The Bitcoin Punks, an NFT collection minted on the Bitcoin-native Ordinals Protocol, is soaring in value. Late Wednesday, one Ordinal Punk NFT sold for a whopping 9.5 BTC, approximately $214,000.
The Ordinals Protocol utilizes Bitcoin‘s Taproot upgrade to secure the network and efficiently facilitate transactions. The NFTs in the collection were minted on the first 650 inscriptions of the Bitcoin network and stored through a unique method of “inscribing” data in satoshis.
The concept of Bitcoin NFTs has sparked a heated debate within the blockchain community, with some purists limiting the use of blockchain to financial transactions and others seeing it as a positive catalyst for further development.
Financial analyst Sam Callahan of Swan Bitcoin mentions that while the popularity of Ordinal Punks will drive demand, there are also risks involved. Long-term demand for these inscriptions could impact other Bitcoin use cases and distort its fee market away from its use as an open monetary protocol.
Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting development in the world of NFTs and Bitcoin!