Bitcoin NFT is because the founder of BRC-20, @domodata, tweeted that it would be interesting to create a "First is First" 10K "Goose" series.

The "Goose" is CC0, so it's perfectly fine to use Dmitri Chernia's generator to create a bunch of "Goose" and sell them. As for why the "Goose" has risen so much, to be honest, I think it's due to information asymmetry causing FOMO. People still have too little understanding of NFT art (including myself)... I have seen many friends who rushed to buy the "Goose" simply because they heard it was created by a famous artist, without really understanding the background of this thing.

But speaking of which, if you understand everything before you start, you're not a Degen anymore. Just grasp the simple logic of shouting out "domo" and you can navigate through the ambiguity and emerge victorious in the chaos, running out of the battlefield with your spoils ahead of other players.

The popularity of "Goose" has led to several BRC-20 tokens led by $HONK and $GOOS. The heat of the Bitcoin NFT project has spilled over to the emergence of new BRC-20 tokens. The last time this happened was when Taproot Wizards caused FOMO for $WZRD. It's been too long since we've seen this...

(Image source: @GeniiData)

First came the "Goose", then came the "Goose Coin". In the attention economy, whether it's a picture or a token, as long as there is popularity, there is space. Some people say that the trading volume of the 10K "Goose" series on Bitcoin is much higher than the 879 "Goose" series on Ethereum, so Bitcoin NFT wins this time. I just want to say that if you understand the 10K "Goose" series as BRC-20, you can avoid being overly optimistic. Many artists on Ethereum have created themed art works for "Goose", although it did not create such a high wealth effect this time, the constantly accumulating and still growing culture of encrypted art is the core competitiveness of Ethereum NFT.

The last interesting thing is that Domo advertised the 10K "Goose" series, and Casey tweeted something that was equivalent to advertising for $HONK. Did these two guys switch souls?

Conclusion

The Bitcoin NFT ecosystem is returning from the "casino" to the "art gallery". This is definitely temporary. However, at least it is more interesting than the dullness of the past few months...

We should pay attention to:

- Progress of the Runestone protocol in the encryption industry?

- Gamma.io's "Prints" will help which new crypto artists, whose main battlefield is Bitcoin NFTs, stand out?

For someone who firmly believes that "creators are the core competitiveness of the NFT ecosystem", Bitcoin NFT still has a long way to go, but it seems to have finally made a good start.

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