BRC-20 trading volumes surge 10x since November 2023, data shows

Trade volume for BRC-20 tokens increased $10-15 million to more than $500 million since November 2023, as per data from Kaiko.

Tokens minted on the Bitcoin blockchain are gaining momentum as their trading volumes increased by ten times since the end of 2023, according to Kaiko data.

In a report on Jan. 15, the Paris-based analytics blockchain firm revealed that trading volumes for BRC-20 tokens skyrocketed from $10 million in November 2023 to more than $500 million in January, attributing the increase to Binance, which recently launched spot and perpetual futures trading for ORDI, SATS, and RATS.

Binance, initially dominating the trade volume market share at 63% as trading volumes surged to $2 billion following the listing of SATS and RATS, has since experienced a decline and currently has around 50% of the market share, data shows. Crypto exchange OKX, which was the first to list another BRC-20 token called ORDI, is currently the second-largest spot market for BRC-20 tokens, boasting a market share of 35%.

Introduced in March 2023, BRC-20 stands as a new token standard on the Bitcoin network, which utilizes the Ordinals protocol, facilitating the inscription of data on satoshis, the smallest unit of BTC.

As Kaiko notes, the increasing volumes of BRC-20 tokens have driven demand for block space on the Bitcoin network, resulting in elevated transaction costs and sparking controversy. In early December 2023, Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr said that data inscription is exploiting a vulnerability to spam the Bitcoin blockchain, urging blockchain developers to fix the “vulnerability.”

Still, some are not against BRC-20. One of Bitcoin’s vocal advocates, Udi Wertheimer, encouraged his 183,400 followers on X to experiment with Bitcoin Ordinals, the equivalent of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain.