BRC-20 tokens add triple-digit gains as PEPE, bitcoin slip

While PEPE is dominating headlines, the meme token is nowhere close to the performance of other BRC-20-compliant assets that have been tracking higher, posting impressive gains in the last week of trading.

PEPE trails emerging BRC-20 tokens

According to trackers on May 18, PEPE is down the performance leaderboard, sliding 24% in the last trading week and 15% on the previous day. 

At this level, the token has a market cap of $10,012,422 or 26.55 BTC and its performance, dismal. 

It is despite its ERC-20 equivalent on Ethereum attracting more trading volumes on centralized trading exchanges like Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volumes. 

As an illustration, Etherscan data shows that PEPE has an average daily trading volume of $284,502,123.79 with a market cap of $612,255,025.76 from a circulating supply of 391,790,000,000,000 PEPE.

Comparing the performance of top BRC-20 tokens like long (LONG), maxi (MAXI), and WHEE (WHEE) over the same period shows that PEPE is trailing. 

On average, the top three BRC-20 tokens have posted, on average, triple-digit gains in the last 24 hours. LONG, MAXI, and WHEE are up 139%, 132%, and 120%, respectively, when writing on May 18.

However, it should be noted that they have very thin liquidity. For example, LONG has a market cap of $654,087 with average daily trading volumes of around $21,000. The trend is similar across the board, explaining how fragile these tokens are.

Considering liquidity levels, these tokens can be manipulated.

Of all BRC-20 tokens, ordinals (ORDI) is the most liquid, with average trading volumes exceeding $27 million. This depth can be because ORDI has a far higher market cap of all BRC-20 tokens at $295,348,200.

ORDI prices are stable on the last day but up 25% in the last week of trading, outperforming top cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), PEPE, and ethereum (ETH).

CoinMarketCap data shows that BTC and ETH prices are struggling against a wave of intense selling pressure from early May 2023 but are stable over the last week. 

Bitcoin’s mempool spammed 

BRC-20 tokens are created using the Ordinals protocol and are similar in some aspects to the ERC-20 standard.

However, unlike ERC-20 tokens, BRC-20 tokens operate on the Bitcoin blockchain. They are more cost-efficient since they require less gas to mint and transfer.

The Ordinals platform has been blamed for spamming the Bitcoin mempool leading to congestion and delays in transaction processing.