NFTs
Bitcoin NFT Market Thrives, Franklin Templeton Remains Bullish, Binance Ends Support
Franklin Templeton’s digital assets division released a note to its investors presenting non-fungible tokens (NFTs), highlighting an increase in activity within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The asset manager attributes this growing momentum to several factors, including the emergence of Bitcoin (BTC) NFTs called Ordinals, the development of new fungible standards like BRC-20 and Runes, the growth of Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions (L2s) and the expansion of decentralized financial applications (DeFi) built on the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin ordinals shine
According to the Bitcoin ETF issuer report, activity in the Bitcoin NFT space is gaining momentum. In particular, Ordinals have seen a significant increase in trading volume in recent months.
This growth is evident in the dominance of Bitcoin in terms of trading volume, which surpassed Ethereum (ETH) in December 2023, as shown in the graph alongside.
Furthermore, several collections of Bitcoin Ordinals are emerging as dominant players in the NFT market, both in terms of trading volume and market capitalization.
These collections include NodeMonkes, Runestone, and Bitcoin Puppets, which have an aggregate market value of $353 million, $339 million, and $168 million, respectively. These are the most notable collections.
In trading volume terms Over the past 30 days, the report shows that these three collections recorded trading volumes of $81 million, $85 million, and $38 million, respectively, last month.
The asset manager further stated that what distinguishes BTC Ordinals from NFTs on other blockchains such as Ethereum or Solana, is that they contain raw data recorded directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. This feature contributes to the attractiveness and growing popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals, as evidenced by market cap and trading volume figures.
Franklin Templeton, known for its involvement in the ETF market, was one of the issuers that released a spot BTC ETF in the United States earlier this year. Its ETF, trading under the name “EZBC,” has seen total inflows of 281.8 million since its launch on Jan. 11, according to research from BitMEX data from April 3rd.
Despite its zero-fee structure, the Franklin Templeton ETF has seen a significant difference in flows compared to major players in the newly approved ETF market such as Blackrock (IBIT) and Fidelity (FBTC), which have seen flows of more of 14 billion and 7.7 billion, respectively.
Binance will discontinue support for BTC NFTs
In a recent blog post, cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that it would discontinue support for Bitcoin-based NFTs on its marketplace. Less than a year after its launch, Binance will no longer facilitate airdrops, benefits, or utilities associated with BTC NFTs, citing the need to streamline its product offerings in the NFT space.
Binance states that users who hold Bitcoin NFTs are advised to withdraw them from the Binance NFT marketplace via the Bitcoin network before May 18, 2024.
Starting April 18, 2024, users will no longer be able to buy, deposit, bid on, or list NFTs via the BTC network on the Binance NFT Marketplace. Any existing listing orders affected by this change will be automatically canceled simultaneously.
BTC is currently trading at $68,300, a modest 3% increase in the last 24 hours. It is approaching the significant milestone of $70,000, a level the cryptocurrency has struggled to maintain multiple times.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com