NFT Volumes Climb to 12-Month High Driven by Once Stagnant Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s Runestones recently flipped Bored Apes to become the second most valuable NFT collection after CryptoPunks.

During the depths of the 2022-23 NFT bear market, few would have believed that the sector’s resurgence would be fueled by Bitcoin.
But since the advent of Ordinals early last year, the market for digital collectibles on the world’s most valuable blockchain has grown steadily and is now responsible for roughly three-quarters of NFT marketplace revenue versus just 1.4% a year ago, according to NFT Pulse.

Meanwhile, increased activity on Bitcoin is fueling overall NFT volume, which hit $2 billion in March – its highest level since March 2023. However, volume remains a long way from its all-time high above $5 billion in Jan. 2022.

The previous NFT bull market was concentrated mainly on Ethereum, the birthplace of pioneering collections like CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs. It’s notable that while most Ethereum-based NFTs remain in a protracted downtrend, the Ordinals ecosystem is thriving on a blockchain that, until recently, had no use case beyond being a store of value.

All of that changed with Casey Rodarmor’s invention of the Ordinals protocol in January 2023, which allowed arbitrary data to be ‘inscribed’ on the Bitcoin blockchain and kicked off the ongoing boom.

Bitcoin-based collections comprise three of the top 10 NFT collections by market capitalization, according to Coingecko, with Runestones recently surpassing Bored Apes to take second place with $640 million.

Other top Bitcoin collections, NodeMonkes and Bitcoin Puppets, have soared 200% and 450%, respectively, in the past 30 days - putting them ahead of Mad Lads, the top NFT collection on Solana.

Magic Eden Revenue Spikes

A major beneficiary of the Ordinals boom is NFT marketplace Magic Eden, which was quick to integrate the Bitcoin blockchain — something OpenSea and Blur are yet to do.

As the preferred venue for Ordinals trading, Magic Eden is raking in cash, with $13 million collected in the past month alone. This represents nearly three-quarters of the sector’s revenue.

In terms of users, Bitcoin tops the charts with nearly 25,000 active traders in the past 24 hours. However, it’s yet to catch up to Solana on longer timeframes. Ethereum and Polygon round out the top four chains for NFT activity.